5 Minute Facts - Stress for Performance

This is episode 228 of the Empowered Team podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Welcome. Welcome to Performance Power. This is our monthly call. We don't do this often, just once a month. And it's all about the topics that will increase your physical performance. The exercise, nutrition, the training, the injury, whatever is there for you. So today we get to dive into our topic of stress in our five minute facts. So this is where I dive into the research and today I want you to come out of of looking at the topic of stress with a little more clarity, a little more calm and a few more tools that you can use to de stress. So here's where we start with our five minute facts. Fact number one, with stress, this is a physical or mental response to an external stimulus. So it could be a cause. And typically that cause whatever the stimulus is goes away and then the stress goes away in an ideal world, right? So it creates a physical response in us, perhaps a headache, perhaps a faster heartbeat. Those could be some of the stress symptoms that we get when we have this external thing coming at us like the holidays coming, like moving, whatever the external stressor is. So it's a physical or mental response. That's fact number one. Fact number two, this is that we have what's called a positive stressor or a negative stressor. And this is called eustress. If it's a positive stressor or distress, if it's a negative stressor, typically what most of us are calling distress is just stress. So that's fact number two. But there's a thing called eustress. So we got to remember that and that's what we're going to get to so that we can really use our stress for the best. Fact number three, the symptoms of stress are in four different categories. There's emotional, physical, cognitive and behavioral. So those are the four categories of the symptoms of our stress. If it was something like emotional, it could be an agitation feeling or overwhelm or having a really hard time relaxing. That could be a emotional response. A physical symptom might be headaches, aches or pains in our body. Might be a rapid heartbeat, frequent colds or, or suppressed immunity or even sexual dysfunction. And there are so many more physical stress symptoms as well. And cognitive would be things like racing thoughts, forgetfulness, poor judgment, or even chronic pessimism. And for behavioral, we might see things like changes in appetite or Increase in consumption of alcohol or drugs or even fidgeting or pacing. Some different behaviors that aren't normal for us. So those would be some of the symptoms and just a few of the symptoms of stressful responses. So fact number four, and this is one of the other things that happens with stress is long term stress. So, so let's say that particular external stressor keeps coming at us, so that same stressor keeps coming at us. Then we might have some of those physical or cognitive or emotional or behavioral responses for a long span of time. And if that happens with stress, then we're looking at potential mental health problems. We're looking at depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, potentially stroke, high blood pressure, heart attacks, obesity, eating disorders, menstrual problems, sexual dysfunction, skin, hair and GI or GERD or gastrointestinal problems, and the list goes on. That is just a fraction of what long term stress can cause. Now this is not meant to be a depressing episode at all. This is meant to be an elevating episode. This is to clarify, so let's get into fact number five and that's where eustress comes in. And eustress is the thing that can be a positive stressor. This is energizing. Eustress tends to boost our mood, it improves our well being, it increases our confidence and increases our productivity as well as improves our performance. So there have been many, many research studies. When we look at top performance in high end athletes, there's an optimal zone of stress, there's an optimal zone of excitement and if someone is overexcited, they get into more of a stressful state and it decreases in performance. But when they're at that ideal stress zone, that's when the performance is optimal. So you don't want extra stress and extra excitement. You want this key zone for performance. That that's why some people say I do better when I'm busier, I do better when it's a deadline. I perform better when fill in the blank when they feel or perceive that stressor coming at them. But it's just at that sweet spot where they're in use stress and they can keep pumping out the productivity or even increase the productivity. So that's what EU stress can cause for us. Now when we're stressed, whether it's eustress or distress, both are affecting our autonomic nervous system. So even if we're in the good stress or the not so good stress, both of them have the responses in our autonomic nervous system like increasing adrenaline or cortisol, taking us out of our comfort zone. Those are the effects of our autonomic nervous system. So these are happening whether it's good stress or not so good stress. So we could have something like a distressful situation, could be moving, it could be an increase or even just a change in workload. It could be a financial stressor. But some things that can contribute to eustress could be things like progress on problem solving, being proactive on a particular problem, or an issue at work. Getting a new promotion could cause you stress. Training for a first competition can cause you stress. Moving. Going for a move can also be you stress. Moving doesn't have to be just stressful or just distress. Moving could be eustress as well and cause a positive response. Another one that we want to add as a bonus is the five ways that you can prevent the distress and add in more or support the eustress. And these are some things that you've probably heard before. But there's a critical component here, and I subtly pointed to it when we looked at the difference between the eustress and distress. And it's that when I gave an example, I gave the example of moving, I also gave the example of moving in eustress. So one of the biggest things about stress is the framing or the perspective of the person experiencing it. So if you're experiencing that thing and someone else is experiencing that same thing, how you perceive it is critical to the result of what's going to happen to you physically, cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally. So if you perceive that thing to be very discomfort uncomfortable, very disruptive, then you're likely going to have more of a stressful response. And if it continues on over a long span of time, then expect your production to go down, your performance to go down in all aspects. But if you perceive this as something that's growing you or something that's challenging you to be better, then that can make the massive difference between what stress is actually doing for you. So here are five ways to prevent distress and support eustress. So number one is what I just said is that framing or perspective how you perceive what's going on. Number two is focusing on what you can control. If we focus on what we can't control, then we're elevating our stressful state. So focusing on what we can control. Number three, meditation or breath work, this is going to help us with our focus, help us with our perspective, really get into a position where we can step way back and get perspective. So meditation and breath work. And number four, asking for Help some sort of support. If something comes at you that's challenging, one of the best things we can do is talk to somebody who's been through it or has expertise in that area to support whatever you're experiencing. And number five, and I think this is really critical for everyone. However, I think it's more familiar to a group like this and it's that we can train our stress response. One of the fantastic things that we get as a result of doing intense breath work, say Wim Hof breathing, or we do extreme cold or we experience extreme heat like a sauna, what that does is it physiologically trains our stress response. So one of the things that we can do for longevity is train or stress ourselves. If we stress our cells with heat, with extreme breath work with extreme cold, we get an increased performance in our mitochondria and also potential for increased longev. However, the other stress that we're experiencing, the one that feels like we're out of control, the one feels like our cognitive bases are going off the rails, that's the stuff that decreases our longevity. So we can physically train our stress response by letting our brain know that even when we're experiencing the faster heart rate, the feeling like we can't breathe, the extreme cold or extreme heat, and we know we're in a safe space or an intense workout, all of that type of stress trains our ability and our cellular ability to handle other day to day stressors. So that's what I wanted to really emphasize on this topic of stress is that we can have a really powerful element of control over how we manage stress. There are so many options that way. Okay, so that is our five minute facts on the topic of stress and the science in stress as a, as a thing that we deal with on the day to day. So what are your questions? We'll start off with any questions on the topic of stress in the beginning and then we'll take in anything that's training, nutrition, recovery, injury, you name it. So what do you have pop up your hand or pop it in the chat? Questions on stress or other. You can bring your other questions too. If you don't have any questions on stress, bring it anyone. You are curious people. I know you're curious people. Can unmute yourself or you can pop it in the chat.

I guess I have one question. Like when you want to build muscle mass. Yes, I know that you have to have time in between. Like you stress the muscle and then you have to let it respond to that demand and all that. What's the Ideal time frame between two workouts for the same area of the body.

Okay, so you may have heard of dom's delayed onset muscle soreness and doms. That delayed onset muscle soreness is typically going to happen in a 40. Your, your peak of it is typically a 48 hours. So you're usually petering off of that delayed onset muscle soreness around 72 hours. Now that's not exactly answering your question. The ideal time in between depends on the intensity of the bout. So for instance, if the bout of exercise was really low intensity, like walking, that someone was accustomed to walking, they've walking a lot, then they can probably walk every day, walk multiple times a day because that intensity was really low. If the intensity of the bout of exercise was really high, and that's why I use delayed onset muscle soreness as an example, if that intense bout was really high and caused more muscle damage, more tearing, more breakdown, more inflammation, then there typically needs to be that 48 hours that day in between that bout of exercise. Then they're usually okay with one day or two days in between that particular movement pattern, muscle group, joint demand, whatever they just did, they're usually good within that one to two days in between repeating that same type of movement. So a general rule of thumb be a couple things is one, you, you really listen to the body going by what is the muscle soreness telling telling you what is the, what is the inflammation telling you? And another one is in, in coaching There's a 10 rule is not increasing things by more than 10%. When you're at a really high level of coaching, you usually have to get results faster than 10 increments. So you're, that's where you have to utilize a lot of feedback from the person. So whether it's yourself and going okay, where's my body at? That was so easy, I think I can improve that by 30% on my next go because it was, I had no soreness, I had no problems, I felt like I could do more. But if it felt like it was really hard, I had lots of soreness and I gave myself a day or two of recovery in between, then I might only improve, increase the, the load or intensity by about 10%. If that was the case, and that's very true in rehabilitation and recovery as well. Just same exact concept because it's all going to be inflammation and breakdown, inflammation and breakdown, whether it's a functional healthy scenario or a dysfunctional healing scenario kind of thing. So that was a lot of words on that. Does that, does that give You a, a good snapshot there. And you're, you're a professional in this as well. So it's going to be one of the things that you notice in, in your healing practices, I'm sure.

Yeah. I was just curious what your take was on it because you had so much more experience working with athletes than I do.

Yeah, yeah. And that's the, that's the intensity of it and also always playing with that edge of. You're always right on the edge of too much. So we're, we're doing this thing called overreaching all the time in high performance sport because you don't want to get into the zone of over training or burnout to, to a regular person. But all those blood markers that would come with over training. But we do want to be an overreaching, overreaching and then when we pull back into recovery or some sort of downloading or tapering, then that recovery has this what's called a super compensation. So then after the recovery, they get this big, huge boost in performance after they've been overreaching, overreaching, overreaching, and then download and then big super compensation and performance after that. So it's a really powerful thing, which we can do this on day to day life, but it's not something that it's usually the kind of thing that we leave to a school curriculum schedule or a vacation schedule or the holiday season, because that's the only time we get this kind of pullback or push forward instead of planning it ahead of time. Yeah.

Thank you.

No problem. Thank you for that question. That was awesome. Teshna, other questions, what else do we have? Specific questions. What do you got? Training, recovery, injury, nutrition. What's happening with you? Everybody's got it dialed in. I've got a couple questions here that got sent in to me. One was about steps per day. So one was about the number of steps per day, ideal steps per day. And I've, I've mentioned this a fair bit before, but for this particular person, they were asking about the steps per day in and how much they can increase it. And again, it's that 10% rule. But ideally, if people are getting around 10,000 steps a day, that's a fantastic rule of thumb that's been shown to be optimal in overall health. Well, being performance. Now somebody who's generally really healthy and getting 10,000 steps a day, they're not doing it an all in one bout. They're not going and crushing their workout and then doing 10,000 steps and then doing nothing. The rest of the time, what that typically looks like is someone who owns a dog and can't just let their dog out in the backyard and they have to go and exercise the dog, otherwise the dog's going to chew some things in the house. And so what it means is things like they get up and play with the dog in between meetings, if they're at home, they walk the dog in the morning, they walk the dog at lunchtime, they walk the dog after work. And that's this small bout accumulation of exercise that will build up the steps throughout the day and have what is ideal for our physiology and our blood markers and our overall health. That really helps us in terms of all the things we want for longevity and performance. Interject your questions because I got other questions that other people have asked and sent in. One person asked which is more important with only 30 minutes, my lifting workout or my mobility or just getting some steps in getting some walking in. So if anyone wants to answer their potential thoughts on that in the chat, please do. Which is more important because this is going to be individually dependent, so it's going to be lifestyle dependent. It's going to be what your goals are. It's going to depend on that. For this particular person, because I know who this person is who asked this. For this particular person, I would do a combination of getting some steps in and some mobility in. So I would do a combo. If there's 30 minutes, it for me, if it were me and I had 30 minutes and I hadn't been able to work out and I was on the road, then I would do a combination of something that if I had no gym, it'd be something that was body weight, weight work that combined mobility and strength. That's what I would do. And I would get the steps in. So I'd be doing probably, I'd probably do 10 minutes of steps, do 15 minutes of, of, of some strength work or mobility work and then maybe get five more minutes of steps if I had that time or maybe a little stretch, that's how I would take 30 minutes and maximize it. Because if there's one thing that, that is really going to hold us back when it's diminished or neglected day after day, it's our mobility is going to be a really kick in the pants when we can't move and, and that's a tough one to deal with. Okay, add in what thoughts or questions that you have on that one. I have a question.

Could you be more specific about what you would do exactly if you were like Driving around and you don't have gym and all that stuff. What, what kind of exercise are you talking about? Push ups and sit ups and stuff like that or what are you talking about using just your body weight like that?

Yeah, absolutely. Those, those in particular I would do lunges. I would do lunges, squats, push ups. If I have like you have, you won't believe some of the places I've done pull ups in on the, on the underside of, of stairs like I will if I can find something to do a pull up on, I will do it. If I'm traveling and I don't have access to a gym. Yeah. So anything that I can push I can pull. But. And I'll make it harder if I can in whatever way I can. If I've got a big rock, if I've got suitcase, if I've got a backpack or a bag that I'm traveling with, I will use that as load and I will squat, I will lunge, I will lateral lunge, I will. If I need to get the most out of those muscle fibers, I'm going to jump. So that's going to give me. That's going to 10x and more the load that I would have gotten from just the exercise with my body weight alone. So I will do something like explosive work or jumps. But yes, definitely lunges, push ups, planks, sit ups. If I'm on an airport floor then I'm a little more picky about actually putting my body on the floor. I will only do things like I'll only do things that touch my hands and my feet to the floor. I won't actually put my body on the floor and then I'll go and wash my hands. So yes, things like that. That's exactly, exactly it. And I'll try to double up where I'll do a movement that will get a little bit of strength work plus mobility. So that might be a single legged rdl. So a single legged Romanian deadlift, that, that hinge at the hip, those types of things. So yes, exactly that.

Are you. Connelly took the words out of my mouth. I was going to say that lifting or weights or strength, whatever the question was the term there and mobility don't have to be mutually exclusive. And I was going to say like walking lunges or even just static lunges are like such a prime example as well as kettlebell swings or kettlebell snatches, overhead squats, even just a front squat or if you're more used to a back squat or vary that out is kind of the most quintessential options that I would use to incorporate both strength and mobility all in one.

Absolutely.

It's like a plyo of sorts, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Here's how I know I've had success with that. I train in the gym three times a week, meaning weight train. So if I've traveled and I just did this a couple of weeks ago, I traveled and I was at a friend friend's house and at their house, I didn't have the time to go to a gym based on the conference I was in. But at their house, they had some say 5 to 20 pounds weights, which is less than what I'm typically working with. But I was able to do my prescribed that I made scheduled workout and do it in such a way that incorporated those lighter weights, but because I added some jumps, because I did it with such a focus. So the more you think about the muscle group you are working, the more fibers you will work, you will recruit. So you can recruit more fibers from that area that you're working if you're thinking about it. So between thinking between very purposeful movement, between slowing it down at certain ranges and adding explosive explosivity or explosive movement right after then, I was able to come away from that workout with less weight than I would normally use, but with the same amount or a little more soreness because I put so much more energy and effort and focus into it. So if you want it and you are purposeful, you can absolutely maintain at a bare minimum and even progress a little bit if you're on the road for a short span of time and, and stay on track without losing ground, even if you've been traveling a week or two. So that's really good. Yeah, absolutely. Those are fantastic movements, Andrew. Yeah. And. And keeping with the overhead work, all it's going to take. You don't need a lot of weight for overhead work. Overhead lunges, overhead squats are going to demand a lot from the body. So. Amazing. Amazing. Thank you. We have time for one more question before we are finished for today. What do you have Any other questions that are burning before I tackle this? One other that came to me recently. Any other burning questions? Okay, we've got another one here. I don't see everybody's hand. Okay. I just want to make sure I can see everyone. Another question here was winter eating is different. I don't know about you, but your winter eating might look different than your summer eating. Now, biologically, we're actually meant to eat different things based on different seasons. Our. Our digestive enzymes support certain foods in certain seasons and biologically we're supposed to go with that. So technically eating blueberries in January really wasn't what our bodies are designed to do. And they've done a lot of research on animals like deer and humans and monkeys. And we, we are our gut, we respond differently to different seasons and different stimuli. So the stuff that we crave in the winter and colder months, we're supposed to. It's the, it's typically the root vegetables, it's the comfort foods. It's things like that we're typically supposed to because we're supposed to be adding a little extra caloric density, maybe a little bit extra fat. And that's a great time. If you're training to be able to train a little bit harder to add more muscle density, that's a great opportunity for that time that you might be craving different foods that are more winter based or comfort foods. So that's how I would respond to that without knowing the exact foods and assuming that they're not just going for the caramel popcorn and things like that. So that's what we'll leave you with today. I love blueberries too. I know. They're like my favorite pomegranate though. Pomegranate season. I'm so into the pomegranates. So make fingernails.

Gotta wash your hands right after like dish soap. I was walking around with like red fingernails when I was like addicted to pomegranate. It's like, what the hell is happening? And then I was like, oh, there's literally staining. I can't wear white clothing with it. My fingernails are stained. What is happening?

That's me.

And beats too. I'm a beat lover and I have beats everywhere. So beats are so fantastic. So thank you for joining in today. Bring your questions for next month too. Pop them in, send them in to us and we will make sure that we either create a topic around it or we get your questions addressed on our performance Power. Have a great rest of your day everyone. Keep showing up. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team is our group coaching and accountability program where we provide the tools, skills and community for you to grow your self mastery as a leader and optimize your results alongside other leaders. The Empowered Team runs year round to learn more about our leadership consulting for business and our Empowered Team group coaching. Head to www.theempowered.caempowered. learn more. That's www.theempowered.ca empowered. Dash. Learn. Dash more. We can't wait for you to join us. Let's go.