Ways to Cope with Stress; Let’s imagine the following scenarios together: You are trying to help a friend cope with a frustrating situation and you leave feeling uneasy as if you were experiencing this experience… Or maybe you just saw that your face fell off one day when your partner was in a moody mood… Later in the day, you break the heart of someone you love for no apparent reason.
These are scenarios that are extremely familiar to all of us. What they all have in common is that although you didn’t feel stressed before, you feel similar after spending time with these people. This naturally raises the question: Is stress contagious? How much do you know about stress, which spreads faster than the common cold? In this article, we will explain what is secondhand stress and the ways to cope with stress.
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Is Stress Contagious?
Ways to Cope with Stress; Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and author of The Source, explains everything we need to know about this topic in the clearest way possible.
According to Swart, the answer is simple: Stress is absolutely contagious! “Cortisol, known as the stress hormone, actually seeps out of our skin through sweat, and cortisol particles hang in the atmosphere around us.” So it’s actually a similar process to other hormones like estrogen and progesterone. In fact, you must have heard it before; For this reason, many people believe that the menstrual cycles of women who spend time together can be synchronized. “Our hormones can affect each other in such important ways,” adds Swart.
On top of all that, we know that everyone, regardless of gender, has different levels of cortisol. “If a person is stressed, especially if they’re suppressing the stress in a way that raises their cortisol levels and they can’t express it by talking or exercising, it literally goes into the atmosphere, passing through your skin and into your blood. It goes through and artificially raises your cortisol levels”.
In other words, there is such a thing as “second hand stress”! As annoying as this truth is, we can remember that knowledge is power and learn ways to deal with second-hand stress.
What Can We Do About Secondhand Stress?
Ways to Cope with Stress; First of all, accept your own stress! As Swart points out, if you’re trying to suppress these uncomfortable feelings, more cortisol can leak out of your skin. That’s why we recommend talking to a professional, friend, or loved one about your stress levels, if possible. After all, suppressing your emotions can take a toll on your physical health. Many scientific studies show that self-silencing or suppressing emotions may be associated with adverse health outcomes and mortality rates (*).
You can also encourage the people you spend time with to release their stress if they feel comfortable. This way, you will prevent cortisol from seeping through their skin into yours, and more importantly, you will establish the connection you need with someone you love.
You can also try to find ways to relieve stress that work best for you, such as keeping a diary, exercising, trying breathing exercises, or taking various supplements. Certain practices can certainly help bring your body’s cortisol back to baseline and relieve stress before it becomes a problem.
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Foods That Lower Cortisol Levels Against Stress
Ways to Cope with Stress; As you might guess, there’s no magic food that instantly lowers cortisol and stress levels, unfortunately. But some ingredients can reduce inflammation in the body and help regulate cortisol release. According to experts, this is because there is a link between high cortisol and intestinal permeability.
“We all have some degree of intestinal permeability. Because the GI tract is semi-permeable, something is always going in and out. But when cortisol is high, this degree of permeability increases. When this happens, bacterial breakdown products enter the bloodstream, causing inflammation, insulin resistance and stimulating the release of more cortisol.” – William Davis, cardiologist and author of Super Gut
So what foods can help slow this process down? Here are some of the foods that can contribute to the fight against stress if you add them to your diet.
1. Green tea
“The catechins in green tea bind mucin protein in intestinal mucus. “It turns intestinal mucus from semi-liquid to semi-gel, making it harder to penetrate the GI tract,” he says. Also, a study published in PLoS One reveals that polyphenolic compounds in green tea can reduce cortisol levels.
2. Paprika, kiwi, citrus and strawberries
All of these foods are high in vitamin C, which plays a big role in balancing cortisol levels. Research shows that the adrenal glands have high concentrations of vitamin C3, and consuming these foods can nourish the adrenal glands, thereby keeping cortisol levels in balance.
3. Bananas, oranges, melons, spinach, broccoli, sweet potatoes, and prunes
Excess cortisol can cause the kidney to excrete potassium, so these potassium-rich food sources can regulate these levels; It can reduce the side effects that come with stress and high cortisol.
4. Sauerkraut and kimchi
Lactobacillus reuteri is a probiotic microbe that occurs naturally in people’s GI tract, but Davis says many people lose it over time after taking anti-inflammatory drugs or exposure to certain environmental factors. “One of the effects of Lactobacillus reuteri is that it stimulates the brain to release oxytocin. This in turn helps reduce perceived stress and reduces cortisol.”
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Other Ways to Reduce Stress
Ways to Cope with Stress; As experts often point out, your diet plays an important role in managing the symptoms of stress, but that’s only one piece of the puzzle. That’s why the most important thing we can do to reduce stress is to work on our daily habits so that our body can change its response to the stressors around us.
This way, you can reduce cortisol release over time, whatever the case. Here are some techniques that can help:
1. Think, feel, act!
Instead of immediately reacting to thoughts and feelings about a stressful event, taking a moment to examine them can activate a parasympathetic or calming response rather than triggering a fight-or-flight response. So when you encounter a stressful situation, think, feel, and then act.
2. Meditation
According to experts, any mindfulness-based practice has a direct effect on reducing the physiological signs of stress, including cortisol, blood pressure, and heart rate. Of course, meditation is one of them.
3. Quality sleep
Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, and setting aside about eight hours to sleep can be the key to reducing stress. Because doing so regulates the cycle of melatonin and cortisol, which are crucial for health.
Ways to Cope with Stress; In summary, stress can often feel like a burden on the back, and it’s especially frustrating when anxious feelings arise seemingly out of nowhere. In some cases, the cause of the stress is not you, but the person or people you spend time with. Of course, this does not mean that you should blame others for the stress you experience. Maybe you apply stress management techniques together and try to make them a team effort. When you do this, you will probably feel relaxed by everyone around you, especially you.
