Stress and How It Effects Us

Stress… it can come in different forms. Such as bad stress and good stress. Take negative stress for instance. This can be stuck in traffic when you're having road rage or when you may be at work and suddenly you just realized that you are not going to meet a deadline on time. These are instances of the environmental stressors that can actually effect us not only on a mental conscious level, but actually on a molecular level. When we encounter this type of stress which is called the "flight or fight" response our heart rate can skyrocket sending adrenaline to our working muscles. This can be useful in certain circumstances, but only for a short duration. Over time this can cause a build up of plaque in the arteriole walls of the heart possibly leading to atherosclerosis and a shorter life span. As you can see this is not beneficial to our overall health.

 

This response is caused by the sympathetic nervous system. The "fight or flight" system that causes stress. The other is the parasympathetic system which causes relaxation and digestion. This parasympathetic system is responsible for bring our minds and bodies back to ease and creating the rebuilding processes in which have to constantly be done. For most people they do not reach this system unfortunately. Even in sleep this system should be utilized. Some examples of ways to activate this system is by meditating which can be from 5 minutes to an hour, participating in a nice yoga session or any other mind body class such as Pilates, and just sleeping for the recommended amount of time of 7-9 hours. This can include short power naps to restore energy and the body's ability to focus on tasks throughout the day.

 

One way how to manage stress can be seen in a variety of ways such as going for a walk break during long task duration at work, cleaning up your nutrition, not looking at social media as frequently or using technology as frequently, and by participating in a core-strength training program. This benefit of exercising will not only provide you with bone strengthening movements that will improve health for over a lifetime, it will also provide the use of the "good" stress.

 

This "good" stress can come from a training program such as CrossFit because of the safe, always changing, and dynamic time durations. From the WOD'S (Workout of the Day) that are provided which usually lasts between 8 to 15 minutes can condition our heart to improve our heart rate, ability to utilize oxygen, bone density, and other beneficial health markers.

 

So as you can see there are certain ways how we can gain stress and utilize it to be effective and beneficial instead of only diverting to the negative version. I recommend trying out some of these benefitting suggestions to utilize the parasympathetic system and to harness the "good" stress in which we are always capable of attaining!

 

-Christopher H.