The article I titled CrossFit: the best answer to stress, briefly introduces the theory behind why vigorous exercise is vital for modern humans to mitigate or manage stress. To review, we have amazing built in systems that prime our bodies to rise to any task. When a challenge is presented, our nervous systems start drumming up solutions as fast as any super computer and we aren’t even aware. It’s perfect and astounding, the disconnect is that the challenges we’re faced with are mostly mental and often literally don’t have any solution we can solve by being ready to fight a bear. Without an outlet, it just takes a long time to return to a relaxed state, which is the problem.
Here’s an example: Maybe you’ve heard of Cortisol- commonly called the stress hormone. When cortisol is released/upregulated, one thing it does is raises our blood sugar so we have quick energy available to be shuttled to where it can be used. Crazy cool mechanism, and very good. It wakes us up in the morning, and primes us for a task. “But isn’t raised blood sugar bad?” Sure it can be, specifically at prolonged intervals. Chronically raised cortisol —> habitually raised blood sugar ——> prolonged elevated insulin—> insulin resistance—> metabolic disorders.
This is one example of many why a healthy stress response is important. But the question remains, what is up when a very “fit” person or CrossFitter suffers from stress?
The good news is that by increasing your work capacity across broad time and modal domains, you’re building a robust hedge against chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease. The disappointing news is that even the seemingly fittest are susceptible to the immediate or short term effects of poor stress management like anxiety, depression, and burnout. That doesn’t mean though that those things are inevitable, and a strong case can be made for the foundational concepts in CrossFit, most often the things we easily lose sight of.
As an initial disclaimer, don’t read this and go throw out your prescribed meds, also don’t go yell at a doctor, nor should you forsake counseling or therapy. There are things like past trauma or relationship issues, that no amount of burpees can address.
For a CrossFitter, especially those of you 3,4,5 plus years in, you possess a great framework for assessing your own health. Because we regularly work at the margins of our limitations, we can tell very quickly when something is off. For someone who doesn’t have that profound relationship with their physical body, it could take years or decades for them to notice.
Our health sits on a continuum from sickness to wellness to fitness. And it is ordered neatly across any and every measurable health metric. It also mirrors our fitness. There doesn’t exist a situation where one health metric is moving positively, while another moves in the opposite direction when work capacity is increasing broadly and generally. If your strength is increasing, but your stamina is decreasing, to a point, it might not be wholly detrimental or unhealthy, but that discrepancy is mirroring some other health metric not measured by fitness. In the case where say, your blood pressure is improving, but another important metric is going in the opposite direction, something is up. Stress and mental health, while hard to measure, move along that continuum just as orderly. If we’re suffering the adverse effects of stress, we should probably do some sort of personal inventory of how our lifestyle is affecting our work capacity (fitness). If we address those, and focus on our fitness, stress and mental health should begin to follow suit. While much of the medical community will focus in on certain symptoms to medicate singularly, as CrossFitters we can simply look at our scores for validation of health improvements.
There are some common traps CrossFitters succumb to, and are commonly rooted in nutrition. Two predominant myths or mindsets commonly lead to poor stress balance. One being the myth that intense exercise allows us to eat crap food in excessive amounts. The other is similar, but comes from being hyper fixated on weight loss and aesthetic. Rather than eating or drinking in excess, people focused on the scale will under-fuel for intense exercise and avoid certain workouts they think will slow their weight loss.
Interestingly both crowds suffer similar outcomes that come from poor nutrition, that being increasingly limited intensity and motivation. Both crowds can suffer the same adverse short term effects from stress- anxiety, depression, apathy, burnout etc.
Personally I cringe when the word “balance” is the agreed solution. “You gotta find a balance,” and everyone nods. What a cop out solution! So nebulous, as though we ought to drift back and forth in a cloud to become truly healthy. There is a definitive path forward for the CrossFitter. Eat meats and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar. Keep intake at levels that support intense exercise but not bodyfat. Do constantly varied functional movements at high intensity.
If you recall in my previous article, I referred to the mainstream “relax and distract” treatments for stress. Now that we have a foundation of fitness and an actual framework for health, those things become applicable and fruitful! Your mindfulness exercises, times in prayer, leisurely activities like golfing, hiking, and gardening; these all have a much more profound effect to enrich your life. I doubt there’s been any research on the impact of leisurely pursuits on homeostasis in health vs unhealthy individuals but you have to admit, that sounds like a pretty sexy study title!
In part 3, I’ll identify some probable stressors that we all could address beyond our fitness.
