Stress is common to us all and a little of it is a positive thing because it spices up our lives. Too much stress, however, can be dangerous.

Research has shown that if it gets out of hand it can increase your chances of getting ill and overweight. Some of the symptoms of stress are obvious, for example headaches and mood swings, but others are not so easy to spot. Here are some of the most common health problems that can flare up as a result of stress overload:

Fat around the middle

If you’re a woman and you tend to carry your excess weight around the middle, it may be linked to stress. When you’re stressed your body releases hormones, including cortisol, to boost blood sugar and give you a shot of energy you need to deal with the stress. But if the cause of stress is not removed or managed, cortisol levels remain high and eventually your body adapts to this constant state of emergency by increasing your appetite for high energy foods and keeping a convenient fat store around your waist, near your vital organs where it can be most easily converted back into energy.

To help yourself, make exercise a priority because it will not just boost your metabolism and help you burn fat, it will also reduce the negative effects of the fat storing hormones cortisol and insulin.

Cutting down on sugar and refined carbohydrates is also recommended as these increase the likelihood of blood sugar problems that can lead to weight gain so eat plenty of whole grains, including vegetables, essential fats, good quality protein and whole grains instead.

To keep your blood sugar levels steady you should also aim to eat five or six small meals a day. Last but by no means least get plenty of quality sleep because there is a strong link between tiredness and high cortisol levels. (For a more detailed three month ‘lose your belly’ plan see my book ‘Fat around the Middle’).

Problem skin

According to research from the American Academy of Dermatology, stress triggers the production of androgens (male hormones), which increase the production of follicle clogging sebum and provide nourishment for bacteria responsible for acne. In addition, stress slows down wound healing and may make symptoms of skin conditions like acne, eczema, psoriasis and dermatitis worse.

To help yourself, get plenty of quality sleep, as lack of sleep is linked to acne breakouts. You should also eat regularly and cut down on caffeine as fasting and too many cups of coffee can slow down the natural exfoliation process.

Drinking more water is absolutely crucial as the skin is an organ of elimination and you can eliminate toxins through the kidneys rather than through the skin with the more water you drink. Nettle tea may also be able to help clear the lymphatic system. Taking the herb milk thistle is helpful for detoxification as it improves liver function.

Digestive troubles

Stress can be the cause of digestive upsets and it can make symptoms of irritable bowel worse. This is because during the body’s stress response powerful chemicals are released which make you want to empty your bowels quickly so you are lighter for action.

To help yourself, increase the amount of natural whole foods in your diet by eating more whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and legumes. Live organic bio yogurt, containing Lactobacillus acidophilus or acidophilus supplements, may help line your bowel with healthy stress resistant bacteria.

Acupuncture is often used to ease stress as it is thought to stimulate the release of natural painkillers that can help reduce the effects of stress and hypnotherapy may also be able to encourage regular bowel movements by boosting feelings of general well being.

A number of herbal remedies may also help including: garlic for diarrhoea and indigestion, ginger for flatulence and peppermint or chamomile tea for intestinal cramps. Goldenseal may also help normalise bowel function and Siberian ginseng is an adaptogen (balancing herb) that can help the body adapt to stress.

Constantly getting colds

If you seem to get every cold or bug that is going around your immunity might be impaired by stress. Research has shown that high levels of stress double your chances of getting ill when exposed to a cold virus; more research needs to be done but it is thought that stress hormones interfere with immune function in some way.

To help yourself, eat a healthy, whole food, if possible, organic diet that gives you plenty of immune boosting nutrients found in fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, oily fish and whole grains. You may also want to supplement with vitamin C (as ascorbate, not ascorbic acid) with bio flavonoids and some herbs (e.g. echinacea) that can boost your immunity and help you cope better with stress.

Twitchy legs

If you get pins and needles or cramps in your legs or an irresistible urge to move them you may be suffering from restless leg syndrome that is estimated to affect around one in twenty people regularly and tends to occur when you are tired or stressed. The exact cause is unknown but it may be due to a form of nerve irritation that is linked with a lack of iron, magnesium and folic acid in your diet.

To help yourself, increase your intake of foods rich in magnesium, (leafy green vegetables and whole grains) iron (parsley and pulses) and folic acid (vegetables and whole grains). Smoking and drinking alcohol seem to make restless legs worse so avoiding them will help. During the day it is also worthwhile doing exercises to stretch your leg muscles and a warm bath before bed with a few drops of rosemary essential oil will ease stress and prevent the likelihood of attacks during the night. Magnesium is a muscle relaxant and can be helpful in supplement form as magnesium malate.

Keep forgetting things

When you are feeling stressed or anxious the first thing to go is often your ability to concentrate and your memory. High levels of the stress hormone cortisol can limit the amount of glucose sent to the memory centre in your brain (hippocampus). Even short periods of intense stress can have a negative impact on brain function but the good news is that all the effects are reversible when cortisol levels are reduced.

To help yourself, keep your brain as active as possible because the more you stretch your brain the better it works. Keep your brain busy by reading demanding books or doing puzzles that require you to concentrate. You should also increase your intake of foods rich in thiamine (vitamin B1) such as brewer’s yeast, brown rice, whole grain bread and cereals. As well as thiamine other B vitamins and the minerals potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron and zinc are important for good memory function.

Eating more fish or supplementing with fish oils will certainly help as they contain phosphatidycholine that helps boost memory function. Finally, you may want to consider taking the herb ginkgo biloba which can improve blood flow to the brain and improve memory and concentration.

Loss of libido

In general stress dampens libido. This may be because higher levels of cortisol interfere with the healthy function of reproductive hormones and also because (most sex therapists agree that sex begins in the head) when you are feeling anxious and unsettled sex is probably the last thing on your mind.

To help yourself, deal with common place stresses by checking out my top ten stress busting tips. It’s also important to eat healthily. Vitamins A and B, essential fats and the minerals zinc and selenium are all crucial for libido and exercise helps too, by boosting your mood and your body image.

There are also numerous herbal treatments that are thought to help increase sexual desire and these include agnus castus, damiana, dong quai, siberian ginseng, for women, and saw palmetto and St John’s Wort for men. Finally, aromatherapists believe that certain scents can have an aphrodisiac effect. Jasmine, rose, sandalwood and vanilla can be uplifting and sensual if used in a bath or as a massage oil.

Note: If you want to take herbs make sure you are not taking any medication that can cause the herbs to be contraindicated.

Q: I quite often suffer from indigestion. I try to avoid fatty foods but wonder if there is anything you recommend for occasional indigestion?

I was taking antacids but have now stopped them. I realise it is probably best to avoid taking medication and so wonder if you know of any alternatives? I sometimes take slippery elm tablets and I often have peppermint tea and also try not to go to bed directly after eating.

A: The symptoms of indigestion can include pain or fullness in the chest area after eating, heartburn, burping and belching. The medical term for indigestion is dyspepsia.

As with any problem the most important thing is to try and find the cause, because if you can track down the cause the problem will be eliminated. At the same time, it is useful to have some natural remedies on hand when needed.

The main causes of indigestion are overeating, obesity, chocolate, fried foods, carbonated beverages, alcohol, stress, coffee, and cigarettes. The first thing is to see whether any of these are a trigger for you.

Also make sure that you are eating slowly. The first part of digestion is in the mouth so by mixing and breaking down your food well with saliva before it is swallowed the next part of your digestive system has less work to do. Don’t drink with meals as this dilutes the saliva while it is trying to do its job. Use fruit as a snack between meals and don’t have it straight after a meal.

Leave a couple of hours between eating and going to bed and try to sleep in a slightly more upright position so that gravity helps to prevent the stomach contents moving back into the food pipe (oesophagus).

Natural remedies can be helpful. Slippery elm helps to form a protective coating in the stomach and chamomile tea can have a calming effect on the digestive system. Deglycyrrhizinated licorice (DGL) helps to soothe the tissue lining the digestive system and a good combination I use in the clinic contains DGL, cabbage and zinc (called Enteroplex). Also you can use an alkalising carbonate 30 minutes after eating for symptom relief (Bio-carbonate).

If the dietary recommendations do not make a difference then it is important to see your doctor to see whether there is another cause such as a hiatus hernia or helicobacter pylori. H. pylori is a bacteria that lives in the stomach and can cause symptoms like indigestion and heartburn. Up to 90% of people with a stomach ulcer have these bacteria. A simple breath test can show you whether you have an active H. pylori infection.

Forget you are what you eat; you are what you digest. If your digestion is poor, however healthy your diet, you won’t be giving your body the nutrients it needs to reach your true health potential.

Symptoms such as tiredness, stress, bad skin and hair, poor immunity, weight gain and low energy are all outward signs that all is not working as it should be on the inside.

Taking care of your gut:

If your gut isn’t healthy, neither is the rest of your body. Digestion consists of three processes – absorption, assimilation and excretion. If any of these aren’t working properly it can affect your whole wellbeing. Read on to find out how you can make sure your digestion is in good working order and lower your risk of leaky gut and all kinds of other problems.

Leaky gut syndrome:

Your gut is colonised by bacteria – both good and bad – which must be in balance for you to be in tip top digestive health. Unfortunately, if your diet is poor and stress levels are high this balance is likely to be upset and a poorly recognised but extremely common condition called leaky gut syndrome may develop.

A leaky gut is bad news for a number of reasons. Not only can it trigger stomach upsets, bloating, constipation and diarrhoea it can also trigger a lethal combination of nutritional deficiencies and toxic overloads that increase the likelihood of blood sugar imbalances and weight gain. Even worse it can make your gut hyper-permeable and more likely to allow unwanted particles into your blood stream. This can cause your immune system to be on high alert all the time, as it does not recognize these foreign particles and the result is food allergies, mysterious pains, inflammation, fatigue, dizziness, fogginess and poor concentration.

Chew it over:

If you don’t chew your food properly you give more work to the rest of the digestive system which puts it under stress. As well as making food easier to swallow, saliva contains enzymes that contribute to the chemical process of digestion.

If food is not properly chewed nutrients remain locked in and undigested matter feeds bad bacteria, which can lead to bacterial overgrowth, wind and other symptoms of poor digestion. Chewing also relaxes the lower stomach muscles and triggers nerve messages which activate the whole digestive process. Aim to chew food until it is small enough to swallow easily. As a rule of thumb if you can tell what kind of food you are eating from its texture, not its taste, you haven’t chewed it enough.

Say the f word:

Fibre or roughage stimulates your digestive tract and helps it work more efficiently. It also promotes health-giving bacteria in your large intestine, softens stools to prevent constipation, slows down the absorption of carbohydrates (which in turn helps to reduce food cravings) and aids weight control. The best way to get your fill of fibre is to eat a combination of different fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and whole grains.

Drink up:

Sufficient fluid intake is essential to keep food moving down your digestive tract and to flush out toxins which would otherwise stay in your bowel. Aim to drink three to four pints of liquid – preferably filtered or mineral water – every day. Sipping between meals rather than drinking with food helps your body to absorb nutrients. Add a slice of lemon to pep up plain water and experiment with non caffeinated herbal teas and well diluted pure fruit juices.

Don’t count alcohol in your daily fluid intake. The odd tipple is fine but if you drink too much you inflame your stomach lining and unsettle your blood sugar levels which can lead to a down turn in energy.

How you eat:

How you eat is as important as what you eat for a healthy digestion. Keep your portions moderate, eat at regular times – your digestion system works best when it knows what to expect – and take the time to chew every mouthful and savour every bite.

Probiotics:

Probiotics are the good guys, the healthy gut bacteria which are important for the assimilation of nutrients and for making B vitamins, which are vital for a healthy nervous system. They create the right environment in your digestive system and act as a food source for good bacteria, ensuring the right type of bacteria colonise the gut. A number of factors can disrupt the balance of bacterial in your gut, such as stress, illness (especially diarrhoea), thrush and antibiotics. Probiotics have been used to help ease problems such as thrush and chronic fatigue. They may also have other benefits. Recent research from Sweden, for example, showed that a group of employees who took probiotics had less absence from work than those who were not given them. Other studies have found that probiotics can help manage irritable bowel syndrome or IBS.

If you have a hectic lifestyle, are prone to colds and/or flu, are taking antibiotics or have a history of stress related digestive disorders such as IBS you could benefit from probiotics. You may want to take probiotic supplements, but probiotics are also found in fruit and vegetables like bananas, artichokes, leeks, onions, garlic, asparagus and chicory. (A good probiotic I use in the clinic is Bio Kult). Cultured or fermented foods such as live yoghurt, miso, and tamari also contain various types and amounts of these ‘friendly’ bacteria.

Be active:

Regular aerobic activity (at least 30 minutes of any activity that makes you feel slightly breathless and sweaty five or six days a week) helps stimulate the muscles of the digestive system, helping you to digest food better and expel waste more efficiently.

Watch your stress levels:

Your stomach and intestines are very sensitive to stress and when you feel anxious digestion shuts down to help your body focus on preparing the flight or fight response. This means that food is only partially digested, leading to poor digestion and eventually nutrient deficiency. Finding ways to manage and cope with stress is important for your digestive health as well as your emotional health. It is also important to eat in a relaxed and calm state.