Stress is Killing Your Gains
Don’t believe me? Check with science! They’ll tell you that cortisol, the hormone released during stressful periods, although helpful in small doses can actually cause significant problems in large doses.
Also, I’ve come to find that prolonged stress leads to physical injury. When under stress, our bodies create cheat patterns for breathing and movement that if not addressed quickly can cause soreness, aches, pains and injury at various points on the body.
Emotional stress comes as a result of uncertainty or not getting what we want. It can also come as a result of any past situations where we didn’t get what we want and we hold onto the story of how we were screwed over. These are normal human emotions and thought patterns. Trying to change this is futile. So just knowing these are normal reactions is a great place to start. Now, finding ways to deal with uncertainty or not receiving a desired outcome can help you quickly extinguish stress and move on from a flood of cortisol or disruptive movement patterns in the body.
Some forms of emotional stress are not as common to identify. For instance, recently I thought I was mostly stress free, but have been dealing with a nagging shoulder injury. I had some emotional stress that I had been ignoring and/or masking and instead of bringing it up and dealing with it, I chose to lock it away. The result was should pain.
The body is quite amazing. It can give you queues to help address stress and also queues to help you begin to look for stress within what your ego wants to hide from your awareness.
This is where our relationships are so important. Having someone to talk to is key to help you unlock stressful emotions that we are not aware of. Communication with someone that is detached from your emotional stress can bring up great points in things your ego hides from your awareness. It’s up to you then to choose how to implement their advice.
In addition to regular communication, taking quiet time alone with your thoughts and muscle activation can allow you to bring stress to the light. By setting emotion to the side, you can understand what is going on and find sound solutions. Personally, I like taking time, especially in the evening to do a 15-minute total body BeActivated session. I quiet my mind, I run through my activation points, I become aware of the things that are bothering me and can come to much better solutions.
If you are dealing with pain, consider finding ways to work with your stress. Do not hide or mask it, bring your problems out into the open and literally deal with them. Then use communication and muscle activation to work through these situations. Try this for yourself and see if it contributes to alleviating pain.
