Stress Management
Stress management in terms of fitness, is the purposeful management of training stress and recovery strategies, which are the two fundamental pillars of why fitness works. Stress management is the umbrella for which all fitness and recovery strategies fall under, so an understanding of stress itself is necessary for anyone who wishes to follow a fitness regime.
Apologies for the length, but this is the principle in which all fitness success falls within so I need a bit more detail to keep it understandable.
Stress is… Complicated.
Stress is both the hero and the villain in our health and fitness story. Without it, there is no fitness story as there wouldn’t be anything to overcome and adapt to, but too much of it can potentially damage our health over time. So what exactly is “stress” ?
When I talk about stress here, I use it in two contexts, the stressor and the stress response.
The stressor
Any thought, feeling, action, or event which turns on the stress response.
Our thoughts, our feelings, our actions and the events in our life all have the ability to give a stress response affecting our physiology, psychology and therefore our behaviours. Stressors can potentially be anything in life, which is why stress management is at the top of our Lifestyle list. It is the overriding principle of change and adaptation within the brain and body, just like with fitness training.
The Stress Response
The collection of physiological, psychological and behavioral changes that occur from the release of stress hormones to help us deal with a stressor as well as adapt to future stressors
The stress response is the body’s response to a stressor caused by the release of stress hormones. As mentioned above, a stressor can include any thought, feeling, action or event which causes the release of stress hormones. These hormones are a normal part of everyday life and not to be feared as when they are managed, are necessary and actually a huge benefit to our fitness, our health and our lives.
Stress management
The stress response is the automatic response to a stressor as it is controlled by our autonomic nervous system. This means it is out of our conscious control and also why it is so important to be aware of. The system is divided into two sub systems, one controls the “output dial”, to trigger the release of stress hormones into the body to provide the necessary changes in body function and output to meet the demands of a stressor. The other controls the “recovery dial”, to calm the stress response, stop the release of more stress hormones and begin clearing any raised levels of stress hormones back to normal levels.
The important thing to remember is that these dials work in opposition to each other, meaning that when you turn up output, you also turn down repair and recovery. The body is constantly tinkering with these two dials to balance meeting the demands of the day with recovery. Effective stress management aims to consciously help this process out, by actively managing what we ask our body to do each day as well as try to balance it out with effective recovery efforts.
The best book I have read on stress and the stress response, which I would recommend to anyone is Robert Sapolsky’s “Why Zebras don’t get Ulcers”. It goes through every aspect of the stress response and its effects on all systems throughout the body as well as key stress management techniques.
Stress and Health
It can be very easy to turn our stress dial up in order to work for longer, train for longer and generally try to pack more into our days, but higher outputs come with a higher cost to the brain and body. Increased output comes with increased strain on the systems used, causing a little more wear and tear than usual. This was not usually a problem because when the system evolved, most stressors were short term. A rise in output to deal with a stressor and then a quick drop followed by repair work to fix, repair and maintain the system for the next rise in output.
Unfortunately, modern day living is not very in tune with this natural model of stress management, which is why we need to take conscious control of it. The imbalance of our output vs recovery dials can be a slippery slope for our health over time. If the wear and degradation of turning up our daily output is not counteracted with sufficient repair work, then our body’s natural ability to look after itself is weakened.
This is the fundamental principle of why stress is both the hero and the villain. Stress hormones are necessary to deal with a lot of life’s challenges, but if we keep the system running in overdrive without any of the countering repair work, it soon becomes the villain. This is one of the main reasons why stress can cause disease over time, not in and of itself, but through the constant imbalance of increased degradation and decreased repair work. This can then lead to kinks in our natural armor, weakening our body’s natural resistances to disease. This is why it is key to actively manage as well as balance the stress response with effective recovery, keeping the two systems balanced and stress hormones in check.
Modern living can tempt us into keeping both hands on our output dial, but we are not robots who can keep going without any consequences. We are a collective of biological systems which must be maintained, and we must actively manage both dials by actively managing our self and our life.
Stress management does not aim to stop all stress in our life but aims to keep the right kind of stress in our life as well as help us to better cope with, and recover from, the wrong kind. When stress hormones are managed well, transient mild to moderate rises in stress hormones can be great. This is known as being “stimulated” or “aroused” which is a positive state of increased bodily output and is necessary for our fitness training.
Stress and Fitness
In fitness terms, the stress response is necessary as stress hormones cause the necessary changes in the brain and body to better deal with the stressor of physical exertion. These changes are all brought about through the release of stress hormones into the bloodstream which then interact with all of the body’s systems to exert their effects. The greater the physical exertion demanded, the greater the rise in stress hormones needed to meet those demands.
Stress hormones cause changes in the brain and body to better meet the demands of training such as increasing heart rate to allow more blood flow to working muscles, increasing breathing rate to allow more oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, increasing muscular tension to meet the demands of more challenging movements, increasing focus and concentration to better control challenging movements, plus many more.
Stress and fitness go hand in hand. Stress hormones not only help meet the initial demands of a stressor but also aid the body in creating the changes and adaptations needed to better itself against the same stressor in the future. This is why taking additional stress hormones such as steroids can increase fitness adaptations to training and also why they are banned in most professional sports. Stress hormones and their effects on the body are necessary for successful fitness training and for the desired adaptations that follow.
Stress and perceptions
Stress hormones are released by the brain to have very real physical effects on the body. Both conscious and non-conscious thoughts and feelings can trigger a stress response, releasing stress hormones into the bloodstream exerting their effects on the body. This is why mental stress is physical stress.
Mental stress releases stress hormones just as physical stress does, meaning consistent distressing/negative thoughts can lead to stress hormones remaining at high levels in the body throughout the day, hindering its ability to repair and recover. One of the major problems with psychological stress is that it can continue over long periods of time, for days or even months if effective interventions are not taken. This then means that the body’s repair work is also lowered for days/months which can have negative effects on our ability to adapt to our training stress as well as our energy levels, our mood, our immune system, our digestive system, our reproductive system and our mental as well as general long term health.
A persons mindset and perceptions about the world can significantly impact their long-term health because of its impact on their stress hormones. This is why effective stress management must include active awareness of ones own thoughts and feelings as well as the use of strategies to cope with mental stress. Stress management can have general rules to help with stress but must also be tailored to the specifics of an individuals mindset.
Stress management can only accurately manage stress hormones by understanding an individuals mindset and perceptions in order to give effective strategies to manage their stress based on those perceptions. This is why an individuals fitness process must also be tailored to their mental resilience as well as their physical resilience, otherwise a fitness regime can actually negatively impact someone's health over time.
effective stress management
Stress management is the active awareness and management of our self as well as our life to best manage our output vs recovery for long-term success.
Stress, challenge and adversity are always going to be a part of life and a necessary one for growth. Learning and working to overcome adversity is what leads us to grow to reach our potential. Stress hormones are a big part of this process and effectively managing them is necessary to balance our daily struggles with our growth and long-term health.
This can be done via building resilience to our personal stressors, both mentally and physically to help defend against unwanted rises in stress hormones. Mental resilience increases the capacity to resist psychological distress, whilst physical resilience increases the capacity to resist physical distress. This means we must purposefully but safely expose our self to stressors in order to build a more resilient response. This is exactly what fitness training is, a purposeful but safe stressor that can increase our physical resilience over time.
Stress management also aims to use effective coping strategies to help blunt the maximal rise in unwanted stress hormones. The stress response can be reduced through a wide range of means such as exercise, eating delicious food, drinking alcohol, reframing a problem, venting to a trusted friend and many many more. We all use coping strategies every day, but we should actively work to make them benign to hurting others, our self and/or our goals in life.
The last key form of stress management is the use of effective recovery strategies which help us turn down the stress dial and turn up the recovery dial. This helps to manage stress hormones in the body as well as increase the body’s natural repair work. The rest of the lifestyle section ahead maps out the key areas which impact our body’s ability to repair itself, helping to reduce any negative effects stress hormones may have on our system throughout the day.
All of these strategies combine to give an effective stress management plan, which is effectively a problem solving plan for your self and your life. I focus on helping clients to build their physical resilience through positive and purposeful fitness training whilst helping to improve the other lifestyle factors which aid resilience, coping and recovery. This means managing their fitness regime to keep their training purposeful, positive and enjoyable as well as help them make their recovery strategies effective.
It is much easier to cope with training stress, as well as adapt after training, when our systems are in a well repaired and rested state and that is exactly what our lifestyle aims to achieve.
Important
Although we cannot always control the stressors in our life, we can work to actively balance our two systems by actively try to keep our work load and recovery positive, purposeful and effective. How we act during a stress will of course be highly dependent on the stress itself and our individual perceptions. If you are struggling with psychological stress or your reaction to stress is having a big negative impact on your life, it is well worth working with a trained professional to help you manage your stress better.