You Can Beat Stress In Today's World - Here's How
Understanding Stress and How to Manage It
In this video, Dr. K explains how our stress system was designed for short-term life or death situations and how it is inappropriately activated in today's society. He also teaches us how to Short Circuit the cycle of stress and overwhelm.
The Purpose of Our Stress System
- Our stress system was designed for short term life or death situations.
- Today's society does not typically present us with these types of immediate threats.
- Instead, we face more chronic and long-term stressors such as financial worries or job insecurity.
The Negative Effects of Chronic Stress
- Our body has one system to deal with stress, which is designed for short-term stress.
- When we experience chronic stress, our body inappropriately activates our stress system, leading to avoidance behaviors that do not solve the underlying problems.
- This creates a cycle where problems pile up until they become overwhelming.
Short-Circuiting the Cycle of Stress
- To optimally solve problems, we need to understand how our body keeps stress in check.
- When faced with a high-stress situation, our body recruits other systems to slow down heart rate and decrease blood pressure.
- We can Short Circuit the cycle of chronic stress by engaging in physical activity that mimics running away from danger. This releases endorphins that help us feel better.
Conclusion
In conclusion, understanding how our bodies respond to stress can help us manage it more effectively. By engaging in physical activity and recognizing when our bodies are activating the inappropriate response to chronic stressors, we can break the cycle of stress and overwhelm.
The Benefits of Vigorous Exercise for Stress Reduction
In this section, the speaker discusses how our stress system is designed for physical survival and how we can use vigorous exercise to recruit our stress system in the right way to reduce stress.
Using Vigorous Exercise to De-Stress
- Our stress system today does not recruit any of the systems that help us relax after a stressful event.
- To de-stress, we need to recruit those systems by doing the most vigorous exercise we can tolerate for a short period of time.
- This technique doesn't require exercising every day but rather running as hard as you can for a short period when feeling stressed out.
- The harder and more difficult your exercise is, the more it stresses your body, which then releases more endorphins and calms you down even more.
Shutting Off CRF Production
- Running at 90 or 100% capacity recruits the greatest shut off of your stress system.
- Once we shut off our stress system, our cravings for avoidance will decrease because our body uses endorphins to shut off CRF production.
- Engaging in vigorous exercise allows us to stop avoiding things and focus on tasks at hand.
Recruiting Our Stress System in Today's Society
- Mental tasks do not recruit the endorphin system or parasympathetic nervous system or actually shut off CRF production.
- To master stress in today's society, we must recruit our stress system in the right way by using vigorous exercise.
Overall, this section highlights how using vigorous exercise can be an effective tool for reducing stress and shutting off CRF production. By recruiting our stress system in the right way, we can decrease our cravings for avoidance and focus on tasks at hand.