Stress Management
Stress
Stress has become deeply rooted in our vocabulary. Everybody is stressed—and understandably so—global pandemics, uncertain economic futures, increasingly polarized political landscapes, and more, are affecting us all. In our work lives, stress can even become a bit of a measure of status—the more stressed out you are, the more valuable you and your time are. “Outwork your competition,” “Hard work beats talent,” or “Get up at 4 o’clock and dominate the world,” are all sayings that we have heard from self-help gurus—and many people try to live by their preachings.
Recovery from stressors
We are not advocating that hard work does not pay off. What we are saying is that there is another opposite variable of this equation that we need to consider, and that is recovery. You want to work as hard as possible, but not harder than you can recover from in the long run. If you want to get far in any aspect of life, then consistency is key! In order to be consistent, you need to be able to repeat your daily routine, day in and day out, without burning out. This means that you cannot work harder than what you can recover from. And your body doesn’t care what kind of stressors you are experiencing—whether they be relationship stress, stress from financial insecurity, or stress from a vigorous workout—your body is just adding them all up. It’s your job to recover from them.
Recovery variables
Here are some great variables to focus on, when trying to optimize recovery:
Sleep (higher quality and quantity is better)
Adequate nutrition (calories, nutrient ratio, and food quality)
Improve your fitness (higher Vo2 max is a good indicator)
Mental stress reduction (get on top of/address your problems with personal and work relationships)
Meditation
Breathing exercises
There are a wide range of devices that can aid in tracking the above variables. We are both currently using the Whoop band. Disclaimer: We have drunk the Whoop Kool-Aid, and we like it! The Whoop band measures your Heart Rate Variability (HRV) while you are sleeping to produce a percentage recovery score for the day. There are other devices that also measure your HRV. We believe this is the new gold standard for measuring recovery and stress in your life.
What is Heart Rate Variability, and Why Should I Care?
Let’s say your resting heart rate is 60 beats per minute. Your heart doesn’t actually beat exactly on every second. The measure of just how much variance there is between beats is your Heart Rate Variability. Research has shown that your HRV is a great indicator of your stress level. The higher your HRV score, the less stressed you are, and therefore the more recovered you are. If your HRV score plummets suddenly, it’s a great indicator that you may have a health issue that needs to be promptly addressed. Research has shown this to be the case with people leading up to heart attacks, and also with people who have contracted COVID-19. We have recently been doing HRV-driven training. This means we are seeing what our HRV scores are each day, and then we’re planning our training accordingly. That way, we ensure that we are not overtraining, and adding more stress to our lives than we have the ability to recover from.
We’ve identified what to work on—now what?
Let’s take them one-by-one. We have covered improved sleep strategies in another article. Here’s a link:
We have also delved into nutrition in a couple of articles. Check these out:
Calories-In/Calories-Out Theory Revisited
Things They Didn’t Teach Me At School
We’ve written about improving fitness quite a bit. Here are some links to those articles:
Training With A Tight Schedule
Mental stress is something we’ve both been working on a lot lately. We are both big advocates of The Wim Hof Method. If you haven’t checked out Wim Hof, it is well worth your time. We start every morning with Wim Hof’s Breathing Method, and then cold exposure. We like doing the breathing with Wim Hof in his app. It’s free and easy to follow along. This has some direct mental and physical benefits, but it also has the added benefit of giving you the time and clarity to assess your body, and the day in front of you.
Meditation is something we all know will help us—but are you doing it? We love the Headspace app and Waking up app with Sam Harris. The meditations are easy to follow, and if you give it a chance, you will improve at it over time.
A Way Forward in Unprecedented Times
With all these stressors flying around our lives these days, we really feel that monitoring your body, getting some concrete data on your stress levels, and then planning your training from there is the way forward. We don’t want to just bash ourselves down with hard training when our bodies cannot recover from it. If we do, our immune systems will also take a hit, and we will end up getting sick in one way or another. So find out exactly what’s going on with you, and use some of our tools to optimize your recovery.
We wish you strength, health, and happiness.
Scott & Lennart