Battling stress through rest and fitness
Fabio Comana: Listen to your body.
They say that stress is the number one killer, and the hard truth is it’s impossible to completely remove stress from your life. Countless books and self-help articles suggest different ways to distract oneself from stress temporarily. Meditation, exercise, and superfoods can only do so much but ultimately, stress is an inevitable reality that we all need to face. Fortunately, fitness industry experts have found a way to train the body to better adapt to stress.
In a recent workshop in the Philippines, Fabio Comana, a decorated exercise physiologist and educator who has worked with the biggest certifying bodies in the fitness industry, explained the importance of rest and recovery in battling stress.
As a faculty instructor for the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and faculty member in Exercise Science and Nutrition at San Diego State University and UC San Diego, he got into pretty technical details about how exactly stress affects the body and how we can best cope with it. We’ll just cover the basics.
Let’s say something is stressing you out. Maybe you’re late for an important meeting, your boss is mad at you, your child is sick or you’re just stuck in traffic (doesn’t that stress us all out lately?). Your body is programmed to respond to that stressor. It activates a “flight or fight” response in your nervous system.
Have you ever noticed that before a big presentation or exam, you always feel like you have to use the restroom? Or that you begin to sweat uncontrollably or even stress eat? These are all biological responses your body has towards stress.
All are normal and healthy. Your body was designed to cope with this temporary stress and then return to normal. The problems arise when the stress never leaves and your body doesn’t return to its baseline. This prolonged period of stress would lead to elevated levels of cortisol, which may lead to inflammation and disease. Even more, sustained levels of cortisol can block the buildup of muscle and the breakdown of fat. Without even knowing it, stress could be undoing all the hard work you put in at the gym and in the kitchen. Stress could be the hidden roadblock to your fitness gains.
How do we monitor cortisol and manage stress? The short answer is, we can’t yet. Right now, monitoring cortisol levels in the blood is a very expensive and tedious process.
Instead, you can check your level of recovery with this easy method that you can do anywhere without any equipment at all:
• Take a notebook and a pen or the notepad on your phone. First thing in the morning, every day, check your heart rate for 30 seconds. Afterwards, for the next 30 seconds, focus on checking your heartbeat pattern — is it steady or varied (no rhythmic pattern)?
• Then check your breathing pattern for a minute. After you exhale, while breathing normally, how many seconds can you last before you need to take another breath? Track these all down diligently.
If your heart rate is heightened and your heartbeat pattern is steady, or you need to take breaths within a shorter time interval, then you are not fully recovered. Chances are, the levels of cortisol are still elevated in your body. Your priority for that day should be recovery more than anything else.
Fabio Comana reminds us all that rest and recovery is an integral and non-negotiable part of the training cycle. Learn to listen to your body. Track the biological signals that it sends in the form of your heartbeat or your breathing pattern and learn what these mean.
When you’re feeling too stressed, don’t be afraid to skip heavy training for the day. If you really need to sweat it out, focus on recovery work such as foam rolling, stretching, and yoga. You’ll come back even better. That’s called training smart.
Always remember to take care of yourself so that you can continue to do the things you love. Working out is our passion and therapy; the last thing we want is to lose the precious energy that we need to push ourselves every single day. Your body is constantly trying to tell you things. You just have to listen to it.
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Post me a note at mylene@goldsgym.com.ph or mylenedayrit@gmail.com.
