When you're stressed for a long time, your body keeps pumping out a stress hormone called cortisol, which messes with how your body uses sugar and protein—making it harder for insulin to work properly and raising your risk for metabolic problems like type 2 diabetes.

Long-term stress can mess with your body's stress control system, making it harder to calm down and causing ongoing inflammation that might lead to health problems.

When you're constantly stressed but not exercising, your body releases stress and sugar-regulating hormones that together make you store more fat around your belly.

If your body makes too much cortisol for too long, your adrenal glands can get worn out and stop working well when you actually need to handle stress.

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 healthy young men get stressed, the more their stress hormone (cortisol) spikes, the more their blood sugar tends to go up too.