Stress and Fatigue

The feeling of being tired and stressed is a feeling that is all too familiar to many of us, it can have a significant impact on our quality of life. So the next question is why do we always feel tired when we are stressed? Shouldn’t we have more energy as our ‘fight or flight’ mode begins to kick? Although that would be the ideal situation, our bodies beg to differ. As our stress levels rise we begin to produce the hormone cortisol in larger amounts and our sympathetic nervous system runs in over drive. As a result, our heart beats faster, our muscles tense up and our bodies fatigue leaving us tired, stressed and unable to perform.

Stress management should be an important part of everybody’s life, there are simple things we can do which take no effort that can have a profound effect on our body

Deep breath: a minute of deep breathing before we start our day and at the end can help reset our sympathetic nervous system which has been working too hard
Exercise: a simple 20min walk can release endorphins which will make you feel good and dull the effects of cortisol
Massage: 15 mins of massage will result in the release of nitric oxide which cause more blood to flow to your muscles which will reduce tension and clear out metabolites.