STRESS = PAIN = STRESS = PAIN PART 3: THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

We’ve all heard of the central nervous system but I don’t think we all know that it’s the efficiency of the CNS that’s decides what we do, when we do it and how hard we do it.

It is also affected greatly by fatigue, especially when using intense and/or high fatigue training models.

FYI, training intensity refers to the % of your maximum that you are training at.

Fatigue refers to how much energy resources you use to complete a set task. 

Lifting 3 reps at 90% of your maximum is intense, it’s 10% off your max obviously.

Training to the point that you cannot walk is actually work performed at a moderate intensity repeatedly.

Intensity of a session should never be determined by how tired a workout made you feel during and after it.

If you have induced a relative high amount of fatigue through moderate intensity but high volume and incomplete rest, then that will take far more time to recover from high intensity, low volume training.

Intense but short duration activities will also cause great stress on the CNS but it spares the metabolic cost that comes with high fatigue training.

Looking at the image above and you can see that induced stress will result in a sympathetic response through all of those actions in the list. Staying in this state constantly as a lot of us do in the world of work culture can mean you never enter a parasympathetic state and therefore never give the body a chance for recuperation.

This can fill your stress cup up quite quickly and throw your personal stress on top of that, and you’re overflowing like a fat man’s undies.

Again this can lead to sickness or injury as you’re working way harder than your body can handle at that given time.

Next Week: Diaphragmatic Breathing

STRESS + PAIN = STRESS = PAIN PART 2: STRESS CULTURE

STRESS CULTURE

There are 2 main types of stress the body undertakes.

Every little thing you do PHYSICALLY stresses the body in some way. Walking to the letterbox induces little stress so it requires little time and resources to recovery from. 

Going for a 5km run induces a moderate amount of stress in most cases, and requires some time and (energy) resources, to recover from. 

An interval sprint training session with short to moderate rest will induce huge amounts of fatigue and will take plenty of time (48 – 72hrs) and resources to recover from. 

We have fallen into a fatigue based training model these days with Crossfit-type training facilities opening up on every corner. 

Fatigue is required to make progress but only as much fatigue as you can recover from.

Every time a decision has to be made, it can induce MENTAL stress. 

Like physical stress, the level of decision, or the consequences of that decision if it isn’t the right one, can affect your mind and body on different levels.  

These days work is akin to the fatigue model of training above – it’s all about how much work you can complete and how many hours you can put it and it’s actually frowned upon to not think like that.

So if you’re putting in 80hrs of work a week, making huge decisions with huge implications and following a high fatigue model of training to boot, then your stress level will be ridonckulous! 

The “immediateness” age we live in, with instant connection and access to information and people around the world, means we never really have time to rest and recuperate like the old days.

The body doesn’t really recognise what type of stress you’re under (mental or physical), but it does tale a lot of notice of the amount of stress you're under.

Once your stress cup fills up then something has to give and the more stress you keep adding without recuperation, the further away you move from homeostasis which is your “personal baseline.”

The brain perceives this high stress as a threat to the body and thus puts some interventions in to try and conserve energy, such as shutting off muscle groups and altering posture to make locomotion more energy efficient. 

It also activates your sympathetic nervous system which is the fight side of your fight or flight mechanism. 

The sympathetic nervous system gets activates in times of stress by increasing alertness, heart/breathing rate etc.

So if your resting heart rate is 50 beats per minute and your blood pressure is 120/70 at rest, then in times of stress you might be starting your day at 55 beats per minute and a blood pressure reading of 125/75, so your starting point is slightly higher which leaves you with less wiggle room when you do not recuperate.

This all leaves you working much harder then you should be for daily tasks using less than stellar posture and movement efficiency, which can result in pain, injury and the dreaded “threw my back out picking up a pencil” syndrome.

Stress pretty much is the root of all evil and it’s not that you shouldn’t induce stress, but once you do then you need recuperate from it before adding more stress into your cup.

The biggest issue with this is that stress negatively effects immunity and once you’re sick then everything listed above is amplified.

 Everything you do requires more energy to complete, pain spots re-emerge from nowhere, this induces more stress and again you’re pushed further away from your homeostasis point.

Coming Up: Part 3 - Central Nervous System

STRESS = PAIN = STRESS = PAIN AND IT NEVER ENDS...OR DOES IT?

Does this sound like you?

You get up in the dark.

You do work before duties/emails before you even leave the house.

Even though you’re up and already “working’ while it’s still dark, you still feel the need to get to work early to “get a jump on the day.”

Once at work you bounce from meetings to returning emails to conference calls to more emails to another late meeting while in between having a quick bite to eat “on the run.”

You leave work in the same way you got there (in the dark), fight your way through traffic or public transport and fall in the front door.

You organise a quick but sub-par dinner while again catching up on all the work you actually missed doing when you were at work!

Not long after midnight, and still thinking about work, you hit the sack but you’re brain won’t stop thinking about the presentation you gotta finish up tomorrow that you barely started.

After what seems like 5mins, you’re alarm goes off and it all starts again.

Every event that happens to you throughout the day induces some form of stress.

As you’ll soon read, stress can be positive or negative but make no mistake about it, it is there.

All the time.

Stress is incurred mentally (think going through a divorce) and physically (think high work load) but all the body knows is stress and how much of it there is, regardless of its form.

The implications of carrying too much stress is HUGE, as you’ll soon find out. And the trail of destruction it can leave can cause long term issues.

If you know of, or you are someone with a chronic illness or in chronic pain, then I want you to think back through your life and the amount of stress you’ve been under.

I haven’t ran the studies on this but chances are you could pin point certain times of your life that caused great stress and that stress can stay with you long after the event, or issues, has been resolved.

Long term this can decrease immunity and feed pain signals so your body stays under this high amount of stress and when it all compounds, you’ll eventually break down.

Over the next few weeks we’re going to cover the big issues at play here and their implications:
- Stress Culture
- Central Nervous System
- Diaphragmatic Breathing

We’ll also dive a little into some other aspects that can affect your quality of life as well some interventions you can implement to keep you stress free for longer.
- Be Activated
- Pain Science
- Heart Rate Variation
- Spoons Analogy

This will be a 10 - 12 part series which was I originally put together as a book but I feel everyone needs to be aware of this stuff so I'm giving it away!

Please feel free to comment if any of this resonates with you and please share around to your friends that could also be assisted by reading this.