Studies have recently discovered a strong connection between unmanaged stress and higher cholesterol levels. The increasing of fat substances in your bloodstream often occur when you’re under severe state of stress- your body releases chemical messengers to deal with the emergency situation causing hormonal fluctuations that indirectly and negatively affect your blood cholesterol levels. The result your total blood cholesterol levels increase, your LDL bad cholesterol increases as well while lowering your HDL, the good type cholesterol.

Combining stress and anxiety with unhealthy lifestyle of inactivity and the impact on your blood cholesterol levels can be even more significant.

Stress has been proven to decrease the effectiveness of our immune system to fight and prevent diseases and it can also increase your lipid levels. This can happen either due to the body producing more energy from fats (metabolic fatty acids) to deal with the stressful situation, making your liver produce more LDL thus raising your LDL levels or it could be due to the inflammatory process triggered by the stressful situation that raises overall lipid production.

During the emergency of flight or flea situation that stress triggers, your body releases cortisol, a hormone aimed at dealing with extreme situations. This hormone causes the release extra fats into your bloodstream to produce energy, thus increasing LDL levels, the bad cholesterol that promotes atherosclerosis, in the process.

Stress also elevates the need for fatty foods and it ahs been proven that people in stressful situations often calm themselves by consuming high fat greasy foods, the result is obviously an elevated blood cholesterol levels, the dietary cholesterol which is added to the blood cholesterol, produced naturally by your liver.

Managing and controlling stress is therefore crucial to your success in lowering your blood cholesterol levels. A solid relaxation plan that includes Yoga and stress mental optimization techniques along with dietary changes and exercise can significantly and positively promote to lowering your LDL blood cholesterol while raising the HDL cholesterol thus eliminating the risk and stepping towards well-balanced healthy life.