Everything In Its Right Place: Learning to switch off.

January 19, 2016 O M

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered:

“Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Effectively managing recovery has implications that far exceed getting optimal results from your training. The balance between stress and recovery - the parasympathetic 'rest and digest', and the sympathetic 'fight or flight', determines our health at every level. Everything we see, think, feel, hear or even imagine, falls somewhere on this spectrum, and just how far to one side or the other determines our response - exactly proportional to the perceived stressor.

At least in theory.

When things are clear cut - there is no problem. If you have to escape a sinking car that is quickly filling with water, your sympathetic nervous system is going to come to the party in a big way. A cascade of physiological responses will have you ready to go instantly. Then, cut to you sprawled on a beach - reading a book, with nothing to do and nowhere to be. While not nearly as dramatic, your body is still responding, only this time in a healing, regenerative 'house-keeping' manner.

Daily life is rarely so black and white, and problems arise when we end up not quite in the middle, but just a little to one side - the wrong side. Always. This underlying subtle ‘on’ is like constantly idling a car. Ready to go, but never going. Achieving nothing, but still wasting energy and causing engine wear.

Never really stressed, but never fully recovered.

You might think that not being really stressed is a good thing. Unfortunately not. Here the degree of stress while inhibiting recovery is also too little to encourage an adaptive response.

Lose, lose.

Although abnormal, this has become an everyman no-man's land, and is the slow, steady drip that wears away rock. A constant low-level stress that, sooner or later, invites a response out of all proportion to a minor trigger - losing it. What further confuses the issue, is that we are then usually unable to act as our physiology demands.

You miss a promotion at work - okay, fight or flight then, what's it gonna be? Neither. Straight back to your inbox with just a change in blood pressure to show for it. Clearly, it's not appropriate to either run screaming from the building or to hang one on your boss, but this is where things get really twisted.

Cue:

Missed training session
2 bottles of wine / 6 pints
A tub of ice cream / kebab

Rather than addressing the stress, we instead look to dull our response to it, and, without fail, amplify its effect across the board. Sugar, refined carbs, alcohol and television, are the panaceas of modern life, and our inability to deal with it.

Soon enough, after repeated practice at ignoring our bodily cues, we lose all subjective measure of our true state of being. Any reference point to help us gauge what stress is, and isn't, has become skewed - as has our response to it. We all know exactly where this leads with the leading causes of death in the western world all stress related.

Image - Wikipedia

Some of us just let it all out, but what if that's not really an option?

We need to embrace both our ability to seesaw between stress and recovery, but also learn to put ourselves firmly in one camp or the other. Elite athletes learn to do this instantly - a high jumper at the Olympics, in front of a massive crowd and global TV audience can do this, in between jumps.

On - going for a world record.
Off - conserving energy for the next attempt.

We may not be attempting world records, but our health and quality of life depend on us learning to do the same. Knowing when to excite and when to inhibit is crucial to performance and health, but knowing is not enough. The autonomic nervous system that controls our response is exactly that - autonomous. Involuntary. You can’t ‘wish’ yourself relaxed.

[sidenote. If you ever want to raise someone's blood pressure - just tell them to relax. It's not going to work if you tell yourself either.]

So what can you do?

Well, first of all, you can create some reference points.

Not at every session, but every once in a while, hit your training HARD - learn to recognise what it feels like to really push yourself. Demand a response - SHOUT it. No pissing about the middle ground - you are aiming for a self-imposed 'car sinking.' Your training is one of few places in modern society where a full fight or flight response is not only possible but rewarded. Make the most of it.

But physical exertion alone won't cut it, and, more than anything, this demands your full attention - total engagement. Do you think you're checking your emails when the car is sinking?

This type of training teaches us a better adaptive response to stress. Any stress.

It also provides another crucial clue. Although this is an unconscious response, we still have a degree of control. Despite our body making no distinction between types of stressor - physical or psychological, as ever, it is how we frame it that decides the difference.

Eustress and Distress

Eustress is the good stress we all need to grow. This can be anything that challenges you and is defined not by what it is, but solely by the slant you put on it - positive challenge, or negative threat.

This will do me good
I'm getting better at this

Distress, of course, is the kind that leads to everything from a nervous breakdown to reduced immune function. Stress either in a form we can’t handle, or a volume we can’t deal with. Or both.

I can't handle this
I'm overwhelmed

Our body responds to perceived threat, and although it can have little to do with reality, this is a cognitive shift not to be confused with delusion or denial. The pressure kick after the siren follows a well-rehearsed visualisation and ritual that serves to convince the body and mind it's no different to any other.
This cumulative stress, both physical and mental, that arises from the demands of everyday life requires a recovery plan integrated into your daily routine.

At Leftfield we use a range of techniques to help elicit this parasympathetic response including;

diaphragmatic breathing
stretching
foam rolling
rocking

But there are many other things you can add to your day that will help tip the balance. Obviously, there is no point in making things difficult - quite the opposite.

Select just one of the following and start to incorporate it into your everyday routine.

[Hopefully, there will be some things here you are already doing, in which case, pick something else.]

Eat well
Drink enough water
Practice breathing deeply and slowly
Choose a relaxing activity you’re willing to do regularly. It could be yoga, a relaxing walk, swimming meditatively or just a warm bath
Practice gratitude - write down one thing you are grateful for at the start and end of each day
Identify things other than food and substances that make you feel satisfied and content
Reduce your exposure to noise or things with chemical smells, unnecessary arguments, excess, dishonesty, your inbox – anything you know that takes an avoidable toll
Sleep in total darkness
Ground yourself - go for a walk barefoot on grass

Of course, the best technique for stress management is (hopefully) something you are already doing - meditation. It's all very well to be stretching, but if you are still thinking about a report that's due, or a bill to be paid, then you remain in that no-mans land of mixed messages. In learning to meditate you also develop and cultivate mindfulness - an awareness of thought. This paying attention and simple noticing of thought is an obvious first step in any form of quality control - actually looking.

Aside from presenting a recovery from training, recognise that your training is in fact on the same side of the equation - a self-imposed stress that helps us to learn and encourage an appropriate adaptive response to those stressors we have no control over. This is recovery from life - a stress inoculation.

You can’t, and wouldn't want to, remove all stress from your life, but you can learn how to manage it. Either way, your body knows. If you think you can deny, deceive, disguise, or delay it, it is not your body that has been fooled.

REFERENCES:

http://www.drbuckeye.com/chronic-disease-and-autonomic-dysfunction

http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/blog/stress-the-real-epidemic/