Alana Ellis, fitness and lifestyle coach , explores how divorce impacts physical wellbeing.
During stressful life changes, many people notice changes in their sleep, energy, appetite, motivation, confidence, and overall physical health. It can feel difficult to focus on yourself when you’re navigating emotional conversations, life admin, work pressures and family responsibilities all at once. Naturally, when going through these changes, fitness, and general wellbeing activities are the easiest part of our lives to take a back seat.
Despite divorce presenting challenges when it comes to our mental and physical wellbeing, there are practical strategies to implement that can help increase our capacity to deal and process with the changes that divorce brings.
How does divorce affect you physically?
It’s easy to perceive stress as being something that just manifests itself psychologically, but it takes a toll on our bodies too. During periods of prolonged stress, our bodies release cortisol and adrenaline and it triggers our ‘fight or flight’ response.
This response prepares the body to react quickly to stress. Physical symptoms include but are not limited to:
- Increased heart rate
- Lack of appetite (where the body is sending the blood to our muscles to prepare them for physical activity over digestion of food)
- Chest tightness
- Tension in muscles
- Shallow breathing
Short-term periods spent in fight or flight are not particularly detrimental to the body, but prolonged periods can lead to:
- Poor sleep or insomnia
- Increased fatigue and low energy
- Digestive issues or changes in appetite
- Muscle tension and headaches
- Reduced motivation to work/exercise/carry out daily activities
- Higher resting heart rate and more feelings of anxiety
- Increased cravings for sugar, alcohol or highly processed foods
- Lower immune function and getting ill more frequently
For some people, stress leads to emotional eating or overeating as a coping mechanism. For others, stress can suppress appetite completely. Both are extremely common responses during emotionally challenging periods.
Many people also experience changes in routine. Exercise habits, meal structure, sleep patterns, and social connection are often disrupted during divorce, particularly when juggling childcare, work demands, or changes in living arrangements.
What impact does divorce have on mental wellbeing?
Divorce can trigger a wide range of emotions, including grief, anger, anxiety, guilt, loneliness, fear, and overwhelm. Even if the relationship was unhappy, separation still represents a major life transition and loss of familiarity.
It’s common to experience:
- Increased anxiety
- Difficulty concentrating
- Feeling emotionally exhausted or burnt out
- Isolation or withdrawal from social activities
- Low mood or depressive symptoms
- Loss of identity or uncertainty about the future
Stress can also create an all-or-nothing mindset around health habits. Many people either become extremely restrictive with food and exercise as a way of regaining a level of control or completely disengage from their wellbeing altogether.
What are the benefits of exercise during stressful life changes?
Exercise can be very useful in helping you navigate life changes and stress. Keeping a routine in place when it comes to exercise can help you maintain control and consistency in one area of your life when there are higher levels of uncertainty.
Movement can help the body regulate its stress hormones, which can help the body transition back to rest and digest state over fight or flight mode. Exercise produces endorphins, also known as the feel-good hormone, which can also help regulate mood.
Exercise can improve sleep, energy, and anxiety levels, helping build resilience during stressful periods.
During difficult periods, many people put pressure on themselves to completely transform their body or follow an intense fitness regime, but focusing on consistency with exercise you enjoy over perfection is often far more supportive.
In practice, exercise can look like:
- Going for regular walks throughout the day/week
- Resistance/strength training 2–4 times per week
- Attending fitness classes that you enjoy
- Running, yoga, or pilates
- Simply moving your body in ways that feel manageable.
If stress levels are particularly high and sleep isn’t good, it is probably best to keep exercise to low intensity, rather than start hammering high-intensity (HIIT) classes, which can be an additional stress on the body. In terms of heart rate, anything around 50-60% of maximum heart rate is a good marker for steady intensity.
What are the benefits of good nutrition?
Nutrition plays a huge role in supporting both physical and emotional wellbeing during stressful periods.
When stress levels are high, it’s easy to rely on convenience foods, skip meals completely due to lack of appetite, or use food and alcohol as coping mechanisms. While this is understandable, not paying attention to nutrition can lead to increased fatigue, low self-esteem, poor digestion, and lethargy.
Focusing on maintaining a balanced diet can help stabilise energy levels, productivity, regulate mood, improve sleep quality, support immune function, and give the body energy to help it combat stress.
As highlighted with exercise, the importance here is consistency over perfection and keeping the barrier to entry low, not overhauling your whole diet at once, because the likelihood of sustaining that change is low.
Practical strategies you can implement today:
- Eating regular meals throughout the day
- Prioritising protein with meals to support fullness
- Have a source of fruit and vegetables at every meal
- Not eating a heavy meal too late in the day (2-3 hours before bed)
- Staying hydrated
- Finding coping mechanisms for stress outside of alcohol
- Finding easy options for high stress, low time days, even shop bought microwave meals are a middle ground between whole foods and a Chinese takeaway
What strategies help with stress management?
There is no single solution for managing stress during divorce, as the best techniques to manage stress is very individualised but focusing on these key areas can help build your tolerance to stress.
Making sleep a priority as sleep is often one of the first things impacted by stress. Stress can make it harder to get to sleep or stay asleep once asleep. Taking magnesium as a supplement and maintaining good sleep hygiene can help improve quality. Maintaining consistent sleep and wake times can help improve sleep quality.
Sticking to a routine can help keep stability through stressful periods. Keeping regular mealtimes, movement, working hours, and social connections can help mitigate the impact of emotional turmoil.
It’s common to withdraw during stressful periods, but maintaining connection with supportive people can improve emotional wellbeing.
Alcohol is often perceived to reduce stress and improve sleep quality, but intake can worsen anxiety, sleep, and mood. Picking and choosing alcohol events and making sure it’s not being used as a coping mechanism can massively help.
@lifelovelawpodcast It’s Mental Health Awareness Week, and this week we’re focusing on the role exercise can play in supporting your mental wellbeing. ✨ Our bodies and minds are constantly changing, so it makes sense that the way we move should adapt too. When you’re feeling emotionally or physically overwhelmed, it’s important to listen to your body and choose movement that meets you where you are. We recently spoke to Alana Ellis @thecorporatecoach_x about the types of low-intensity movement to prioritise during more challenging times, so you can still support your body and mind without pushing yourself too far. #mentalhealth #mentalhealthtiktok ♬ original sound – Life, Love & The Law Podcast
Key takeaway
Divorce is not just an emotional experience – it affects the whole body and mind. During periods of stress, it’s important to remember that health and fitness do not need to look the same as during non-stressful periods.
Small, consistent habits around movement, nutrition, sleep, and stress management can help create stability during uncertain times. It’s about giving your mind and body support to navigate change.
Written by Alana Ellis
Online Coach specialising in sustainable fitness, nutrition & wellbeing for busy professionals.
Instagram: @alanaellis_fit TikTok alanaellis_fit
More information about wellbeing during divorce and separation
Overcoming loneliness after a breakup
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