Everyone tends to think of all stress as negative, but this is not entirely true. Exercising moderately is a stress to the body that results in a stronger body. So is exercise (a stress) bad for you? No – as long as it is performed safely for the individual. The key to stress is that it has to be managed within your means and limitations.
When it comes to exercise, people are exercising like crazy, over stressing their already stressed body and lifestyle, shutting down their fat burning. We see it all the time. When we talk to them about stopping the exercise or easing up a bit to make it easier to lose the weight, they look at me like I am crazy. A well-received amount of stress is good, over stress is bad…obvious right? Apparently not.
This tends to be true in all aspects of life. Getting a sickness that is manageable will build your immune system. Starting our weight loss program is a fun stress, because we set it up that way. Most people that start a typical restrictive dieting weight loss program soon find themselves stressed and therefore do not continue.
There only 3 things for you to focus on if you want to prevent disease. We can’t change genetic mutations, but we can strive to improve our lifestyle habit to minimize physical, chemical and emotional stress effects in our life. These 3 types of stress are what is crippling the world and specifically Americans with diseases that can be prevented.
The truth is that we can’t live a totally stress-free life, nor should we. As I said earlier stress can be beneficial. The stress that we can’t totally avoid I call “flat tires in life.” These need to be managed differently. Stress is another one of those things in life that no one really taught us how to properly deal with, so most try to ignore it, drink it away, or just give up and say there is nothing I can do.
This is especially true during the holidays. With shopping, travelling, and family, stress can be abundant. Some of this stress is self-imposed, but some of it is unavoidable. The truth is that that we can’t avoid all stress, but we can change the way that we react to it so that we don’t damage our body because of it.
I am proud of our program because we teach people how to change their biochemical reaction to the flat tires in life that they are experiencing. We can’t live in a glass bubble protecting our self from stress, so we must be better at overcoming it. One simple technique is to perform 3 really deep and really slow breaths to create a parasympathetic response of relaxation so to minimize cortisol stress hormone secretion. This is an example how we help people become better at fat burning. I could spend three hours on how to better perform these deep breaths that would also include visualization.
The bottom line is, if you want to reach your full genetic potential, you will have to expose yourself to positive stress while also learning how to not biochemically react to negative stress.
Enjoy the journey and remember to take 3 deep breaths multiple times a day.
