We’ve been working on this post for a while, but Life got in the way. (Alternate story: Dallas is better at starting projects than finishing them.)  Nonetheless, we’d like to talk about recovery. No, not economic recovery—though that would be lovely—but physiological recovery from the stressors placed upon us by our modern physical world.

Rest vs. Recovery

These two words, “rest” and “recovery,” have distinctly different meanings when applied to health, fitness or athletic contexts. Recovery can encompass many different behaviors and strategies, but it is fundamentally different than just resting.

Rest is simply the absence of effort or movement—the absence of exertion. Think taking a day off from exercise or sport, napping, chilling on the couch, rotting your brain with Jersey Shore or Lost reruns, and going to bed nice and early so you get adequate sleep. All of that is fine and good, but resting is only one small part of true recovery.

Recovery is the restorative process by which you regain a state of “normalcy”; healthy and in balance. (If your “normal” is not “healthy,” perhaps you should spend some time considering that.) Recovery is far more than just taking a day off from training. Genuine recovery includes adequate rest, but also must include the engaged, deliberate execution of a cogent plan to offset the (physical and psychological) cost of your training.

In his 2010 All Banged Up post, Dallas wrote:

“I see more sub-acute and chronic injuries resulting from inadequate recovery from exercise (especially with high-intensity programs), than resulting from an acute or traumatic incident. The primary fault lies with inadequate or improper recovery from exercise, not the type or intensity of exercise. (To put it another way, it’s not that you’re hurting yourself doing pull-ups – more often than not, it’s because you’re not properly recovering from those pull-ups.) I believe that a high-intensity exercise program is both effective and sustainable life-long only when combined with good nutrition and recovery practices.”

Merely taking a day or two off from exercise when you’re feeling overtrained (or All Banged Up) is, to put it bluntly, the slacker’s version of “recovery.” One of the many things that has been underscored during our training with Rob MacDonald of Gym Jones is that recovery requires just as much (or more!) discipline as training itself. Which means if you’re training hard, a case could be made that you should spend more time focused on recovery than you do on training itself.

Don’t have that much time in your busy, stressful life? It might mean a little less training and a little more time spent on recovery.

Still don’t think that’s really necessary? Maybe you just don’t realize how stressful your life really is.

Stress is Stress

Let’s review the biological concept of hormesis as it relates to recovery. Hormesis is an adaptive process that occurs as the result of a specific “dose” of a stimulus. In simple terms, you could summarize it as “the dose makes the poison” meets “what doesn’t kill you might make you stronger.” Hormesis describes the dose-specific response to a stimulus; whether something’s net effect is beneficial, harmful, or neutral depends on the “dose.”

Another way to put it is, “some is good, but more is not better.” Hormesis is at the core of our favorite refrain, “context matters,” and is reflected in our Whole9 Health Equation as the balance of Stress vs. Recovery. Why all the focus on stress?

During his recent Paleo(fx) presentation, Dr. Daniel Kalish said, “Psychological stress and physical stress are virtually indistinguishable in the body.” We wanted to give him a standing ovation for that. What does that mean, in terms of hormesis and our Health Equation? If you’ve got a ton of psychological stress, that costs you something. It costs you recovery capacity. It cuts into your reserves. In fact, being chronically psychologically stressed is probably more damaging than overtraining or under-sleeping, though those are obviously poor behaviors, too.

Think about your own life. Ask yourself if your “dose” of a stressor is appropriate for your context. There are lots of examples of stressors: intermittent fasting, high-intensity exercise, under-eating, cold showers or acute exposure to cold, caffeine intake, eating extremely hot peppers… the list is long.

A “stressor” isn’t necessarily a bad thing – but the application of that stressor in that dose in a context already saturated with a high stress load may be detrimental to your health.* If you’re a parent with an infant (and thus some degree of sleep deprivation/disturbance), a busy job, and some financial stress, do you think the net effect of getting out of bed at 5:00 AM five days a week to do high-intensity exercise is positive? Likely not. (If we just described your life, please… just stay in bed.)

*This is one of the reasons why we rarely recommend intermittent fasting to our consulting clients. Unsurprisingly, most of them are on the “too much” side of the stress scale, rating their daily stress at an average of 8 out of 10. These folks don’t have any “reserve” left to offset an additional stressor, which means adding IF on to their current health equation would do them more harm than good. IF may be a perfectly appropriate tool for other folks with different contexts, but it’s not for everyone.

Minimum Effective Dose

Exercise is an excellent example of hormesis in action. An appropriate “dose” of physical stress provokes a positive adaptation in your body (you get fitter), but dosing progressively larger and larger amounts of exercise can be seriously detrimental to your health.  Make no mistake – excessive training (or, perhaps stated more accurately, under-recovering) can and commonly does have serious health consequences. And what look like “reasonable” training for one person might be way more stress than a different person has the capacity to adapt to.

Clif Harski, among other Smart People we know, talks about the “minimum effective dose,” that sweet spot on the hormesis graph. This is where healthy adaptation is occurring, but you’re on the safer side of the stress curve, not revving at the redline day in and day out. In the case of exercise, doing none is pretty unhealthy, but doing too much is unhealthy too.

The real key is to find that sweet spot, where you’ll have optimal adaptation to the stressor without reaching the point of diminishing returns–or worse, when the exercise “takes” more from your health than it gives back. Like with other stressors, exercise is dose-dependent, and the appropriate dose for you depends almost entirely on you, your context, and your goals.

Are you Under-Recovered? Here are a few things to look for:

1. You used to be excited about going to the gym – not so much anymore.
2. Your performance (or lack thereof) is seriously stressing you out , and a poor workout ruins your day.
3. You’ve got chronic muscle soreness after every workout, and/or that lingering “shoulder thing” that just won’t seem to heal.
4. Your sleep pattern has become irregular.
5. Even though you’re in bed for enough hours, you never feel well-rested in the morning.
6. You need a Monster drink or three espressos to get fired up for your training sessions.
7. You crave carbohydrates (sugar!) more than you used to.
8. You’re getting sick a lot, or just can’t seem to kick that cold you picked up.
9. You’re training hard and “eating right” but that little belly just isn’t going away.
10. You’re actually gaining fat, instead of losing it.

Any of this resonate with you?

So how does all this connect back to actual recovery? In order to progress forward with health, there must be a relative balance between Stress (such as exercise) and Recovery. Otherwise, you’re writing checks your body can’t cash, eventually ending up beat down and “overdrawn.”

In case you’ve not experienced this eye-opening phenomenon firsthand, take our professional word for it: it takes a lot longer to recover from an overdrawn state than it took to get you there in the first place. Like paying off debt, it’s a prolonged and generally miserable process. We’re not trying to scare you – we’re simply sharing what we know in the hopes that it will save you some heartache. Take it or leave it.

Recovery 101

You don’t get fitter when you are training. Whether you CrossFit, or Zumba, or swing kettlebells, or run marathons… you get fitter when you are recovering from that training.

Being committed to recovery means that sometimes you don’t train hard, even if you really want to, and even if everyone else is doing it.

A commitment to recovery may mean that you take ice baths sometimes.

It means that when all you want is pizza and a beer, you choose a nutritious meal instead.

It means that you put away the computer/TV/smartphone/video game and go the heck to sleep.

It means that you spend some intimate time with your foam roller, lacrosse ball, stick, ice pack, or other self-care tool/torture device.

It means that you watch and learn from Kelly Starrett getting his supple leopard on.

It may mean that you seek out a reputable practitioner of your preferred therapeutic approach: massage, Rolfing, acupuncture, chiropractic care, naturopathic or functional medicine.

It might mean that you use your noggin’ and take a pass on a race or competition that really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of Your Life and Health.

It might even mean that you revisit your trip down Whole30 Lane.

“Aerobic” is not a dirty word.

If you’re passing on lower intensity, longer duration activity and exclusively working at a high-intensity, we think that’s a short-sighted perspective. For our clients, we recommend regularly spending at least a half-hour doing easy activity as part of your recovery practices. Riding the Airdyne, walking, swimming, or biking for 30-90 (long, slow, boring) minutes expedites recovery from hard training, improves metabolic efficiency (especially in folks on a low-ish carb, high-ish fat diet), and improves cardiovascular health.

Don’t confuse durations over a half hour with “chronic cardio” – the long duration, moderate-to-high intensity stuff that really nails you. To be clear, no one was ever harmed by a two hour hike or an easy spin on the bike with their kids. Keeping the intensity low is the key to recovery activities, and including some long, easy stuff in your routine improves health and recovery from hard training—which ultimately will improve performance in your higher-intensity sport or exercise program.

Regardless of how you choose to step your recovery up (perhaps, in part, by stepping your training down), it’s time. Summer’s activities are just around the corner, and if you play a sport, participate in outdoor pursuits, or simply like comparing your physical capacity to others (or yourself!), now is the time to invest in yourself. Now. Not tomorrow, or next week, or after a few more workouts. Now.

You owe it to your Future You not just to rest, but to recover.

In Part 1 of our Stress Addicts Anonymous series (http://whole9life.com/2011/11/stress-addiction-1), we introduced the very real, very dangerous condition of stress addiction. Now, in part 2, let’s take a look at the physiological effects of living in a chronic state of stress, and more importantly, some steps you can take to rehabilitate your own inner stress junkie.

Stress Gone Bad

In moderate amounts and for brief periods of time, stress can be beneficial – and most people are well-equipped to deal with it. During an acutely stressful situation, your body undergoes an elaborate series of adjustments. The cardiovascular system, the immune system, the endocrine glands and brain regions involved in emotion and memory are all recruited into action. Nonessential functions like reproduction and digestion are put off until later. Adrenaline, and later cortisol, both stress hormones secreted by the adrenal glands, flood the body. Heart rate and blood pressure rise, respiration quickens, glucose is released into the bloodstream for energy, oxygen flows to the muscles, and immune cells prepare to rush to the site of an injury.

When the acute threat is over, another complex set of adjustments calms things down, returning the body to normal.But in the case of chronic stress, that return to “baseline” doesn’t happen often enough (if at all). When stress persists for too long or becomes too severe, your body’s finely tuned feedback system is disrupted – and over time it runs amok, causing damage.

Your Nervous System, In a Nutshell

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a vast network of nerves reaching out from the spinal cord, directly affecting every organ in the body. It has two branches, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic, which have opposite effects.  The sympathetic ANS helps us deal with stressful situations by initiating a ‘fight or flight’ reaction.  After the danger has passed, the parasympathetic ANS takes over, decreasing heartbeat and relaxing blood vessels (‘rest and digest’).

In the case of stress addiction, however, your body’s return to a normal, relaxed state may not be so easy. Although the sympathetic nervous system jumps into action immediately, it is very slow to shut down and allow the tranquilizing parasympathetic nervous system to calm things down.

Jane Collingwood, author of The Physical Effects of Long-Term Stress, explains.  ”In healthy people, the two branches of the nervous system maintain a balance — action followed by relaxation. In the case of chronic stress, however, many people’s sympathetic ANS stays on guard, making them unable to relax and let the parasympathetic system take over.”  At this point, the body moves into an “exhaustion stage”, in which it continues to produce large amounts of stress hormones. Prolonged exposure to these hormones, particularly cortisol, can have devastating effects.

The (Chronic) Stress Effect

According to Robert M. Sapolsky, author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, in the case of chronic psychological stress, the stress response can become more damaging than the stressor itself.  Think of your body’s stress response as short-sighted and inefficient – extremely costly tasks your body must perform to respond effectively in an emergency. (After all, your body’s ‘fight or flight’ response can save your life in an emergency.) The trouble for the stress junkie, however, is that we’re not designed to stay in that mode. And the way we often handle stress – eating sugary, calorie-dense processed foods, staying late at work, exercising too little (or too much) or drinking to excess – makes a bad situation even worse.

Many disorders – some say most – are aggravated by chronic stress. Being constantly awash in stress hormones has some serious side effects, including (but not limited to) impaired memory, concentration, and work performance, speeding up the aging process and damaging memory cells in the brain, sexual dysfunction, infertility, hypertension, a weakened immune system and deposition of fat at the waist (a risk factor for heart disease and other illnesses).   According to Dr. Bruce McEwen (author of The End of Stress as We Know It), prolonged or severe stress has also been implicated in cancer, stroke, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, among other illnesses. 

Finally, excess cortisol in the blood interferes with mood enhancing neurotransmitters called serotonin. Disturbances in serotonin levels can be a factor in causing clinical depression and anxiety disorders, and have also been linked to insomnia and increased sensitivity to pain.

Tick Tock, Tick Tock

More interesting to us, elevated cortisol also skews time perception – making us feel as though we’re always behind schedule and time is always running out. As T.S. Wiley and Bent Formy, authors of Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival write, “Chronic high cortisol… makes you feel chronically rushed.  It’s the altered time perception that fosters much of the late-night stalling before bed, while you stay up under the impression that there must be more to do or that you haven’t finished your work.”  So it’s like the worst kind of chicken/egg – we are stressed because we think we’re behind schedule, but we think we’re behind schedule because we are stressed. Brutal.

Do we really need to continue to make the case that chronic psychological stress – especially the self-created kind – is super-duper unhealthy?  We rest our case.

Stress Rehab

So what’s a stress junkie to do? Telling one to “chill out” or “relax” is inane in this situation, given the addictive nature of the stress response. (It’s like telling an addict, “You know, you should just stop using.” How effective is that strategy?) Still, identifying habits and patterns and admitting you have a problem is the first step. So stop the 27 things you’re doing right now, take a deep breath and say it with me – “I am a stress junkie, and I have a problem.”

The trouble with identifying a strategy to break the stress addiction cycle is that there is no one-size-fits-all. We’re going to address a few different coping mechanisms here, but you’ll have to try them on for yourself to see what fits your personality and stress-style the best. (Melissa also included strategies that worked for her personally.)

1. Identify your triggers, change your habits. Take time to figure out what precipitates stress in your life. (Ask family and friends to help you here, as you often aren’t a good judge of your own triggers.) If you know you jump into “stress mode” the second you turn on your computer or as soon as the kids get home from school, then change that routine. Take 30 minutes of quiet time to wake up and set the tone for the day before you power up. Create an after-school routine to help keep noise and chaos under control (or hire a babysitter for an hour a day to help you manage post-school homework and snacks).

 

1. Control and predictability – create a routine. Procrastination, multi-tasking and chasing your own tail self-perpetuates the stress cycle. Creating (and sticking to) a routine can to add some predictability to your day, and remove some opportunity for unexpected stress. Creating a normal bedtime and wake time can be an especially helpful routine, as it also ensures you’re getting enough sleep each night.

 

1. Exercise some, not too much. Low intensity exercise (like hiking or swimming) blunts the stress response for up to a day after each session – but it has to be something you want to do. (Forcing yourself to exercise only creates more stress.) Don’t overdo it – more is not better. Consider low to moderate intensity activities, as high intensity exercise may only be feeding your stress junkie tendencies. (In fact, high intensity activity may not be appropriate for you at all. For real.)

 

1. Don’t (purposely) fast. Deliberate caloric restriction and extended (or regular) fasting provokes a physical stress response, and only adds to your overall stress burden. Plus, taking the time to eat healthy meals on a regular basis ensures you’re stopping to care for yourself every few hours, which is a good thing. Eat breakfast within an hour of waking; emphasize protein, and include some starchy carbs like sweet potato or butternut squash. If you often “forget to eat,” set a timer to remind you – it’s that important.

 

1. Skip the coffee. Caffeine is a stimulant, and the last thing you need is more stimulation. Try backing off your daily dose, or taking a month-long caffeine holiday. This one is gonna hurt – but your adrenals will thank you. (Read our Coffee Manifesto for more details.)

 

1. Meditation – sort of. Studies show psychological benefits while someone is meditating – but those benefits don’t necessarily continue after the session is over. (Plus, the idea of jumping into an hour of meditation a day is probably unrealistic for you right now.) Start off with five minutes at a time, every hour on the hour. Force yourself to stop whatever you are doing and take a walk, get some water, eat something or just sit quietly. (Time it – don’t cheat yourself.) Physically removing yourself from your stress-cycle may inhibit the degree to which you wind yourself up.

 

1. Social support – try giving. The right network of friends or family can help you manage stress, but often the stress junkie simply won’t ask for help. So try giving – offering social support in a volunteer or charitable setting. Seeing your impact can be a powerful experience, and make you believe you do, in fact, have some control over life’s situations.

 

1. The E – R – C strategy. Make a list of stressors, and identify those you can Eliminate, those you could Reduce and those you must simply Cope with. Consider evaluating time, money and accepted obligations all at once; you may be able to eliminate or reduce more stress than you believed. (For example, if cleaning the house on your day off is a big stressor, consider revising your budget to hire a cleaning service. If you’ve accepted too many social requests, prioritize one or two that are the most important to you, and beg off the rest. They’ll forgive you, and you really can’t afford to take on any more right now.)

 

1. Practice the 80/20 rule. In the case of stress, take the 80/20 rule to mean that 80% of your stress reduction can be accomplished with the first 20% of effort. Taking the first step – admitting you have a problem, asking for help, starting a stress-reducing practice (any practice) – can provide tremendous stress relief. So don’t wait until you’ve got the perfect stress-reducing strategy to start, and don’t wait until the next time you’re at a stress level 9 out of 10. Do something – anything – on a daily basis and see if you don’t feel better having at least taken a step in the right direction.

 

1. Get help. Sometimes, working through your situation with an impartial party is exactly what we need to put things into perspective. (And if you’re practicing your stress 80/20, the very act of making an appointment with a psychologist, a life coach or a professional organizer will make you feel better!)

In Conclusion

For those of you identifying with this post, take heart – there is hope. After a year of major life overhaul (including giving up caffeine, a major revision of her exercise program and a restructure of business responsibilities and work habits), Melissa’s cortisol profile is back in the healthy range, and her stress junkie tendencies are far better managed. With some awareness, attention to detail and commitment to changing your life, you, too, can overcome your addiction to stress. The first step is admitting you have a problem. (And the second step is to re-read our Whole9 Health Equation, because as a stress junkie, you are by definition spending resources waaaaay faster than you can bank ‘em.).

So cop to your bad habits, ask for help and offer each other some healthy social support right here in comments.

References

Sapolsky, Robert M. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Third Edition. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004.
Ratey, John J. Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008.
McEwen, Bruce. The End of Stress As We Know It. Washington DC: National Academic Press, 2002.
Wiley, T.S. and Formy, Bent. Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival.New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2002.
Beck, Martha. “Am I Really A Stress Junkie?” Oprah, October 2002.
Lyons, Richard. “Stress Addiction: Life in the Fast Lane.” New York Times, July 26, 2983.
Goode, Erica. “The Heavy Cost of Chronic Stress.” New York Times, 17 December 2002.
David, Marc. The slow down diet: eating for pleasure, energy, and weight loss. Healing Arts Press, 2005.
Bryant, Charles W. “The Physical Effects of Chronic Stress.” Discovery Health.
Collingwood, J. (2007). The Physical Effects of Long-Term Stress. Psych Central, November 6, 2011.

This series of posts was inspired by Dallas and Melissa’s very personal experience with stress addiction. From Melissa: “See, at my very core, I am a typical Type-A.  In fact, there were times I considered bumping herself up to a Type AA, because I believed Type A’s were actually kind of lazy. No offense. I’m a perfectionist, but also a procrastinator, and I do my best work when there’s a crisis. No crisis? No problem. I’ll just create one.” (Dallas has far fewer of these tendencies – thank goodness. Two of us in one house would make life unbearable.) So let’s explore the subject of the stress addict – who we are, what that means and how to know if your habits and patterns fit the bill.

Type A-And-Then-Some

According to Wikipedia, Type A individuals are described as ambitious, aggressive, business-like, controlling, highly competitive, impatient, time-conscious, and tightly-wound.  People with Type A personalities are often high-achieving “workaholics” who multi-task, push themselves with deadlines, and hate both delays and ambivalence.

That doesn’t exactly paint us in a flattering light, does it?  I promise, we’re generally more fun than Wikipedia would suggest.  The problem is that under the right conditions, Type A drive can morph and grow into something else entirely – an actual stress addiction. And we mean that in the most literal sense of the word. Ask yourself…

• Are you always on tight deadlines, multi-tasking within an inch of your life or creating ridiculous schedules for yourself?
• Are you a perfectionist in everything you do, even when it doesn’t really matter?
• Are you an inattentive listener, checking email, paying bills or cleaning while on the phone?
• Are you constantly worrying about “what if,” stuck in an endless loop of dreaming up worst case scenarios?
• Do you rush everywhere, all the time, because there are other things elsewhere you should be doing?
• Have you lost all sense of patience, losing your cool when faced with even a minor telephone hold, appointment delay or grocery store line?
• Are you always saying, “Things will calm down soon,” but they never, ever do?
• Does the idea of a restorative yoga class, meditation or sitting quietly for 15 minutes make you want to crawl out of your skin?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of those questions… you may be a stress junkie.  And if you don’t think “stress junkie” is a very real, very dangerous condition, think again.

Stress Distress

According to the leading authority on pretty much everything (Oprah, of course), stress addiction is a legitimate condition, with serious consequences.  Oprah.com says, “Stress junkies are people who use their own physiological responses as a mood-altering device.  And just like heroin, stress hormones have side effects that can kill you. Pumped into the bloodstream at high levels for long periods of time, these chemicals contribute to ulcers and heart disease, weaken the immune system, and leave us vulnerable to everything from automobile accidents to depression.”

Oprah not doing it for you?  Fine.  Dr. Waino W. Suojanen, a professor of management at Georgia State University, agrees.  “Social scientists as well as biologists studying the chemistry of the brain tend to document what business experts have been saying for years… The Type A individual has perhaps become addicted to his own adrenaline, and unconsciously seeks ways to get those surges.”

Sound far-fetched?  Not if you consider the biochemistry of stress addiction.  As Dr. John Ratey (author of Spark) explains, we get a “fix” from the stress response, even if we create it ourselves.

Procrastinate Much?

One common trait of stress junkies is procrastination – putting off tasks until the deadline looms so close that you’re not really sure you can get it done on time.  Procrastination puts us in a “fight or flight” kind stress response, which leads to a hormonal rush of epinephrine (to focus the body), which in turn results in the release of endorphins.  (Which, of course, feel good.)  In addition, there are two neurotransmitters in our brains that help get us ready for this flight or fight response — norepinephrine, which arouses our attention, and dopamine, which then focuses our attention.

So, we procrastinate until we get that “rush” we’re looking for, at which point those neurotransmitters flood our system and to allow us to finally focus – which helps us meet those deadlines after all.  Success!  There’s just one problem with this strategy:  stress junkies will create stress where there is none to begin with. Which means for the stress junkie, there are no situations that are inherently free of stress, even if they have to create some themselves.

Procrastination is only one favorite strategy of the stress junkie – others include perfectionism, obsessing about obligations, and inventing catastrophic fantasies about What Could Go Wrong. The common factor in each of these scenarios is the stress junkie’s single-minded devotion to repeatedly creating stressful situations.

On paper, you might think, “That sounds awful.  Who would do that to themselves?”  But in reality, if you’re a stress junkie, you kind of dig it.  No, you really dig it – the buzz that comes from swimming in stress hormones morning, noon and night.  Until, of course, you stop.  Then, yeah, you feel pretty miserable.

Getting All The Things Done

The problem is, you are literally addicted to the stress response, which means it’s impossible for you to just slow down.  Plus, your behavior is easy to justify (rationalize).   I mean, it’s not like you’re addicted to something that makes you lay around on the couch all day eating Doritos and playing video games.  You’re working, or exercising, or running a household or taking care of your children.  And everyone from Gym Jones to Jack Welch to Oprah herself would say there is no such thing as working too hard, right?

Sure, you’re probably not eating enough.  Sure, you could probably stand to take five minutes to stretch once in a while.  Yes, you wake up in the middle of the night with unending lists running through your head.  No, you haven’t peed in seven hours, but I’m sure that’s fine too.  Because you are Getting All The Things Done.  And who can argue with that?

Your body, that’s who.  And it’s already starting to rebel in ways that seriously compromise your health and fitness.

Stay Tuned for Stress Addicts Anonymous, Part 2

Ready to continue? Read Part 2 of our series on stress addiction, where we cover the negative physiological effects that come with living with chronic stress, and more importantly, some steps you can take to rehabilitate your own stress addiction.

References

Sapolsky, Robert M.  Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Third Edition.  New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004.

Ratey, John J. Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008.

McEwen, Bruce. The End of Stress As We Know It. Washington DC: National Academic Press, 2002.

Wiley, T.S. and Formy, Bent. Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival.New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2002.

Beck, Martha. “Am I Really A Stress Junkie?” Oprah, October 2002.

Lyons, Richard. “Stress Addiction: Life in the Fast Lane.” New York Times, July 26, 2983.

Goode, Erica.  “The Heavy Cost of Chronic Stress.” New York Times, 17 December 2002.

David, Marc.  The slow down diet: eating for pleasure, energy, and weight loss. Healing Arts Press, 2005.

Bryant, Charles W. “The Physical Effects of Chronic Stress.”  Discovery Health. 

Collingwood, J. (2007). The Physical Effects of Long-Term Stress. Psych Central, November 6, 2011.

CON·TEXT
noun /ˈkänˌtekst/
The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.

My Context Is Not Your Context

Definition aside, in simple terms, “context” means the general story of your life, past and present – everything that makes up your big-picture health and fitness.  A good place to start evaluating your own context is our 9 Factors – but most folks are already savvy to the fact that things like sleep, training and stress all play a major role in their individual health status.

What is often overlooked is that there are additional variables like age, health history, and genetics that also contribute to your individual context.  But unlike diet, sleep and training, many of those “invisible” factors are completely outside of your control.  And while it may be all too easy to ignore those factors or pretend they don’t impact your health, you’ll do so to your own detriment.

Age

You’re only as old as you feel, right?  In a way, that’s absolutely true.  But when it comes to things like recovery from exercise, metabolism and sleep, age plays an important role.  You may be in the best shape of your life, but some studies say that the older you get, the more likely you are to experience problems related to recovering from exercise.  While that conclusion is highly individual (and not necessarily an inevitability of aging), experts agree that at the very least, you should change the intensity, volume and frequency of training as you age.

In addition, you may be back to your high school weight, but your body isn’t as good at working through some metabolic processes as it used to be.  And you may have blackout curtains and turn in at 9 AM, but the older we get, the less likely we are to sleep as well as we used to.  Whether we like it or not, our age (and the aging process) is a factor to our big-picture health and fitness.

Health History

We’ve heard hundreds of transformation stories from Whole30 participants, some of whom admitted to having poor health habits in earlier years.  Now, as they string together a year or two of health eating, exercise, sleep and stress management, they picture those years behind them.  Unfortunately, it’s not always that easy.

A history that includes metabolic derangement and weight gain (especially the yo-yo variety), presents major challenges to your return to a healthy weight and metabolism.  In fact, your health history dictates to a large degree how hard you’ll have to work to achieve your new health and fitness goals – and you may find some of those goals (particularly regarding weight loss) are simply unattainable, given what your body has been through in the past.  While it’s unfortunate that you’d have to pay for past sins today, when you’re working so hard to do everything right, your health history is an unavoidable part of your current context.

Genetics

While many folks place too much emphasis on genetics (“I’m bound to be diabetic – it’s in my genes”), you’d be mistaken not to take that into account at all.  While epigenetics (the pattern of gene expression as influenced by environmental factors like diet, stress and prenatal nutrition) has far more impact on how you look, feel and live, you can’t discount that your genes, race and ethnicity play a role in your health status.  If diabetes, addiction, breast cancer or other conditions “run in the family”, consider your margin of error that much skinnier.  It would be smart to pay attention to your genetic predispositions, and factor them in as part of your context.

It’s Not a Life Sentence

Of course, just because we age, have a history of yo-yo dieting or come from a family of diabetics doesn’t mean we are permanently bound by these factors.  (Heck, just look at Art Devany – he’s healthier and more vibrant than most people half his age.) How you approach your current diet, exercise regimen, sleep schedule and stress management have an enormous impact.  The take-away is this:  by factoring in your individual context – both those factors you control and those you don’t – you’ll be better equipped to make an effective plan to help you achieve your goals.

As we move forward into focusing more on the big picture of health, fitness and quality of life, you’ll continue to hear the refrain “context matters.”  We’re not trying to brainwash you, we promise – but we hope this discussion (and the broader health-centered discussions to come) will prompt you to thoughtfully evaluate your own context, and better help you set reasonable expectations for yourself, and continue to move you forward in your pursuit of optimal health.

Since founding the Whole9 in 2009, we’ve used “our 9” to address the multi-faceted nature of a healthy lifestyle with our consulting clients.  But after developing a great working relationship with Robb Wolf and attending several extraordinary nutrition seminars (including Robb’s), we decided to concentrate our public health focus on nutrition.  Since then, we’ve written extensively about nutrition’s role in a healthy lifestyle over the past several years, and conducted more than 70 Foundations of Nutrition workshops, spreading our version of the Good Food Word.

We “zoomed in” on nutrition to meet a need in the community for practical application strategies of various dietary concepts – and we were not alone.  Over the last few years as the Paleo/ancestral health movement has grown, we’ve seen hundreds of new Paleo blogs, recipe sites and communities created for the exclusive purpose of focusing on nutrition.  But now, we see a new need within our community – and it’s time for us to take a step back and remind our readers that health is a multifaceted concept.  Nutrition is, of course, a  foundational piece of any good health and fitness program – but it most certainly is not the only piece.

Frank Forencich made an astute observation about this same phenomenon in The State of the Meme, saying, “The problem with this (nutrition-focused) variation (of Paleo) is that it’s a fragment of a much larger story. And because it’s a fragment, it tends to get pigeon-holed with every other diet meme out there. This brings Paleo down to the level of pop health, where it loses its meaning and its power.”  He goes on to add that “Paleo” is so much more than either ancestral nutrition or ancestral movement patterns – and we dig his perspective.

Context Matters

So now, for us, it’s time to zoom back out. Of course, we’re not abandoning nutrition as the foundational factor of a healthy life. But our readers need to hear more about The Big Picture. We interact with thousands of people a month via email, workshops, Facebook, and Twitter, and what we’ve realized is that many folks have drilled so far down into nutrition that they can no longer see the big picture at all. 

People ask us about the lectins in tree nuts, the fructose content of half a pear, or whether it’s okay to eat the deer they shot if the deer may have been feeding on GMO corn. (True story.)  And in many of these instances, what we want to say is,  “It really doesn’t matter, since you’re only sleeping 5 hours a night and I can smell the cortisol on you from across the street.” So we encourage you to pull back a bit, do a little introspection, and try to see beyond any one factor (specifically, nutrition) to view the reality of your big-picture health and fitness situation.  After all, self-analysis is nearly as critical to genuine progress as dissent (but that’s a topic for another day).

Analyze This

We’re calling this graphical representation of an individual’s overall health “The Whole9 Health Equation” (at least until we have a stroke of genius and come up with something clever-er). Yes, it is simplified – Dallas doesn’t like complex math equations. Yes, there are important factors (such as age and quality social interaction) that are not factored in here. No, we cannot quantify this for you personally, as (again), context matters. Nonetheless, let’s tackle this thing.

We think of each individual’s health status like a “bank account”, to and from which you make deposits and withdrawals.  Like a bank account, your Health Balance is a product of Credits minus Debits. If you make more frequent (or larger) deposits than withdrawals, you accumulate “Health Wealth”.  And, hopefully not to take this analogy too far, that Wealth pays dividends down the road.  Conversely, if you overextend your resources (withdrawing more than you’re depositing), you’ll find yourself in the red – “Health Debt”.  Think about overdrafting your bank account – you can continue spending for a while, but at some point, you simply can’t spend any more, because there’s nothing left in the bank. (Needless to say, that scenario stinks.)   Are you with us so far?  Good.  Now here’s where we start talking about specific factors.

Recovery = Nutrition + Sleep + Specific Recovery Practices

Your diet, sleep and general recovery habits are all a part of “General Recovery” (health deposits or credits).

Nutrition is the biggest potential credit. That’s why we call it “foundational”. Eating adequate calories from nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory foods on a daily basis will deposit huge credits into your health balance.  But your Nutrition factor can also be a negative integer, a debit. In other words, eating unhealthy foodstuffs can actually cost you – big. (Think obesity and chronic disease.)

Sleep matters. We make ours a priority – above exercise, reading, socialization, or even housekeeping. Dallas has written about this in Performance Menu, and we continue to emphasize this issue in our workshops and with consulting clients.  Nine hours of sleep per night equals big deposits.  Chronically under-slept?  Equally large withdrawals.  Sometimes, prioritizing sleep requires some radical revisions to one’s life. Pay now, or pay later.

Specific Recovery Practices include ice baths, contrast showers, specific mobility work (including foam rolling, lacrosse ball work or self-myofascial release), stretching, yoga, massage and other manual therapies, meditation, recovery (i.e. easy) training sessions, acupuncture, sex, napping, etc.  Your commitment to Specific Recovery Practices, to a large degree, dictates how quickly and thoroughly you recover from training, and ultimately can determine whether your training is productive or simply destructive.

In summary, sub-par Nutrition, Sleep, and Specific Recovery Practices have the potential to massively impact your Health.  (Duh.)  How rapidly this occurs partly depends on how fast you’re “spending” those resources with Physical Stress (PhysStress) and Psychological Stress (PsychStress).

Total Stress = Physical Stress + Psychological Stress

Physical Stress (PhysStress), for most of us, is structured exercise or participation in an actual sport. For some, working a manual labor or highly physical job (construction, firefighting, etc.) would also qualify as physical stress.  But for folks whose primary physical effort is deliberate exercise, there are several factors that determine the amount of PhyStress: intensity, frequency, and volume.  

Intensity refers to how hard the activity feels to you, and how hard your heart is working.  Frequency is how often you are experiencing this physical stress – twice a day, three times a week, etc.  Volume means the amount of work you complete in each training session – whether you lift a particular weight ten times during your session, or one hundred times.

Each of these factors work together to determine physical stress – notice they are all multiplied in the equation. That means in increase in one has the potential to dramatically affect the total of your PhysStress.  You can do short-ish high intensity stuff sometimes, or long and hard stuff occasionally, or long, low intensity activity daily – but not daily high intensity training, or large volumes of moderate intensity training, or (god forbid) both.  Unless you’re a professional athlete, of course, in which case you value performance over health. Most of us don’t fall into this category.

Psychological Stress (PsychStress) can come from a variety of sources, and can be pretty insidious. It could be job-related stress, family/marital stress, anxiety and phobias, unresolved childhood trauma, low self-esteem, guilt, etc. This stuff runs deep. But if you carry things (i.e. “baggage”), it costs – daily, monthly, and annually. The kicker here is that a complete lack of PsychStress doesn’t make a very big deposit into your Health Balance – but its mere existence can make gigantic withdrawals.  Do your best to deal with this stuff head-on, even if it sucks. Some things are actually out of your control, and that has to be okay, too.

In summary, how much of your Health Balance you can afford to “spend” (i.e. the total of your PhysStress and PsychStress) depends mostly on the size and frequency of your deposits (i.e., how much effort you’re putting into Recovery – nutrition, sleep, and specific recovery practices). 

Note:  Before you even ask, no, we cannot quantify this for you.  We can’t say an ice bath is worth 10 health dollars, and a two-a-day training session costs you 20.  You know why?  Because context matters.  Your specific lifestyle and health status play a crucial role in how much you deposit or withdraw from your Health Balance with any given factor.  For example, an evening of dietary off-roading may cost a lean, insulin-sensitive person 10 health dollars, but it may cost an overweight, autoimmune-suffering person 100.  This equation requires you to self-analyze, and determine which factors have the biggest effects on your own individual Health Balance.

Some Health Balance Examples

Some factors detract enormously from your balance. For example, the short-term sleep deprivation that normally accompanies a new baby takes a pretty serious toll on a person.  In this example, you are not able to make large deposits to your balance, even if you’ve backed off of hard training, and are still eating well.  It’s like taking a big pay cut for a few months – your spending habits have to change.  However, what you’ve done up until this point makes a big difference.  If you have a large Health Balance “savings”, you can make it through this situation relatively unscathed.  However, if you’ve been living paycheck to paycheck, barely covering your withdrawals, an unexpected life situation like a new baby will absolutely break you.  Still with us?

A nutritional strategy like intermittent fasting (our favorite example) might be just the right amount of “stress” to drive a positive adaptation in one person’s body, causing the overall effect to be positive. But in someone else, that additional stress only further taxes an already-overstressed system, and may actually detract from their Health Balance. Of course, every person’s scenario is unique, which is why no one can state definitively that IF (as an example) is universally good or bad.

Figuring out your individual context can be tricky, especially when you are both the least qualified person to accurately assess your “stuff”, given how close you are to the subject matter – but also the only person who has all the information about your own context.  But with our big-picture approach, some practice (and perhaps some guidance from a professional), you’ll be able to better evaluate your own overall health balance, and create a solid plan to keep you in the black.

Is Your Health Balance Off Balance?

All too often, we see people struggling to figure this stuff out – really struggling, working hard. They’re committed to making changes, to progressing, to improving… but they’re either overvaluing/undervaluing some factors, or completely overlooking one or more pieces of the puzzle. Admittedly, it’s not easy, but we’re hoping that this post will prompt some more honest introspection. Here are some examples of genuine-but-misguided efforts to improve health:

• Looking for a nutritional solution to a lifestyle problem, such as attempting to offset the effects of chronic stress by cutting out fruit or nuts, or trying a new PWO whey protein.

• Being frustrated with your “plateau” (performance, weight loss, whatever) and doing more of what got you this far.  “If high-intensity training helped me lose 20 pounds, then more of it will probably help me lose those last 10.”   All of those factors (Intensity, Frequency and Volume) multiply to create a potentially astronomical PhysStress product before you even realize it.

• Being so wound up about sticking to the Whole30 guidelines that you actually create more stress for yourself. Folks, the Whole30 is a self-awareness tool, not a hazing.

• Over-exercising to manage your stress.  Sometimes you need to suck it up, buttercup, because being an “exercise addict” is not a flag you should proudly fly – and will put you into Health Debt faster than you can say, “I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

• Being over-stressed and under-sleeping, but still cutting calories to try to lose that stubborn belly fat. (One word: cortisol.) Don’t underestimate the power of sleeping more and stressing less on body composition.

• Grappling with “that shoulder thing” and looking to your physical therapist/chiropractor/acupuncturist to magically fix it instead of taking a week (or two!) off from the gym to focus on nutrition, sleep and bumping up your Recovery.

Any of these sound familiar?  Don’t beat yourself up if you’ve been working hard in all the wrong areas – the thing that counts is that you’re willing to work hard.  Looking at the big picture is difficult, and takes practice – and sometimes, a template (like our equation) to help you figure it all out for yourself.

Taking Care of YOUR Health Balance

We hope our Health Equation has cued some critical and honest self-analysis, and helped you think about factors outside of nutrition as they apply to your health and fitness. Given that each person’s context is different, we’re not able to make blanket statements about how much or how little is appropriate for you, but we bet that if you stop and think about it, you will probably be able to intuit a reasonable direction to head.

In the coming months, we’ll be talking a lot more about context, non-nutrition factors, and (hopefully) a sane way to combine these things into a life that is deeply enriching. If you leave with just one concept, please remember: context matters.  Drop feedback, questions or thoughts about your own Health Balance to comments.

In yoga, there are two kinds of positions.  The first requires strength to hold the pose.  The second requires you to soften and yield.

I suck at softening.

I approach my yoga the same way I approach my deadlifting – with the same Type A, stubborn, controlling personality that suits me oh-so-perfectly to someplace like Gym Jones.  And for some poses, that works beautifully. Standing splits against the wall?  I don’t look like that girl, but I can tough out the hold with the best of them.  Full side plank?  Nothing but good, old-fashioned midline stability.  Handstands?  Please – I’ve done so many, it’s practically cheating.  But move me into something where I have to soften – the shoulders, the spine, the face (yes, I’m often told to soften my face) and it all falls apart.

I have no one to blame but myself.

After six years of doing nothing but measure, count, chart progress and mark improvements, I don’t know how to soften.  I don’t know how to relax, I cannot “yield” (whatever that means), and I most certainly cannot refrain from trying to kick your ass at yoga.  My instructor told me last week to close my eyes when I practice.  This was after she caught me looking around, seeing the old guy next to me had his leg higher than mine, grunt (yes, I believe I actually grunted) and forcibly yank my toes up juuuust a smidge higher than his.  And then I fell over.  (But still, I believe I won that round.)

Measuring, counting, charting and improving are all good things when it comes to fitness.  I firmly believe you need the structure of a planned program, the discipline of a log book, and the stats to prove you’ve pushed yourself and exceeded your own expectations.  Without those things, fitness progress comes slowly and is often unrecognizable.  But for the love of Shiva, I need a break once in a while, if only for my own mental sanity.

I’ve been a perfectionist my whole life.  In school, a minus sign next to the “A” on my report card grade was cause for much hand-wringing and dismay.  (That was second grade.) In my past career, I stayed longer and worked harder than anyone else – and was promoted faster than anyone else in the history of the company.  In the last six years of CrossFit, kettlebells and Gym Jones, my logs were meticulous (I love a good Excel spreadsheet) – cross-referenced and notated within an inch of their life.  And the gold stars I gave myself for a new PR were a huge part of what kept me motivated.

I have none of this in yoga.

There are no grades, no promotions, no logs or tracking of progress – and gold stars are explicitly forbidden.  It’s just me and my mat and a constant struggle to soften.  Nobody cares if my leg is straight, nobody cares if I bent just a smidge lower today than yesterday, and nobody cares how my shoulder muscles look in Warrior 2.   Just me.  I’m the only one who cares.  And because of this, I am constantly challenged in my practice, too often manhandling myself into a position, stepping outside of the moment to worry about my progress, and refusing to yield.

I do yoga for fun.  Mostly, I go to calm my constantly tense body and ever-racing brain.  I go because my cortisol levels told me I should, and because I’m a calmer, happier, saner version of myself after 90 minutes of moving in flow.  It’s more therapy than exercise, although I’m surprised at what good exercise it is.

And despite some intrinsic urge to make my time there more “practical”, I’m not trying to improve my deadlift or squat through yoga (although that wouldn’t surprise me at all).  My practice is supposed to be a break from myself – from counting, measuring, charting and most of all, judging. So this morning, I will do my best to soften, yield, relax and let the pose dictate where my body ends up.  To be safe, though, I’ll probably close my eyes.

Namaste.

There Is No Free Lunch

Trouble is, things don’t work like that.  If there were a valid shortcut to optimal, well-rounded, big-picture health and fitness – don’t you think we would have heard about it by now?  We sure haven’t stumbled across it.  (And we live this diet and fitness stuff.)  The truth is, there is no such thing as a free lunch.  There is efficiency.  There is intelligence in programming.  There is concentration of focus, absolute dedication, fierce determination… but everything that’s worth doing requires – demands – that you work your tail off to get there.

The Secret

You want to maximize health and achieve optimal fitness?  We’ll tell you exactly how to do it. 

Eat foods that makes you healthier, every meal, every day. Eat foods that makes you less healthy infrequently, if at all. Eat just enough to support activity levels and goals.

Exercise. Work hard. Harder than you are now. But more importantly, work smart. Too much volume, intensity and frequency is just as bad as too little.

Recover. Devote as much effort to recovery practices as you do to training. This is not optional. Most fall miserably short in this category.

Sleep 8-9 hours a night, in a cool, dark room. Make time for this. You can get away with less, but only if it’s summertime.

Manage your stress. Deal with it in a healthy fashion. Stress will undermine all of the above.

Do this, day in and day out, for years and years and years, as consistently as you can.

We Don’t Do Shortcuts

If you do these things, as often as you can, as consistently as you can, for as long as you can, you will be healthy.  You will be fit.  And your body composition will reflect that.  Trouble is, that’s not anywhere near as much fun as the promise of a shortcut.  And it’s nowhere near instant gratification. 

But anything worth doing is worth doing right.  And when it comes to your health, “right” is the only way you should consider.  So we won’t offer you fads, false promises, or miracles.  We’ll just tell you what you need to do to earn your 400,000 hour body, not just today, not temporarily, but forever. 

We’ll be expanding on these concepts – how to “put it all together “- in future posts.  Because while this stuff is all pretty simple, it certainly isn’t easy.  Stay tuned.

This is the first post in our Kill Your TV series, designed to help you navigate your television-less existence for the next 30 days. (You didn’t think we’d spring it on you and then leave you hanging, did you?) Today’s post is all about helping you through the first week without your beloved plug-in drug – and filling those hours with something meaningful.

While it may seem obvious to those of you who have been without cable for a few years now, we’re here to present the rest of you Kill Your TV participants with 174,203 (almost) things you can do with your life instead of watching TV. (We’re also giving you links to products we like in our newly opened Amazon store, to help get you started.) Take back those hours this month and do something productive, fun, enriching or restorative. Like what? Glad you asked.

Improve Your Training Performance

• Stretch
• Perform self-myofascial release
• Go for a recovery walk/bike/swim/paddle/row
• Read training-related books or articles
• Do some skill work
• Practice yoga
• Update your training logs
• Get a massage
• Take an ice bath
• Connect with your trainer or fellow gym-goers
• Lay out your short-term and long-term training goals
• Get acupuncture

Improve Your Sleep

• Go to bed earlier
• Read a book
• Take a hot bath
• Have sex
• Develop a pre-bed routine
• Prepare clothes/food/work for the morning
• Buy and install black-out curtains
• Read Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival
• Read Dallas’ sleep article in Performance Menu

Improve Your Nutrition

• Prep and cook food for the week
• Try a new recipe
• Visit a local farm or market
• Clean out your pantry
• Take a cooking class
• Prepare a new vegetable
• Read a cookbook
• Make a weekly meal plan
• Find a new nutrition book
• Sign up for a CSA
• Host a dinner party

Improve Your Family Time

• Call or visit a family member
• Play a board game or cards
• Read a book together
• Go outside and play
• Cook dinner together
• Help your kids with their homework
• Take a family walk after dinner
• Plan a family trip or vacation
• Have a date night with your significant other
• Work on a puzzle
• Do a craft project
• Write a letter or send a card
• Organize family photos
• Plan a party or an event

Improve Your Household

• Train your dog
• Finish that project that’s been half done for 6 months
• Clean something
• Organize something
• Start a garden
• Mow the lawn
• Plant a tree or flowers
• Have a yard sale
• Start a compost pile
• Wash your car
• Send stuff to Goodwill
• Get your oil changed
• Do laundry
• Go through stacks of papers and mail

Improve Your Fun and Play

• Pick up a new sport
• Go rock climbing
• Learn to swim
• Go for a bike ride
• Have a picnic
• Play with a slackline
• Play boccee
• Play ball with your kids
• Climb a tree
• Have a block party
• Throw a frisbee
• Go for a hike
• Nap in the grass
• Go to a local baseball game
• Shoot some baskets

Improve YOU

• Take an adult education class
• Get a pedicure
• Plan your dream house
• Go to church
• Volunteer
• Learn to knit
• Write something
• Take an art class
• Browse your local bookstore
• Get involved with your neighborhood
• Get involved in local politics
• Finish your will
• Join a book club
• Meet with a financial advisor
• Organize your business receipts
• Take yourself out for dinner
• Go to the dentist
• Test drive a car you can’t afford

What Will YOU Do?

Okay, so we don’t quite have 174,203 things… but this is a darn good start. And we bet you can come up with even more ideas to fill those TV-watching hours. So what will you do instead of watching television during the month of May? Submit your best ideas to comments.

For other articles in our Kill Your TV series, click here.

Just over four months ago, I gave up caffeine for good.  It wasn’t the first time I’d done without – periodically through the last two years, usually when our coffee habits had quietly and sneakily grown past the point of healthy, we’d do a week or two of no caffeine, and then reset our consumption to a more reasonable level.  I’d get to the 14 day mark, figure I was as good as cleansed and then happily make my first cup of coffee, promising myself that I’d go back to consuming “in moderation”.  In under a month, however, my consumption was usually right back to where I left off. I’d make every excuse in the book for my 3-4 cups a day – I needed a boost while traveling, a small coffee mid-workshop made the day a little easier, coffee pre-workout was an ergogenic aid. I knew I was kidding myself – and my adrenals knew it too. (News flash: the folks who counsel you on nutrition and health are human, too.)

The last time we gave up coffee for a few weeks was in August 2010, as we were moving from New England to Salt Lake City.  I went my usual two weeks without, but when I went back to my beloved Misha’s Route 66, something was different. 

Sometimes, awareness sucks

As many of you have experienced with our Whole30 program, the more “cycles” you complete of (a) going without a particular food, and (b) reintroducing it, the more acutely aware you are of the effect that food is having on you.  It was the same with my periodic coffee cleanses.  Each time I went back to drinking coffee, I noticed just a little bit more how it was negatively affecting my mood, my sleep, my energy levels – even on just one or two cups a day.  In August, however, the caffeine straight-up kicked me in the crotch with its nasty effects.  These are the things I noticed after only two weeks away, and returning back to just two small cups of coffee a day:

• Caffeine gives me crazypants.  Literally.  I get anxious.  It makes me irritable.  I pick fights, I snap at people, my fuse is abnormally short.  In general, I’m an unpleasant person to be around sometime around cup one-and-a-half.  Sorry, Dallas.

• I become maniacal about my work.  I would mindlessly, slowly sip my two cups while typing up blog posts or responding to emails and find myself in this unhealthy place where I’d refuse to break for the gym, to answer a personal phone call or even to pee (for real) because I was firmly entrenched in “work mode”.

• I didn’t eat a full meal until noon.  Ever.  Caffeine is a powerful appetite suppressant, and despite our rule to eat before our first cup of coffee, I just wasn’t hungry.  Though I’d force myself to eat something, two hard-boiled eggs was hardly enough to see me through until lunch.

Stating the obvious

Dallas was the first to say the idea out loud – carefully, mind you.  “Maybe you should, um, I don’t know, it’s just an idea, but maybe you should just… give up coffee?”  I’d been thinking the very same thing for quite some time, to be honest – at that point, it was easy to see the caffeine wasn’t doing me any favors.  I just wasn’t sure I was ready to pull the trigger.  It’s a daunting proposition, to give up coffee forever.  But on October 24^th, surrounded by witnesses, I swore off caffeine… again.

This time, however, was different.  While I still went through the same withdrawal symptoms –headaches, lethargy, crankiness – the mental cravings disappeared virtually immediately. The difference this time was that  I was giving it up for good.  There was no 30 day period, no end point in sight, no “I’ll give myself a longer break and see how it goes.”  I decided right then and there that, given the way caffeine affected me, there was no reason for me to keep it in my life.  And the finality of that made everything so much easier.  (I’ve never been good at moderation, anyway.)

Emerging from my caffeine coma

It took a full month before things (sleep, energy, my over-worked adrenals) started to come back around – that quick fix I was hoping for was nowhere to be found, in fact.  Things actually got worse before they got better, which I wasn’t expecting.  And even four months later, I’m still noticing slow and gradual improvements in areas I never expected.  Sure, I was aware of the mood swings, the irritability, the lack of appetite.  What I hadn’t noticed was how caffeine was affecting other areas of my life – until, of course, I gave it up.  (And Whole30 principles come around again, right?)  These are the things I’ve noticed in the last four months of “caffeine-free”:

• After a full month, I was sleeping so much better.  This was a tough battle – the first month, my system was all kinds of confused, and my sleep patterns were all over the charts.  I had trouble falling asleep at first, and then I’d fall asleep okay but wake up at 1 AM, 2 AM, 3 AM as my hormonal balance continued to shift.  After a solid month without caffeine, I started to fall asleep easy, sleep straight through the night and wake up refreshed without an alarm.  (I thought I was doing this already.  Comparatively, my sleep quality sucked compared to where it is now.)

• After two months, I started to wake up hungry.  Not ravenous, but genuinely, normally, happily hungry.  Good lord,  I haven’t woken up hungry since 1994.  This is an amazing phenomenon in which my body is actually sending me valid signals (hunger) when it’s actually supposed to (after fasting overnight).  Amazing… but only after only eight full weeks of being caffeine-free.  (Interestingly, feeding yourself a healthy meal within an hour of waking is very helpful in recovering from adrenal fatigue – certainly, waking up hungry makes that a whole lot easier.)

• After three months, my emotional volatility in a certain one week period each month has greatly dissipated.  This is the most surprising change – I had no idea my caffeine consumption was connected to such a serious case of “hormone poisoning” during that week.  Makes sense in hindsight, but I’m grateful that I no longer ride the hormonal roller coaster every 28 days.  (I’m not the only one happy about that.)

• After four months, I noticed my general awareness of stress – and its negative effects – has dramatically improved.  For those who know me well, I’ve always thrived on being in a constant state of stress.  Work, training, day-to-day activities were all conducted at a maniacal pace, not because they had to be.  I just thought I liked it that way.  Now, after several months of sleeping well, eating more, and generally allowing my adrenals to recover, I can feel that stress-state creeping on… and I no longer like it.  Now, it just feels, well… stressed.  (Because in most day-to-day life situations – say it with me – “Stress is bad, m’kay?”)  While I’m not great at nipping it the bud every time it pops up, and it’s usually work stuff that sets me off the fastest, I’m much better at recognizing it early and taking measures to ensure my periods of stress are less frequent, and shorter in duration.  Progress.  And you’re welcome, adrenals.

The road to recovery

I’m hopeful that things will continue to progress and improvements will continue to appear over the next few months – I fully expect it will take at least a year to reap the full physical and mental benefits of a caffeine-free lifestyle.  I’ve decided not to mess around with a good thing, and will avoid all caffeinated products for the time being.  Turns out I don’t miss black coffee enough to justify a decaf, and I’ve been told by a few smart people that even decaffeinated beverages are too much for the extra-sensitive. 

Now, if you think this entire post is just propaganda on the evils of coffee, think again (and re-read our Coffee Manifesto).  We’re not trying to tell you what to do – coffee isn’t all good, nor is it all evil.  But if you’ve noticed, as I did, that your caffeine consumption takes more than it gives, maybe it’s time to take a good, hard look at your habit, too. The rewards may surprise you.

Once again, today’s post is coming from readers’ emails and comments. In my recent Derailed post, I wrote the following:

In it for the long haul? Here’s where you have to triage – and listen to me carefully. Eating well and sleeping enough come first. Just focus on that, and if that’s all you can do, that’s okay. Eat only Good Food, sleep as much as you can, and supplement for cortisol management. Those are your top priorities, and if you can keep those up, you’ll maintain an awful lot of your general “health”.

I received more than a few emails following that statement, asking about cortisol management, and steps you can take to help you manage your cortisol levels. Now, I’m not an expert on adrenal fatigue by any means, but I’m pretty good with Google, so I’ve pulled some basics together for y’all. I also checked in with Dallas and Mathieu Lalonde to see what their giant science-y brains could add. One word of caution – I’ve given you some supplement links as reference, but common sense should tell you to do your own research before you start taking anything new, right?

Let’s hit the basic background principles first. The adrenal glands produce many of the body’s hormones, including epinephrine (adrenaline) and cortisol. The function is to help us under stress – the release of certain hormones puts us into “fight or flight” mode, to help us deal with crisis situations. Trouble is, when you are under constant stress, the glands are working overtime, pumping out these hormones. The excess cortisol wreaks havoc on your metabolism, and seriously circumvents the processing of fat, protein and carbohydrates and fat loss efforts.

You can help to manage cortisol levels with the following supplements and common sense tips.

Supplements:

BCAA (branch chain amino acids). A general recommendation is to take 5g of mixed BCAAs per dose, 3-4 times a day, especially post work-out, and on an empty stomach.

Dallas adds that L-glutamine has been found to have immune-stimulating properties, and can help with muscle recovery when training hard. Supplement with 10 grams, twice daily on an empty stomach, with one of those servings taken right before bed. Powdered forms are inexpensive and easily mixed into a few ounces of water.

Phosphatidyl serine. Studies have shown that 800mg/day can significantly suppress cortisol, but this can get expensive.

ZMA supplements (zinc-magnesium-aspertate) or any other supplement that has zinc, magnesium and/or calcium, along with vitamin C supplements or Emergen-C Lite. Those should help with immune function and DNA repair during stressful times.

Avoid all NSAIDs (like Advil). Dallas explains that these anti-inflammatories not only negatively affect cortisol, but they decrease protein synthesis rates. This means that your body’s acute response to the stress of high-intensity exercise is diminished, which potentially could slow recovery/adaptation. Stick to fish oils for their anti-inflammatory properties.

Training:

Perform your workouts but reduce the intensity. Exercise does reduce stress. However, excessively long bouts of training or too many intense workouts deliver too much stress to an already-stressed body, and will increase levels of cortisol.

M@ adds that intense met-cons should be no greater than 30 minutes, and ideally much less than that. Monostructural cardio at high intensity (running, rowing, cycling, swimming) should be less than 45 minutes. Weightlifting workouts should also be less than 45 minutes in total.

Sleep:

Get plenty of sleep, but it does not have to be all in one chunk. Don’t freak out if you sleep for a little while, wake up, then go back to sleep (as you’ve been doing), or get up and take a nap later in the day. Research has shown that it is not the total amount of sleep hours that matters, but the number of sleep cycles achieved while sleeping.

Here’s something from the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies: “Studies show that the length of sleep is not what causes us to be refreshed upon waking. The key factor is the number of complete sleep cycles we enjoy.” It turns out that short afternoon naps (75-90 minutes) are very productive sleep-cycle wise. So go ahead and get your sleep in whenever you can – it doesn’t have to be a whole 8 to 9 hour block.

Nutrition:

With respect to your overall diet, we’ve more than got that covered, don’t we? However, be sure to abstain from caffeine and other stimulants. M@ also adds that you may want to abstain from alcohol and fructose as well.

A small (no more than 2 blocks of whatever macronutrient combination suits your goals) PWO meal will help lower cortisol levels after exercise.

So now you’ve got a few options for helping you manage your cortisol levels, including some that come from a bottle. One obvious word of caution – this does NOT mean you can supplement your way out of stress and its negative effects on your health and fitness. Employing good life stress-management skills are going to do more for your efforts to manage cortisol than any combination of supplements. A little extra help never hurts, however, so add the above to see you through the stressful times.