Stress is unavoidable and sneaks into every part of our day. From busy days at work to busy evenings at home, you may not even realize that stress is sabotaging your fitness and healthy living goals.

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Stress impacts everyone differently, but for many, it’s a slippery slope that begins with a worry, continues into mindlessly eating comfort food, and costs valuable sleep at the end of the day. Whatever healthy goals you had for the day fall victim to stress hormones released into the body to prepare for the threat.

While no one can eliminate stress from their lives, there are healthy ways you can work to combat that stress and set yourself up for success.

How Stress Impacts the Body   

Stress causes the body to release chemicals to prepare your body to handle the perceived threat. The “stress hormone,” cortisol, stays in the body longer than others and causes the body to store food energy as fat, particularly around the belly. It’s common to reach for the unhealthy junk food when you’re feeling stressed, but the addition of cortisol means that those extra calories will be stored by the body as fat.

As your mind spins with anxiety looking for a solution to the problem causing the stress, your motivation and willpower to eat healthy and mindfully fades. The mind wants “comfort foods” and associates comfort with the cookies or junk food that comforted us when we were children. The stress and worry may even cost you valuable sleep that your body needs to grow and repair the muscles you’ve used throughout the day, leading to another day lacking in willpower and motivation.

How to Cope

While it may hard to imagine at the end of a particularly stressful day, exercise is a great way to combat the stress hormones and flood your system with feel good endorphins and relaxation. Focusing on a hard workout for an hour may also help in getting your mind off the problem temporarily and allow you to come up with creative solutions and new thought patterns.

If your regular exercise routine no longer engages your mind, it might be time to try something out of your comfort zone to ensure that you’re mentally checked in during your workout. Check out a new FitClub class, try weight lifting, or run short intervals on the treadmill to ensure that both your body and mind are working out the stress hormones during your workout.

Meditation is also an effective and healthy way to not only combat stress, but also to prevent it from occurring as often or as intensely as it otherwise might. If meditation sounds foreign to you, consider joining your fellow FitClub members for a meditation class. Meditation is easier than it sounds and is known to reduce stress, promote overall wellness and help you stay mindful and focused on your healthy living goals. Check the FitClub schedules to find the meditation times and locations and start reaping the benefits of this mental workout.

What healthy tips and tricks do you use to combat stress and keep it from sabotaging your goals?