Stress and weightloss

I'm stressed out.  I have been for months now.  It has caused me to break out in Shingles in late June.  And I believe that it's a contributor (though, not the only one) for my current difficulty in shedding weight.  I'm doing not my best to combat it.  There are things that I should be doing more of to bring the stress levels down.  It's going to take a major life change to solve the problem entirely.

Levels of "the stress hormone," cortisol, rise during tension-filled times. Increased levels of the hormone help cause higher insulin levels, your blood sugar drops and you crave sugary, fatty foods.  Caving in repeatedly helps to create a habit.  For me, this helps to create more stress, thus perpetuating the cycle.  

I'm just about ready to make that life change.  The wheels are in motion.  I'm totally vaguebooking* here.  I really want to talk about my future, but I have a specific reason to keep the details quiet for a little while.   I hope that it won't be very long, but the very process of changing life is stressful.  So it's going to get worse before it gets better.

So, in the meantime, lets chat about some ways to handle stress.  Perhaps I'll try to add some more of these into a routine.

Eat a healthy diet. Well-nourished bodies are better prepared to cope with stress, so being mindful becomes even more important. 

Start the day right with breakfast then keep energy up and minds clear with balanced, nutritious meals and snacks throughout the day. 

Reduce sugar.  This is an obvious one and oh so difficult without eating fresh and healthy foods. Just about all of the pre-packaged foods and quick grab-n-go snacks in the pantry are loaded with sugar in one form or another.  Bodies craves it like a drug and when the drug is withheld will go through symptoms of withdrawal before feeling good again.  But the good is SO good, once the cravings have gone away. It's worth doing. 

Get enough sleep.  Consider sleep the reset button on the bodies computer.  That is when muscles rebuild from working out.  Aim for 8 hours.  Schedules make it difficult to add time to sleep in the morning. so if going to bed earlier is what helps get the hours in, do it!  There are a lot of studies on how truely important this is. Fortunately for me, this is the one area that I shine.  I rarely have trouble sleeping, and though, I tend to get a little less sleep than I'd like, I am getting about 7.5 hours of shut eye each night.  That doesn't include the time that I'm in bed, relaxing, but not asleep yet, nor the mornings when I'm talking myself into getting up.  That is a full 7+ hours of sleep cycles.  

And last but not least. exercise regularly.  I feel like the word "duh" should follow this.  But I know that when I get stressed out, I don't want to go to the gym.  Which is silly, because I also know that I feel so much better after a good workout.  There is just that little bump that I have trouble getting over to get me there when I feel crummy.  It takes some major self encouragement to get there right now.

What about you, readers? What do you do to combat stress?   

* Vaguebooking is a term for when people put out very vague non-specific statements on social media, usually intended to get people to ask a lot of questions or feel sorry for the writer, though in this case it's only to put a little emphasis on the story.