Stress

Stress is your body's alarm response to a demand – short and intense, it's useful; long-term, it can make you ill and makes losing weight harder. When there's danger, the body releases adrenaline and cortisol: the heart beats faster, blood sugar rises, muscles get ready. In the past, this was preparation for fight or flight. Today, deadlines, worries and arguments trigger the same response – except that afterwards we don't run, we stay sitting down.

Chronic stress can keep cortisol levels permanently raised. That can increase appetite, especially for energy-dense foods, and encourage fat to be stored around the belly – the least healthy place for it. Then there's behaviour: stressed people sleep worse, move less, cook less often and eat on the go more often. In the large international INTERHEART study, psychosocial stress was one of the nine risk factors that together explained most of the risk of heart attack.

What helps is well researched: regular exercise makes you more resilient to stress, and in one study just 20 to 30 minutes in green spaces – walking or sitting – lowered the stress hormone cortisol in saliva. Enough sleep, regular breaks, deep exhalation (breathing out for longer than you breathe in activates the vagus nerve, your body's “calming nerve”), time with people who are good for you and mindfulness exercises also help, as many studies show. Just as important: don't try to change everything at once. A weight-loss plan that itself causes stress works against itself.

Children experience stress too – from school, arguments or days that are too full. They often show it through tummy aches, sleep problems or changes in their eating habits. Regular screen-free family time, exercise in the fresh air and the feeling of being seen are good protection. If stress is overwhelming you over a long period, your GP is a good first port of call; in an acute crisis, Germany's TelefonSeelsorge helpline is available free of charge around the clock on 0800 111 0 111.