Everyday your body is put through a number of different stressors. Stress due to exercise, work, sleep, nutrition, your environment, other people, etc. When your body is put through so much stress and it doesn't have the ability to adequately recover, performance and health may suffer. Most likely your body will feel sore and fatigued because your body's recovery was not adequate.
Since many people only really see the external effects of stress, you can only imagine what is going on inside of your body! If we were to take a look, we may see some signs of increased inflammation, connective tissues that aren't healing, neurotransmitters and anabolic hormones going down and their catabolic hormones such as cortisol going up.
When your body isn't getting adequate recovery, there are a whole number of issues that have complex effects on the body!
There are two main categories for the underlying causes of fatigue -
1. Central (neuromuscular) - Our central nervous system (CNS) acts like a car engine regulator. If you are in full speed and revving too high for too long, it shuts down. Our brain attempts to protect our muscles the same way by reducing the rate of nerve impulses.
2. Local (peripheral) - Relates to energy system depletion and/or metabolic byproduct accumulation. Just like a car running out of gas.
When it comes to recovering from our exercise and workouts, the activities that we do between workouts greatly influences how efficiently we recover. These activities fall into two categories.
1. Sympathetic Activities - "fight or flight"
2. Parasympathetic Activities - "rest and digest"
Sympathetic activities include pursing ambitious career goals, building relationships, balancing finances, acquiring food and shelter, and all of the daily activities required for human survival. As you can imagine, most of us tend to be much too "sympathetic". All of these activities are stressors that can increase our body's level of cortisol and adrenaline. Chronic sympathetic activity leads to high levels of circulating cortisol and adrenaline, both produced by the adrenal glands. This can cause our "non critical" functions to be inhibited - things like digestion, liver metabolism and detoxification, immune function, and reproduction.
When these sympathetic activities start to dominate our lives, it can result in...
1. Poor blood sugar management and insulin resistance
2. Depression, sleep disruption, and carbohydrate craving
3. Decreased thyroid hormone output and a reduced metabolism
4. Altered sex hormone activity
5. Amino Acid loss from muscle
If fatigue becomes chronic, the production of stress hormones can slow and the development of ongoing fatigue can occur. When the body is revving too high for too long it starts to shut down. This type of fatigue is central or neuromuscular. Removing all of your daily stressors not necessarily healthy or a positive thing. Rather than trying to fix all of the stressors in your life, finding a balance of stressful activities with relaxing and energizing activities (parasympathetic activities) is key.
Relaxing and energizing activities that are parasympathetic dominant include -
1. Mediation
2. Yoga
3. Pilates
4. Tai Chi
5. Spa Treatments
6. Meaningful Relationships/Discussions
7. Jacuzzi Time
8. Sauna
9. Relaxing Hobbies
10. Reading
11. Music
12. Drinking Tea
13. Daydreaming
14. Warm Baths
15. Candles
16. Aromatherapy
Mediation, yoga, pilates, and tai chi can help lower stress, improve oxygenation and stimulate recovery. They have been around for thousands of years because they work.
Spa treatments, sauna time and baths can facilitate lymph circulation and recovery.
Sleep and meaningful relationships can also regulate our recovery. A restful night sleep and a good laugh increase our energizing and recovery hormones. Most people need 7-9 hours of restful sleep each night to perform their best.
One activity isn't necessarily better than any other; it's more about what a specific activity does for you. Give your body time to retune and bring itself back into balance. Prioritizing 30 minutes of parasympathetic activity each day is essential for productive recovery!
I will have more of this topic in articles to follow! Please feel free to write comment or email me for questions!
Happy Restful & Recovered Running :)
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