How Stress Affects Muscle Growth And How To Fix It
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In modern life, stress is a constant. You might think that you’re relaxed because you spend time in the evening with your family, socializing, or relaxing at home with a glass of wine.
However, chronic stress might be one of the key players in your overall health, with profound effects both mentally and physically.
Stress is more than just emotional. It’s a complicated hormonal process that affects your body, from the cells all the way up to your behavior.
With so much impact on your body, it isn’t crazy to think that you might need to reduce stress to develop muscle optimally.
The Science of Stress
Stress is the subject of a lot of cutting-edge research right now, primarily because of the many implications it has in muscle-building, mental health, immune function and countless other medical purposes.
Relieving stress is, therefore, an amazing way to improve some of the most common and serious health problems encountered in our society.
Stress operates primarily through the hormone cortisol. Often referred to as ‘the stress hormone’, cortisol is released in response to stress from both physical and psychological stimuli.
This means that stress about deadlines and physical stressors (like exercise) are registered in a similar way. Your body and brain respond to stress together, and you should consider both.
Elevated cortisol levels are normal in the short-term in response to these types of environmental stimuli.
However, chronic elevated cortisol levels have been linked to depression, catabolism (muscle-breakdown), poor immune health and an increased chance of serious illness.
Stress and Muscle Gains
Beyond the medical risks of stress, it has a negative impact on your ability to gain muscle.
Cortisol is the main catabolic hormone in the body, and consistently elevated levels can interfere with anabolic signals from hormones such as testosterone, IGF-1 and human growth hormone.
By interfering with these processes, it can reduce your ability to build muscle and strength during the recovery between workouts. This means less progress, even when you’re training hard and eating well.
Fixing Your Stress for Improved Muscle Growth
1. Sleep Better
Sleep is a key player in the regulation of many hormones, and stress is no exception. Your sleep pattern and quality have a profound effect on your ability to handle and mitigate stress.
A well-rested human is going to handle stress better and present better health markers than someone with poor sleep-quality.
The CDC recommends at least 7 hours of sleep for adults, and many people who train hard do best closer to 8 hours of sleep a night.
Short sleep can affect your hormones. In one small study, healthy young men who slept 5 hours a night for a week had 10% to 15% lower daytime testosterone.
2. Active Relaxation
Somewhere between being fully alert and being asleep, relaxation is a key process for improving your hormonal profile and reducing stress.
It can affect biological signals to produce muscle, but it doesn’t receive much attention because it isn’t as glamorous or eye-catching as hard training.
If you’re going to spend dozens of hours a week in the gym, you must give your body and mind the appropriate down-time they need to rebuild the tissues you’ve damaged through exercise.
This is one of the most overlooked factors in the development of a great physique. Your relaxation time needs to be intentional.
Whether this is an hour of yoga a few times a week or dim lighting, mellow music, and a good book, setting aside time to actively relax will make a world of difference to your head and your muscles.
3. Improved Diet
Your diet is intimately linked to your experience of health and stress. Diet modulates stress by affecting your hormones and the fuel that you’re providing your body and brain.
If you’re eating poor-quality foods, you’re likely to be inadequately fueling yourself and you will see the difference. Try to eat the best high quality foods you can every day.
There also are various vitamin and mineral deficiencies that are linked to the way that you process cortisol in the body.
Deficiencies are varied, and we can’t discuss the details of them all in this article, but a diet that’s rich in fish (or organ meats), fruit, and vegetables will go a long way towards supporting your body under stress.
If your diet falls short or a blood test shows you’re low, your doctor may suggest one of the following nutrients. Don’t take iron or high doses of vitamin D or zinc without checking first, since too much can cause harm.
- Omega-3 Fatty acids (especially EPA and DHA)
- Vitamin B
- Vitamin D
- Magnesium
- Zinc
- Iron
4. Green Tea + NO Modulators
Green tea has long been popular as a way to de-stress. Here’s what it can and can’t do for stress and muscle.
Green tea contains caffeine and L-theanine, an amino acid that small studies link to feeling calmer and more focused.
Some specially processed teas are enriched with GABA, a calming brain chemical, but regular green tea isn't a major source. Claims that GABA from tea builds muscle or clears cortisol aren't well supported.
Some lifters pair tea with citrulline, an amino acid the body turns into arginine and then nitric oxide. If you're curious about the use of L-Citrulline, know that the evidence for muscle growth is limited.
Citrulline can lower blood pressure, so talk with your doctor first if you take blood pressure or erectile dysfunction medicines.
Plain green tea is a low-calorie drink. Its caffeine can disrupt sleep, though, so enjoy it earlier in the day.
5. Overtraining
Your training routine could be the source of stress that’s reducing your ability to build muscle and improve your performance.
If you’re training intensely several times a week and haven’t had a low-intensity ‘deload’ week in the past few months, it might be time to ease off the gas to allow your body to recuperate and progress.
Excessive training stress can have a negative long-term effect on muscle mass and strength.
Short-term stress should be just enough to improve performance, followed by rest, but a chronic build-up of training stress boosts cortisol levels and reduces muscle gains.
6. Alcohol and Muscle: Clearing Up
Alcohol and exercise is a contentious subject. There have been many scientific studies and anecdotal blogs written on the subject with widely-varying conclusions.
Heavy drinking can raise cortisol, lower testosterone and disrupt sleep, and all of these can hold back muscle growth and training performance.
There might be disagreement on the details, but heavy drinking is likely to reduce your performance across many fields, including muscle growth and recovery.
A Checklist for Improving your Long-Term Muscle Growth
- Sleep more, and better!
- Cut out alcohol and spend some time cleaning up your diet: more vitamins and minerals is the goal.
- Reduce your training load every 4-8 weeks to allow yourself to recover after intense training.
- Commit some of your time to yoga or other relaxing activities, which allow you to recover and rest.
- Swap some sugary drinks for green tea earlier in the day, and ask your doctor before trying citrulline.
Final Key Points…
If you’re looking to build maximum muscle, you need to consider all your variables.
Stress is a key player that can’t be overlooked, and a few simple adjustments to your lifestyle can improve your health (both physical and mental) and your long-term muscle gains.
” Sean Ward ”
Founder of Naturally Boost Testosterone, a men’s health blog dedicated to providing natural ways for men to boost hormone levels. Check out www.naturally-boost-testosterone.com to learn more about Sean and his work. You can also find him on Twitter.
