12/22/2025
ᴅᴀʏ 🔟 ᴛᴜʀɴ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴛʜᴇ ɪɴᴛᴇɴꜱɪᴛʏ
Before diving into today’s topic, let’s redefine the word stress. Typically we think of mental or emotional stressors of life when hearing the word stress.
But…
🚨STRESS IS ANYTHING THAT CREATES A BURDEN ON THE BODY🚨
Stress can also be:
🍕Inflammatory foods
🥱 Poor quality sleep or staying up late
🧤External and internal toxins and…
EXERCISING INTENSELY WHEN THE BODY IS ALREADY DEPLETED.❌
Stress leads to inflammation - the root of all dysfunction, especially when it comes to hormones.
We tend to overindulge in naughty and nice foods this time of year - eggnog, cocktails 🍹, cookies 🍪 or other holiday treats 🧁. The common response is to “work off” all the indulgences at the gym. Seems reasonable, right?
But here’s the thing…
Intense exercise can stress the body more when it’s already depleted from indulgences, traveling, and holiday happenings. Hitting the gym hard after a late night, not-so-great sleep, indulging in holiday treats, or when dealing with a lot of emotional stress is the exact opposite of what your body needs.
👉This can put more strain on hormones such as cortisol, estrogen, thyroid, and testosterone - having the exact opposite effect of what you hope it would be doing.
Moving your body daily is essential for hormone balance, just be mindful of how depleted your body might be on a day-to-day basis depending on the stressors you might have encountered over the last 24-48 hours.
Instead of running, hitting the weights hard, or pushing yourself in a class, opt for restorative movement such as:
🚶🏻♀️A nice long walk
🧘🏻♀️A yoga class or pilates
🏋️♀️Interval training with 1-2 minute breaks to recover between sets
Trust me and your body. Turn down the intensity; your hormones will thank you 🫶
What’s your favorite restorative type of movement? 🚶🏻♀️🧘👇
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