Can anxiety and depression cause weight gain? The simple answer is yes. Both conditions are stressful. And when we're stressed, we release the hormone cortisol. Cortisol causes several changes in the body, all of which can result in weight gain.

One of the primary aims of our body releasing cortisol is to boost the glucose level in the blood because it's like a fight or flight hormone. And what that does is that preps us. The energy is ready for our thinking, it's ready for our muscles, it's ready for us to take action.

There is an energy supply ready and waiting in the bloodstream. The problem with that is the body recognizes that it's pumped energy into the bloodstream and it then causes us to want to replenish that bloodstream when the immediate threat has gone.

So we get hungry, cortisol causes hunger. And what we're looking for, what we're craving then is sweet things and carbohydrate rich things, fatty things. So calorie laden foods. Over time cortisol will also result in a decrease in muscle mass because we're in a high energy state and maintaining muscle costs a lot of energy.

So the body says, right, we don't need all that muscle. We want energy for other purposes. So we reduce the amount of muscle that reduces our overall basal metabolic rate, the amount of calories that we need basically each day to maintain ourselves.

So that's a small factor, but it's still another factor in why we might gain weight if we have anxiety or depression. Both conditions cause disrupted sleep. Disrupted sleep can result in us eating at different times, eating different amounts, putting on weight.

Both conditions result in us not thinking clearly. Cortisol over a long period of time is neurotoxic and in depression and anxiety, we're not thinking clearly. So it becomes difficult to. plan meals become difficult to decide what to eat, the healthiest choices, so we may just take shortcuts and eat unhealthy food.

And then there's the fact that both anxiety and depression are associated with fatigue and when you're tired you again don't want to spend the effort to cook healthy food, you may just grab a snack and you may come for eat.

Being depressed, being anxious is not as much is not a very enjoyable state, therefore if you can eat something that increases your mood you may be using it to self -medicate. So there are many reasons, biological reasons, why anxiety and depression may result in weight gain.