When your body is in a weird energy state—like being super tired or eating too much sugar—it can make you react more strongly to stress, and if this goes on too long, stress starts messing up your metabolism too, creating a bad cycle.

When you're stressed for a long time, your body makes too much of a stress hormone called cortisol, which messes up your metabolism — like how your body uses sugar and muscle. But this study shows it also works the other way: if your metabolism is already broken, it can make your stress response worse, creating a bad loop.