It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day. It’s a new life. And you’re feelin’ just as stressed as you were yesterday! You overslept. You’re running late. You have no clean underwear. You can’t find your keys. You drive off without your cell phone as you spill coffee in your lap pulling out of the garage. The daily grind can get to anyone. Throw in a couple of unexpected surprise stressors and not only will your blood pressure rise, but your cortisol levels will increase as well. Whether you’re stressed because of daily demands or you’re truly in a “fight or flight” situation, cortisol gives you the burst of energy you need to get through it all. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the “stress hormone.” Does cortisol make you fat? No, not cortisol itself — it’s the excess of it in your body that can contribute to weight gain. When you’re faced with a stressful situation cortisol is released in your body and increases the flow of glucose (as well as protein and fat) from your tissues into your bloodstream. This gives you increased energy and physical readiness to handle the stressful situation or threat at hand. You get to work late. Your boss is mad. Your presentation won’t print. Your co-workers snicker at your dilemma, your secretary took the day off and the stain from your coffee won’t come out of your pants. The extra glucose now circulating in your body is ready to be used against the stressors, (boss, printer, co-workers and secretary) and instead of doing something active to burn it up (leave and go for a walk), you sit around and think about your stressor instead (who told her she could take the day off?) The extra glucose doesn’t get burned up and instead it restores itself in the abdominal area around your organs, commonly known as visceral fat. This kind of fat is most damaging to your health and can lead to an increased risk of development of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. So will one bad day make you the Michelin Man? No. But a long string of days filled with unresolved stress can take a toll on your waistline and your overall health, depending on how you choose to handle it. Enter emotional eating. You leave late for lunch. Forget where you parked. Order a super-size burger, fries and shake at the drive through. Head to your appointment and end up in a fender bender. Cancel your appointment. Head back to the office. Pick up a cola and a candy bar on your way. Chronic stress can lead to cravings for high fat, high carbohydrate foods such as cookies, candy and chips, while excess nervous energy can often cause you to eat more than you normally would. Although your dear friends Ben and Jerry may seem to ease your mind at the time, the vicious cycle of stressing and eating junk food will definitely pack on the pounds over time. Fatty and sugary foods may seem to relieve stress, but they can eventually wreak havoc on your health. Unfortunately, in our current high-stress culture, the stress response is activated so often your body does not always have a chance to return to normal. When your cortisol level remains elevated, your body can’t benefit from cortisol’s usual functions, like regulating blood sugar levels, immune responses, blood pressure, heart and blood vessel tone and contraction, and initiating anti-inflammatory response. Prolonged activation of the stress-response system can actually put you at increased risk of numerous health problems, including heart disease, sleeplessness, digestive problems, de- pression and memory loss. You simply must find a way to cope with the stressors in your life. Your 3 p.m. appointment arrives 30 minutes early. Your computer gets a virus. Your boss comments on your “production.” You hit the vending machine. You work late. You go home, drained, depressed and dejected. When your body is no longer in perceived danger or stress it begins to return to a state of physiological relaxation, where blood pressure, heart rate, digestive functioning and hormonal levels, including cortisol, return to their normal state. During acute stress (fight or flight), this occurs naturally. But for a chronic stress situation — like a high- pressure job — you may need to work it out physically at the gym or mentally with meditation. There are lots of techniques out there to help you deal with stress including yoga, aerobic activities, deep-breathing exercises, visualization techniques or even a simple hot bath or relaxing massage (of course, there’s also fist pounding, vile profanity and voodoo curses for some). Try to remove the “noise” in your life: over committing, overworking, bad relationships, debt load and so on. You have to figure out the technique that works best for you, so your stress doesn’t get the best of you — or your belly.