Eating to Beat Stress & Anxiety Foods to Support Your Nervous System
By Katie Edwards
Stress and the body Our bodies have been beautifully designed to respond to stress. Without you needing to think about it, your autonomic nervous system is involved in a constant crosstalk with your environment: scanning, assessing and mounting a response in the effort to maintain homeostasis. This intricate system of chemical messengers has been keeping us safe for millennia. At the first hint of danger, the amygdala alerts the brain’s master control centre, setting in motion a hormonal relay from the hypothalamus via the pituitary to the adrenal glands (the HPA-axis). Here, adrenocorticotropic hormone triggers the release of adrenaline and cortisol, priming the body for action. Activated appropriately, this “fight or flight” response is an incredibly potent form of protection for the body. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, stimulates gluconeogenesis and glyconeogenesis for easy-access energy, maintains extracellular fluid 14
Issue 01 Autumn 2020
Life can feel overwhelming at the best of times. With events unfolding this year, there has never been a better time to look after your nervous system so you can stay strong and resilient. Registered Nutritional Therapist Katie Edwards DipION, mBANT takes a look at how stress can affect the body, and the foods you can eat to support your physical and emotional wellbeing during challenging times.
volume and blood pressure and increases mental clarity. In the right quantity, cortisol also exerts a powerful anti-inflammatory effect. This system was perfectly adapted to the acute stressors our ancestors faced. Unfortunately, the drip-feed of stress so ubiquitous in our modern lifestyles encourages chronic stimulation of the HPA-axis. Outside the tightly controlled parameters of optimal function, overstimulation of the adrenals initiates a cascade of downstream issues if left unchecked. Amongst these, excessive cortisol can suppress immune function by halting the production of new lymphocytes in the thymus , affect digestive function, reduce bone formation and impair memory and cognitive flexibility . Upregulated cortisol also favours the conversion of T4 to the inactive form reverse T3, negatively impacting thyroid function and slowing metabolism. It has also been associated with the development of obesity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and depression.
