Moment 156: Your Stress Is Making you Fat & Sick... Here's How To Fix It!

Steven Bartlett (0:00)

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Tara Swart (0:47)

As a survival mechanism, it will help you to store fat around your abdomen. So, again, in the cave, if you were potentially going to not find food for a month, then if you had extra fat around your abdomen, you could digest that and survive till you could find food. So, with my clients in financial services, it got to a point where as soon as I walked into the room, they just lift their T-shirt up and say, now you know how I've been in the last month. Then I had a really, really funny incident when I was speaking at a bank, and the CEO's PA was there in the audience. I was explaining that leadership stress leaks down, that that stress can lead to abdominal fat, that you can't shift, and she shouted out, so he's the reason that I'm fat. But Steve, no one laughed.

Steven Bartlett (1:41)

Really?

Tara Swart (1:41)

Yeah. That's when I knew that, okay, he obviously is really stressing everyone out.

Steven Bartlett (1:48)

Oh gosh, no one laughed. Through fear or something, or just because they all just thought it was true?

Tara Swart (1:55)

It wasn't funny. It was true.

Steven Bartlett (1:58)

Jesus.

Tara Swart (1:58)

Again, what I would see with people is that they would say, oh, I've put on a bit of weight around the middle, you know, had to loosen the belt a bit. So I've started eating less, I've started like exercising more and I still can't shift it. And again, that's when I would explain this is the impact of cortisol. As long as you're still leaking out extra cortisol, nothing's going to change. So, and like I said, even exercising more or eating better, less or differently, whatever it is, wouldn't shift that fat. You had to get to the root cause. You had to reduce the cortisol.

Steven Bartlett (2:31)

It also made me think about when you consider promoting someone in your organization, you have to be very careful that if you put a particularly stressed cortisol leaking individual high in the organization, there's going to be a significant impact for everyone below them.

Tara Swart (2:46)

Yeah.

Steven Bartlett (2:47)

Is that accurate? Is that an accurate observation?

Tara Swart (2:49)

Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it. I mean, I always think of that phrase, what got you here won't get you there, which is more about the fact that people get promoted because they're good at what they do, but they don't really get taught all the best management and leadership skills. But that's a really pertinent point. If there are a person who is stressed, particularly who suppresses stress, which some of these successful people do, then it would have an impact down the organization.

Steven Bartlett (3:15)

It begs the question then. If someone's listening to this and they go, Do you know what? I'm a leaky, cortisol person, I'm highly stressed, and it's probably getting to people around me.

Tara Swart (3:24)

What can I do about that? First of all, if someone's saying that, half the battle is won. The problem is when people are not aware of that. But let's say you are. Let's say that I give you that list of signs and symptoms that you've got high levels of cortisol, which includes things like sleep disruption because cortisol is part of the 24-hour clock, melatonin helps us to wake up, cortisol helps us to fall asleep, cortisol helps us to wake up. Maybe you've noticed the belly fat. Because of the really strong connection between the brain and the gut, any sort of reflux or indigestion symptoms are often signs that you've got high levels of cortisol too, and of course things like irritability and mood changes. What I mostly would hear people say is that I can just about keep it together when I'm at work, but when I get home, if my kids are annoying or my partner is asking for too much, I just snap. So that means you're one step away from snapping at work if somebody pushes you too far, so that's not good. Because cortisol is pro-inflammatory, it's very drying of the system as well, so you might notice that your skin's really dry or you've got skin problems. Your skin isn't just the physical border of your body, it's the psychological boundary of your body too, so often stress shows up in the skin. Then there are two main things that you can do.