Start with the mind and the body will follow
‘My head feels cloudy. My body feels tired. I’m just not up to it today’
Whether it lies within the words above or the many other phrases that elicit
similar outcomes, at some stage we all know the feelings that amount from
stress. Now maybe there are biological factors instilling this feeling,
psychological thought processes maintaining it or simply, we spent too much
time in the environment causing us stress. For whatever reason, we are here
now. So how do we take this feeling and turn it around?
When our brain receives input, it goes through certain processes to determine our response. Is this harmful? Being one of the primary triggers to a call of hormones to deal with the
stressor. In the short-term response to a harmful stressor, our flight or fight response takes precedence, acting to supply us with the necessary uptake of hormones to allow us to
respond appropriately. However it’s not over there, there is a secondary response system to stress called the HPA axis that allows for these hormones to continue to be released. Like
everything in life, every action we have we should have an equal or opposite reaction. So although the combinations of hormones released are a positive affluent to handling negative
stressors, there is also a negative consequence to prolonged exposure that can continue even after the stimuli resides. This can amount to our standard increases in blood pressure,
heart rate and sweat, all the way to progressives changes in the brain that act as causations to anxiety, depression and addiction. Although we may even be used to it, stress is
nothing to ignore.
On the short-term, our flight or fight response occurs at a rate that is hard to intervene. However our HPA axis can be inhibited to stop extensive detriment and it comes from our
perception in the matter.
This is by another compartment in the brain that can be an inhibitor to this response, our ventral subiculum. This compartment is an emotional processor that is context
dependent. So simply, when we shift from a state of learned helplessness, in essence your ‘why me?’ responses and move towards learned positivism, what can I learn from this?’ This
becomes a protective factor to stress.
Like all skills, learned positivism needs to be practiced and Training Day has enough barbells for it. So the next time anxiety builds, the fear of failure precedes your mind and the
pejorative effects of stress are taking place. Walk up to your loaded barbell. Take three breaths. Through the nose and out the mouth, within the first breath, remember a moment in
your life that burnt your inner child. Take a second breath, feel the moment that made you your happiest. Then take your third, visualise yourself completing the lift perfectly.
It may help your lifting; it may even help your life.
Joshua Balia
Training Day Gym Clayton / Weights for Mates