What acute stress actually does to your body

and what to do about it

I’ve been moving through a period of intense acute stress lately. And one of the first things I noticed was that all my usual nutrition principles had quietly gone out the window. I was nauseous most of the time, my usual fiber, fat, protein meals felt impossible to eat and even cook, and I was reaching for carb-rich foods almost on autopilot. The initial instinct was to push harder, double down on the fiber and protein, but my body kept pushing back.

Then I remembered why this is actually completely logical. And that reminded me that most stress content, including a lot of my own, focuses on the long game. Building resilience over time, supporting your nervous system through daily habits, sleep, nutrition, lifestyle. That work matters, and it’s foundational. But acute stress is a different physiological event, and it needs a different response in the moment.

This post covers both: what happens to your nutrition during acute stress and why, and what else you can do in real time to help your body move through it.

Why your eating habits change when you’re stressed

(I covered this in a recent reel, if you’d rather watch than read)

When your body perceives acute stress, your sympathetic nervous system activates within seconds. Adrenaline and noradrenaline flood in to prepare your muscles for action. Cortisol follows. Your body is now in full fight-or-flight mode, and it has a very specific set of priorities in that state, none of which involve digesting a balanced meal.

Your body wants fast glucose, and here’s why

Your body doesn’t differentiate between a work/life/health crisis and a predator chasing you. In both cases, it wants fast glucose, because if there were a real tiger, you would need immediate energy to run or fight. Protein takes longer to break down and isn’t what the body prioritizes when it thinks survival is on the line. This is why the craving for carb-rich, easy foods during acute stress is, in fact, your body following a deeply wired biological script.

Digestion slows down or pauses entirely

The nausea and food aversion I experienced weren’t random either. When the sympathetic nervous system activates, blood flow gets redirected away from the gut toward your muscles and limbs. Digestion genuinely slows or pauses in that window. This is why something heavy and effort-intensive to break down, like a large protein-and-fiber meal, can feel genuinely impossible during acute stress.

The complication: there is no tiger

Here’s where it gets tricky. You’re not going to sprint away from a deadline or physically fight a difficult conversation. So your body releases glucose into the bloodstream, you don’t burn it off through physical action, and blood sugar spikes. Then it crashes. That crash triggers cortisol release, which signals more stress to the body, which drives more cravings, which keeps the whole cycle running. You’re no longer just dealing with the original stressor. You’re riding a blood sugar roller coaster that amplifies the anxiety and stress on top of everything else.

What actually helps

The goal during acute stress is to work with what your body can actually do right now, not force it back to your usual routine before it’s ready.

Since digestion is slowed, the priority is foods that don’t ask much of the gut mechanically, while still providing something useful to the body.

• Broths and slow-cooked meats: The collagen and connective tissue have already broken down through the cooking process, which means your body is receiving amino acids and minerals without having to do the mechanical digestive work itself. This is one of the most practical ways to get protein in when your gut isn’t cooperating. Minerals are essential during acute stress, too, when the body burns through them much faster.

• Soups and stews: Same principle. Soft, already broken down, easier for a sluggish digestive system to handle.

• Fruit with a small amount of fat or protein alongside it: This gives the body some of the glucose it’s asking for without the spike and crash of eating it alone. A piece of fruit with a few nuts or a spoonful of nut butter slows the glucose release enough to avoid adding fuel to the blood sugar roller coaster.

• Resistant starch: cooking and cooling potatoes and rice will turn some of the starch into resistant starch, which resists digestion in the small intestine and ferments in the large intestine instead, leading to a slower, more stable glucose response.

  

  warm, nourishing, easy to digest meals

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What else I’ve been doing to move stress through my body

Nutrition is one piece of this. The other piece is what you do with the stress response itself, because the stress response is a biological cycle that needs to complete. When it’s suppressed, the physiological activation doesn’t resolve. It accumulates. What gets pushed down in the acute moment tends to surface later as chronic tension, anxiety, or burnout. Processing it while it’s happening is what keeps it from compounding into something harder to move through.

Below are the tools I’ve actually been using during this period. Each one has a physiological mechanism behind it, which is why I trust them, and why I keep coming back to them when things get hard.

Move your body

Stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol are released specifically to fuel physical action. Your body made them so you could move. A walk, a workout, dancing in your kitchen, shaking it out: these help complete the biological stress cycle your body already initiated. Movement is one of the most direct ways to clear stress hormones from the system.

My go-to has been morning walks and lifting weights, but honestly any movement counts.

Sing, hum, or put on music

The vagus nerve innervates the larynx via its laryngeal branches, which means humming and singing stimulate it directly. You don’t need to sound good. Humming while you cook or singing in the car counts.

My go-to is singing and dancing to loud 90s music, which also covers the movement piece.

Do something with your hands

Repetitive or focused fine motor tasks anchor your attention to what’s physically in front of you. When the brain is genuinely occupied with something concrete, the loop of stress thoughts is harder to sustain. This is one reason small physical tasks tend to bring people back into their bodies during overwhelm.

My go-to is puzzles and coloring books with my daughter, which has the added benefit of also being a reason to slow down.

I’ve been taking my coloring seriously lately.

Put your thoughts on paper

Putting an experience into words reduces the intensity of the emotional stress response. Naming what you’re going through activates the prefrontal cortex and helps regulate amygdala activity. When stress stays in the body as an unprocessed, wordless feeling, it can keep the threat signal running longer. You don’t need structure or good sentences. Just thoughts on paper, unfiltered.

I journal first thing in the morning or before bed to empty my mind, whichever window actually happens that day.

Breathe with intention

An exhale longer than your inhale activates the parasympathetic nervous system through the vagus nerve. One of the most studied methods for this is the physiological sigh: two short inhales through the nose, then a long, slow exhale through the mouth. A 2023 Stanford study found this to be one of the fastest techniques for reducing physiological arousal in real time. The ratio matters more than the specific technique.

My go-to is a few intentional breaths before meals or whenever I feel triggered in the moment, or a short guided physiological sigh meditation before bed.

Tapping (EFT)

Emotional Freedom Technique involves tapping specific acupressure points while naming the stressor out loud. Research shows it can reduce cortisol and dampen amygdala activation through physical stimulation paired with verbal acknowledgment, sending a calming signal to the nervous system.

You can also just do the tapping without the talking, which is what I often do when stress is rising and I don’t have the bandwidth for more. A few rounds is usually enough to take the edge off.

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One last thing

The instinct when stress hits is to hold it together, move into fix-it mode, and deal with the actual stress later. I’ve caught myself doing exactly this over the past few weeks. It’s understandable, and it’s also one of the main ways acute stress becomes chronic. None of the tools above require a cleared schedule or a perfect moment. Most take under five minutes. Your body is wired to move through stress. These give it the conditions to do that.

In case you missed my previous Wholesome Wednesday article:

Thank you for being here. ✨ Whether you’ve just found this space or you’ve been reading for a while, I’m genuinely glad you’re here. 💛

If something resonated, sharing or restacking is the kindest thing you can do for this work. And if you or someone you know is ready to make sense of what’s going on in their body — hormones, blood sugar, energy — a free discovery call is the place to start.

Stay wholesome,

Karina, CFNC