Reinventing Fitness - Stress reduction
- By Chris Hardwicke
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- 29 Jun, 2018
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How to improve your stress reduction?
All exercise, meditation and yoga programs will help you reduce stress. It is a primary reason for participation in these modalities. All of my clients have participated in other classes that had a calming effect on them, and we can tell you that none exceed the CALM AND STRONG sense we get from Frontier Movement.
Throughout our long history humans have been fight or flight, hunting and gathering animals. We have evolved to a point where we are rewarded for our hard labors with a calming high. We hear that exercise helps with the regulation, delivery, and uptake of serotonin, dopamines, endorphins, opioids, and endocanabanoids. We must note here that HARD EXERCISE AND REST are required for these chemical processes to occur. The “runner’s high” is just that—for runners; not joggers and walkers. “Fight or flight” is just what it sounds like—giving your best effort. Hard exercise sets up the delivery system for the natural high, and rest allows it to happen in full.
We must also re-learn how to rest. I use the word “re-learn” because many have forgotten how. Yoga and meditation are good ways to remember how to rest. However, their value is greatly reduced if the other side of the coin, hard work, is not present.
Let us take a look at our autonomic nervous system. This system regulates our bodily functions in an involuntary, reflexive manner. One aspect, the sympathetic nervous system, is our get-up-and-go mode switch as it is responsible for activating our fight or flight behavior. The other aspect, the parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for activating our rest systems and, in fact, is often called the “rest and digest” system. This mode is also necessary for effective recovery from hard work and to allow healing to occur.
If we look around in our society we see those who are wound-up and caffeinated with no apparent “off” switch. Working hard is all they do and often they are executives or self-employed. Yoga and meditation class, for them, is like throwing a fish out of the water; they flop around and cannot sit still. They are stuck in flight or flight mode. Learning yoga and meditation could prevent adrenal burnout and save their lives.
Conversely, we see those who seem to be in a trancelike or “stoned” state. They exhibit no energy and seem to have little enthusiasm in general. To them, exercise is a yoga class at most, yet they desperately need to re-regulate their autonomic nervous system. Like Rip Van Winkle, they are stuck in parasympathetic mode.
Frontier Movement allows you to actively develop these important aspects of yourself and to totally control the "on-off" switch to both; energy when you need it, and the ability to deeply rest or heal when you need it.
To quantify this and to measure improvement, all of us wear “heart rate monitors.” By design, we take our heart rates to the maximum. Fortunately this comes quite easily for those who are in poor physical condition. We alternate this maximal effort with a seated recovery for either three or four minutes. During this rest you can see that deconditioned clients do not recover from effort very well as their heart rate does not slow as far or as fast as fit individuals. The good news is that Frontier Movement improves this faster than any other modality!
We did a clinical trial involving 40 clients who recorded their heart rates for six months after starting our classes. We recorded their heart rates when they finished a work cycle and again at one, two and three minute rest intervals following that. In six months our clients improved Hear Rate Recovery by an average of 20 beats per minute!! In my long history of working with athletes this often took a year or more of intense exercise.
By training the heart and the rest of the body to go from maximal work to maximal rest as quickly as possible we stumbled on to the secret of these “on-off” switches for the autonomic nervous system. We can turn them on and off faster and deeper than we thought possible.
Our wound-up executives found their rest and healing switch, which enabled them to sleep like babies and to feel good while simply doing nothing. Our tired and lethargic folks found their energy returning and a new zest for life. Both groups have shown marked improvement in their immunity to common sickness. Learning to rest prevents sicknesses that come from exhaustion, as these individuals tend to bop-till-they-drop.
It is true that you can choose to rest or nature will force you. The group that has learned to move fast when appropriate will also build their immunity. Working at full capacity is a natural detoxifying process as toxins are released through sweat and urine. Rapid blood flow can also help with cellular detoxification. The high core temperatures associated with maximal effort can kill bacterial and viral invaders before they spread, in much the same manner as the body raises core temperature through a fever. For further information, please see the “Self Healing” section.
We are fight or flight, hunting and gathering animals. In our DNA are all the tools for energy creation. Through the Kreb’s cycle, we can convert ALL food to energy. We can live in excess of 40 days on water alone. We can walk 300 miles without anything other than water. Though it is occasionally not evident, we are the most highly evolved animals on Earth.
To better understand how we create more energy, we would do well to visualize a spiral. If we follow the line of the spiral we see that it moves up and then levels out, reaching an ever-increasing height. The same is true when we create energy. Our energy levels cannot simply rise straight up. We must also level out to create energy (rest).
If you have been sedentary for a long time and one day you decide to go jogging for a couple of miles, you will be tired for several days after. You will need to rest. Tiredness is the downside of the spiral. From just that one run, you have created more energy that is yours to use AFTER recovery. This increased energy is the upswing of the spiral. If you continue to run and rest, the spiral will go up and level out with the net result being a gain in energy. Our heart becomes bigger and our lungs more toned, the relevant jogging muscles are stronger and more efficient.
To return to our car analogy, our engine has become bigger and stronger. When running a couple of miles no longer challenges us we have ADAPTED to our running regimen. At this point, if we do not run faster, farther or longer we will not continue to increase our energy. Our current level of running will MAINTAIN our current level of ADAPTATION (energy level). If we stop running we will gradually go back down the spiral. If we do not allow for full recovery through proper sleep we will also see a drop in performance. Sleep is an important part of the leveling out of the spiral.
In a nutshell, we must work hard enough to go higher “up” the spiral, and then rest, through which we will adapt to higher and higher levels of energy.
You can feed all the fuel you want to a weak engine and it will still not go faster. You can cleanse the fuel lines all you want and you will not increase YOUR performance if your engine is small and weak.
We have total control of our energy level. We are responsible for creating our own energy. If you do not have any, you have created the weak engine I am talking about. It is very easy to look to cleanses and supplements, but a strong engine can run very well for a long time on junk food, much as putting cheap gas in your car often takes 100,000 miles to have a negative effect.
In our car analogy, we fixed everything but the engine and still we had no better performance. A big difference between human engines and car engines is that if you park your car in the garage for a few years, the engine remains just as powerful. The human engine, however, will actually shrink. Your entire system can get clogged by parking it on the couch too long and not taking it out for a good drive once in a while. If you only drive it to work and back it won’t continue to run well for long. You will see what I mean when you finally “floor it” and black smoke pours out of the exhaust! It may even stall! Quick, before it’s too late, let’s make this thing run right, faster, and longer.
Why don’t you have some coffee, sugar, or fruit? That ought to pick you up! How about an energy drink with some wild sounding jungle herbs? Most of us regularly look for energy in a particular food or drink and we are eventually forced to acknowledge that it does not work.
We have an epidemic of blood sugar problems (hypoglycemia) that affect an estimated 60% of this country. In fact, most companies give workers a break at 10 a.m. and often this is not because they are generous, but productivity has markedly slowed. At this point you have only been at work for two, at most three, hours! Certainly you are not already out of energy. Notice that your break room is filled with caffeine, candy, and salty and sweet carbohydrates in hopes of kicking you back into productivity.
Further notice that the great ‘medication stations”—convenience stores— that are filled from one end to the other with these items! I can fix your “Blood Sugar” problem such that you can fully access energy you already have, but that will NOT create more!
Many alternative modalities promise to remove “blocks” to your energy or increase the flow of energy. Often “cleansing” of some type is recommended. Notice that removing blocks and increasing FLOW are NOT the same as creating MORE energy. For a better understanding of energy, I shall use a car for my analogy.
Let’s say that the tube that carries gasoline to the engine (the fuel line) is clogged. The car runs poorly. When you clear the “blockage” you “increase the flow” of fuel to the engine. While this is important and I often recommend energy-flow work, you will NOT have MORE energy, but full access to the energy you already had.
How about if the carburetor is not mixing the air and gasoline correctly? Again the car runs poorly. Many vitamin and supplements companies make “increased-energy” claims based on improving your fuel mix. While supplements and diet can sometimes correct nutritional deficiencies, you will only have better fuel, not more fuel. This is very important as better fuel is necessary for high performance. Many people in third world countries suffer from malnutrition and cannot perform well. However, you and I are likely getting everything we need for our day-to-day performance and even our “weekend warrior” athletics. Body builders, high school, college and professional athletes may well need supplements if their diet is less than perfect but I’m willing to bet that quality fuel is not your problem.
For now, let’s assume that your fuel system is clean enough and you eat a good enough diet. If this is the case, and most often it is, the cause of your lack of energy is that your motor is small and inefficient and that nothing you put in the gas tank can change that!
