How often do you rest?

We have talked about how much sleep do we need to be healthy, and why keeping your hormones - particularly your hunger hormones - in check is so vital. And we’ve talked about the importance of movement and strength.

So, what on earth has ‘rest’ got to do with it, its sedentary, isn’t it? What has rest got to do with your belly fat removal?

Rest and restore is all about helping to prevent your cortisol, your stress levels from going too high.

Why is that a problem?

When you have got elevated cortisol levels, you are constantly stressed, your body is always ready to fight, ready for some kind of crisis, and that means that the way it is dealing with your fat deposits and your food is different from what it should be.

If you can switch off that constant anxiety and stress, your body can go back to utilising your food (as long as it's the right amount) in the way that it's meant to. That in turn will have a positive effect on the storage of fat around your stomach.

The Tiger and the Water Buffalo.

The water buffalo is down at the watering hole, and it is minding its own business. The tiger is over the other side. That tiger sees the water buffalo and thinks ‘lunch’. The water buffalo at this point is nice and chilled, having a drink in the watering hole. It looks over and sees the tiger and thinks ‘Oh, my goodness’.

Or words to that effect, and his body must react quickly to get away from the tiger, his heart rate goes up, his blood vessels expand, his pupils expand, sugar is pumped into his body so that that water buffalo can run quickly to get away from the tiger and everything is suddenly utilised.

It needs to be utilised because that water buffalo needs to be able to get away fast. The tiger runs after the water buffalo and the water buffalo gets away. The water buffalo is back to being calm again, he is back at another watering hole, he is not bothered about what has happened. The trouble is, you are not a water buffalo, things happen in our lives, and we have not got the ability to suddenly switch off and go to another watering hole and be really, really calm.

We are constantly being triggered by our children, by our parents, by work, by trains, by the fact that you are making your body do something that it does not want to do, by being too hot, by being too cold, by just being, we find it incredibly difficult to switch off and be really, really relaxed.

So, this is where the importance of rest and restorative exercise comes in…

What happens when you do a yoga class, or a breathing class, or a mindful class or something like that, is that your cortisol levels are lowered, and your body comes back to a calmer state. When your body does come back to this sort of calm, it is a bit like rebooting a computer, all those tabs are switched off and everything is nice and relaxed. Your body goes back to doing what it is meant to do with the fuel that you put in it and with your stress hormones and everything goes back to a normal state.

If you can find a way of coping with your anxiety and your stress levels daily, that really will help you prevent having too much cortisol all the time, which leads to belly fat.

Think about things you can bring into your daily life. Yoga, although there are not many people who can go to a daily yoga practice. Yoga if it is good, takes over an hour to do, maybe sometimes two, a lot of people do not have time for that. Even taking time to do one, two, three, four minutes of mindfulness with deep breathing, plus a yoga class perhaps once or twice a week will help.

Or believe it or not, just getting outside for 20 minutes a day, preferably in the green (it’s called forest bathing) can have a massive effect on helping you deal with anxiety and reducing your stress levels. Even phoning a friend and having a laugh, or going out for a walk with a friend can also have a positive effect on anxiety-reducing.

A friend of mine likes to do colouring. She has got one of those fine colouring books and she painstakingly colours in the little squares. She does it because it is mindful, something where she cannot really think about anything else while she is doing it. Anything away from a screen is a really good idea.

Anxiety, funnily enough, is a big trigger for mid-life weight gain. One of the things I do in my online course helps people work out where their anxiety is coming from and to help take those problems off their metaphorical plate.

What is on your plate and what can you take of it? Are there things that you can get other people in your family to do to help you to reduce your anxiety? Sometimes it is as simple as just sitting down and going through day-to-day life and thinking, well I do not need to do that anymore. And then my anxiety levels will drop.

And breath….

Sam X