Stress, Sleep and Bloating: Why Your Progress Stalls

Nikkiey: What's up, WarriorBabe? Hey, everybody. Nikkiey here, and welcome to our WarriorBabe Revolution rally call. It is Sunday, it is 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and I am super, super excited to be here with you. I love coming to these calls with you on the weekdays and on the weekends and getting you fired up for a new week moving forward.

So with that being said, we'll get started with the rally call in just a few minutes, but do me a huge favor and go into the Facebook group and let the babes know that we are getting started with this call. They'll want to be on it, because it's going to be a fire topic in terms of helping you all understand a variable that could very well be hindering the results you are looking for. If this one variable isn't controlled, you could be putting in the hard work, but you could be bashing your head into a wall while you're not getting results because of this specific variable. Now, I'm sure I gave away what I'm going to talk about, but it's really important that you let the women know to tune in and hear me out right now, all right?

But before we dive into this call, I do want to give a huge welcome. I know we had a lot of new babes join us this past week. Our community just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and it's so exciting to see that. So anybody who is new, welcome. I'm stoked that you're here. You're a part of a community of thousands of women who are getting toned and becoming a stronger, more confident version of themselves, where strong is the new sexy, and I'm stoked that you're a part of this amazing community.

And to all my veteran babes and everybody who is a part of the group, we have just shipped out your swag. It is on the way, and I'm super stoked. I love seeing you post in the community that you got the email and that it's on the way. So we're going to have tons of swag photos inside the community, which is just going to be so awesome. I wanted to let you know that.

All right, so let's dive into tonight's rally call. Short, sweet, to the point. I'm going to make this well known, because this is something that not a lot of people talk about, but especially for us women, it's a huge variable in terms of why you might not be getting the results that you want. Especially if you're going through menopause, you're post-menopausal, you're doing HIIT. I've talked about that before with steady state versus HIIT cardio. All of those specific situations come down to one specific variable, which is stress.

So I want to talk about how stress affects your progress. I'm sure you've had weeks where you felt like numbers are stalling or you felt extra bloated, but nothing has changed with your exercise, your nutrition, all that kind of stuff. And the main thing is due to stress, right? Especially this past week with the time change, we all experienced some level of stress with that, with waking up earlier and then staying up later and not getting enough sleep. Your rhythms were all off. That can cause stress. You wake up in the morning and you're in fight-or-flight mode, right? You're not getting enough sleep, so that compounds over your days and adds to the level of stress. So it could be a huge factor in your progress and your overall health.

And the main reason it keeps you so far from reaching your goals, and I can't stress this enough, is that if your stress is out of whack, your mind is nonstop. Your mind is going a mile a minute. Your mind is elsewhere. It's in the past, it's in the future, it's not right now. And it's causing anxiety. It's causing worry. It's causing overwhelm. It's like, oh my God, my kids have to be here at this time. There's so much stress, and it's kind of become a normal way of life, right?

But that stress causes your cortisol levels to increase. Cortisol is a hormone in all of us, and it increases when you are mentally and physically stressed out. So if you're a mile-a-minute type of person, you could naturally have high cortisol levels. If you're naturally stressed out, your mind is always racing. And your mind is in harmony with your body. So if you're constantly thinking tons of ridiculous, stressful thoughts, your body is going to experience that internally, and externally you're going to see the results from it. Okay?

We all experience it, for example, at a different level, a different kind of stress, when we're getting our periods, when we go through that monthly period with our monthly visitor. Right? Our body inflames. Our body rises with stress because of the internal things that are going on. That's why you get bloated. Okay? That's why so many people I've seen working in the emergency room are just so inflamed. And that's because of stress. It could be a lot of other variables, it could be disease processes these people have, but the majority is stress. It's a huge, huge variable.

And cortisol is a hormone that stores body fat. That specific hormone stores body fat. So when you're not eating enough, when you've got tons of stress, you're not sleeping well, you're not drinking enough water, you're thinking negatively about your body, you're bloated, yada, yada, yada, you're freaking out, you're always thinking, your body is stressed. And at that point, you could have naturally raised your cortisol levels, and you could be storing fat, which is completely counterproductive to the results that you want to achieve.

And I could go down this rabbit hole of if you're stressed out, you're completely thrown off with your digestion, and then you're not pooping for days. And trust me, I've been there, done that. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. Okay. So I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole of digestion too. But stress can lead to that. It can lead to your digestion being off. If your sleep's off, your digestion's off. There are so many things that correlate together, so many things that just get thrown off. Digestion's off, stress is higher, sleep's off. Those three things are so important to try and get managed.

So how can you handle that stress? Take a freaking chill pill. That's one thing. Take a chill pill.

All right. Make sure you're getting seven hours of sleep at night. I can't stress that enough. Personally, my body needs eight and a half. I've just learned this over years. So I go to bed early and wake up early, especially with the time change. I adjusted with the time change. I just moved my hour up early in the morning, and I'm going to bed earlier at night. So I just moved with it. Okay. You should do the same. Wake up a little bit earlier. It's nice to be up early in the morning. You're waking up with the light, you're waking up with the sun, which our bodies are so inclined to do naturally. You get naturally higher endorphins and dopamine and all that kind of stuff. So again, wake up a little bit earlier, go to bed earlier. Okay. Adjust to this new hour cycle that we're on.

Drink a gallon of water today. I can't stress that enough. You know I say that all the time. Make sure you're still eating your nutrition. Don't get inconsistent with that. Make sure you're staying consistent with your exercise, because exercise helps to reduce that stress. It puts a different stress on your body, but a good stress.

And like I said, take a freaking chill pill. Okay. All of these things can really help you in managing your stress. One thing is just breathing. If you find yourself getting stressed throughout the day because you're overthinking and you're so worried about the next thing you have to do, be there in the moment. Take a deep breath. Breathe. Know that everything's going to be worked out and everything's going to be fine. All right?

So, short and sweet. I hope you enjoyed that rally call. I had to put that out there because I listened to something earlier today that was so spot on about stress and the mind and the body. And I remember seeing it so much in the ER and working in the hospital. Granted, there were tons of other variables coming into play, but so many people were just stressed. And stress can lead to dis-ease in the body. Being at dis-ease, which then correlates to disease. It's a great way to think about it.

So do your best to manage your stress, because it can play a big part in the results that you seek within your own body. All right? I love you all. New week, crush it. Adjust to this time change. Show up for yourself. Remember, it's important to show up now. Not 2021. Right now matters. Through the holidays, it matters. You're still going to be eating your cookies and enjoying time with your friends and your family. But the thing is, you just get right back on track the next day. All right? So keep up the good work. New week, stay focused, and I'll see you at Wednesday's Q&A. Bye, everyone.