De impact van stress bij vrouwelijke ondernemers op vitaminetekorten en gezondheid - Insentials

The impact of stress among women entrepreneurs on vitamin deficiencies and health.

Stress is almost unimaginable these days. We experience it in all sorts of ways: through work conditions (especially for enterprising women who multitask), through poor diet, air pollution, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, stimuli from social media, work-life balance, raising children, and so on.

As an entrepreneurial woman, you are not only responsible for the running of your entire business, but also (still) for many things in the household, raising the children, looking good according to the norm, being socially active, exercising, and so on. Not to mention that all women -compared to men- have a monthly cycle, sometimes with a rollercoaster of emotions and other physical ailments, and go through different phases in their lives that have a great impact on hormonal balance, vitality and health.

So optimal energy and prevention of complaints such as fatigue, burn out, skin imperfections, weight gain and even fertility problems are crucial for women.
We also see that as many as 95% of women have a vitamin deficiency. A healthy diet is the basis, but it is not enough to cover all the shortages and the need in our bodies. The quality of our food has declined too much in recent decades, partly due to industrialisation, processing, hormones, pesticides, air and ground pollution, etc.

According to Amandine De Paepe, food scientist and founder of Insentials, it is therefore logical and high time to focus on this prevention, with healthy food as a basis, and a necessary supplement for every woman of specific vitamins such as the Smart Insentials to compensate for shortages.

There is an enormous increase in lifestyle diseases, which usually have a combination of causes. What is clear is that all inflammation-related complaints have a clear relationship with psychological stress. For example, current social structures and work-related stress are more likely to cause illness.

Stress is actually a tension that occurs when the balance between a person's load and load capacity is disturbed. Beware, stress is not just bad. We need stress and it can certainly be functional, because it protects the body from (potential) danger. It sets in motion a solution aimed at restoring the homeostatic balance. Only when stress becomes chronic does it cause problems.

You have to see stress as a 'virtual danger', like a lion standing behind the door, ready to attack you. Your body and brain are in a continuous state of alert: ready to anticipate the attack (of that colleague who is late, of that deadline, of those 60 unread mails, of the sales,...), by running away or fighting. So there is a totally different energy metabolism going on in your body to be in this state. Your stomach, for example, works much less efficiently (because why should we eat when there is a tiger at the door?). So, among other things, less stomach acid is produced, causing digestion to fail right from the start. And not only that: the stomach is responsible for the absorption of vitamin B12: an essential vitamin that provides energy! This can be the first reason why stress (or a busy life as an entrepreneurial woman) can cause an energy shortage, the energy you so desperately need to perform. That's why Vit B12 is included in the Smart Insentials supplement.

Stress also opens up the body's barriers so that certain nutrients can be transported quickly throughout the body. When this becomes chronic, we live with open barriers, which also open the gateway for all kinds of pathogens. As a result, the immune system is activated, which costs a lot of energy, and this energy comes at the expense of our brain. As a result, in our work we sometimes feel like we are losing focus, or cannot concentrate fully, are tired and sometimes have difficulty making decisions. Crucial elements for a business woman!

It is therefore high time to make up for certain deficits and to focus on prevention, so that our brain can once again become dominant and the energy can go to the desired processes instead of to our immune system and to anticipating danger.

Another element that ensures flexibility, productivity and focus is omega 3: an essential fatty acid that we can ingest by eating oily fish, nuts, avocado, olives, etc... 

The reality is that many women do not have the resources to get this in the desired quantity through their diet. Our current diet contains too much omega 6 compared to omega 3. Omega 3 ensures that the cell wall is flexible, so that we can react flexibly in our work, adapt to the situation, make quick decisions, network well and become a top entrepreneur.

The Smart Inserts were designed for just that reason: to give every woman the chance to be flexible, decisive, in control of her life, full of energy.

And what about contraception like the pill?

Yes, this is also stress for the body and for the liver. The pill robs you of folic acid, an important vitamin for our blood and nerve cells, and the processing of all these hormones hangs like a sword of damocles over the head of the liver, which therefore has less room for necessary processes such as detoxification and fat metabolism.

Finally, we need vitamin D for all the important processes in our bodies. Unfortunately, women who work hard sometimes do not have enough time to enjoy the sun during the day. So vitamin D and folic acid could not be missing from the Smart Insentials.

If you think about the life cycle of every woman, in a society where we are asked to do a lot, where we have to perform at every level, and where there is a shortage of whole food (despite the fact that everything is available in abundance)... you can imagine that certain systems in our body - especially the liver - are largely overloaded. Stress causes a loss of energy and vitamins that we need just as much to make the right decisions. So there needs to be more awareness of the importance of prevention by taking the right vitamins every morning via the Smart Insentials, along with a healthy lifestyle and the right diet.