The Other 23 Hours: Stress, Anxiety & Breathing
by Keats Snideman
?Most of us (in the Western World)?will have the luxury of dying of a stress-related disease.? (Professor Robert Zapolsky, Stress Researcher)
As a quick recap for the goal of this blog series,??the ?other 23 hours? refers to the time of the day when we are not exercising or training (whether for health/fitness, recreation or sport). It is often thought that the workout or training session is the most important element to achieve succcess and progress in fitness. While part of this thought process is certainly true (if there is no stimulus there is no need for adaptation),?the reality??is that fitness isn?t gained during the training session, but?rather, in the hours and days following the stressor or stimulus. Poor lifestyle?decisions or ?habits? can?literally rob?us of our gains and progress?and even set us up for injury and/or illness. Hence the need to be reminded of the importance of non-training time!
In the previous installments of ?the other?23 Hours? I covered the importance of microbreaks, sleeping positions, pre-bed stretching?& self-massage,? and constructive versus destructive rest positions respectively. In this 5th installment, I will be discussing the impact of the stress response, how to measure it,?and the importance of? controlling stress and anxiety by learning how to breath more slowly, deeply, and efficiently. ?I will also discuss various methods, including some nifty technology using your smart?phone?to help both measure and manage how we all?deal with stress.
Sometimes, we All Get a Little Stressed Out!
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It?s All About the Stress Response!
At the heart of the issue here is what is called the ?stress reponse.? The stress response is an ancient evolutionary survival reflex of sorts. It?s basically the activation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) to help control the internal environment of the body. The ANS is basically the part of your nervous system that control all the functions of your bodily organs and parts that you don?t have to think about. Think ?automatic? nervous system to help you remember. If you can think back to middle school biology, the control of our bodily processes is refered to as ?homeostasis,? or the steady-state of the body.? The ANS is broken down into two distinct systems called the ?sympathetic? nervous system, which activates the well known ?flight or flight? mechanism, and the ?parasympathetic? nervous system, which is more concerned with activating vegetative fucntions and is sometimes called the ?rest and digest? part of the autonomic?nervous system.
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Almost anything in life that we are exposed to, even our own thoughts, emotions, and ideas can be considered a stressor which can activate the stress repsonse. It?s important to know that not all stress is bad, and that without stressors, we would die. Good stress is referred to as ?eustress? while bad stress is?referred to as ?distress.? ?For example, we need the stress of gravity to help keep our muscles, fascia, tendons, and bones strong as well as?our organs functioning properly. Without gravity, things do not go well for us humans?because we evolved with gravitational forces as a constant stressor acting upon our bodies. However, when our bodies become very unbalanced through injury, disuse and misuse, gravity can become a lethal force that literally breaks our bodies down! Whether a stressor is positive or negative for a given individual is dependent on the context of said stressor: One man?s eustress is another man?s distress!
Measuring Stress: Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
Most people don?t need any device or person to tell them when they?re really stressed out; it?s pretty obvious! But day after day, the little hassels and stressors of the day add up and?can?make us feel?tired, fatigued, and even down right sick. The problem is that modern life has created so many stressors, we could call them little annoyances, that we humans just aren?t evolved to handle on a daily basis. This leads to chronic acitvation of the stress response that eventually ruins?our health?and interferes with the normal?homeostatic mechanisms of the body. This over-activation of the stress response over time can lead to chronic inflammation, which can lead to heart disease, stroke, cancer, and?many other?common modern?diseases.
Unlike the Zebra in Africa who rightly turns on the stress response when being chased by a lion, humans can turn on the stress response at any time just thinking about events or stressfull situations, whether in the past or in the future. We can create a lion in our minds at any time which activates this primitive survival system. One of the ways physiologists and cardiologists learned to measure the effect of stress on the human body is through the heart rate. Specifically,?by measruing the variability between each beat, a gateway into the autonomic nervous system is created. Measuring these time intervals, known as heart rate variability (HRV for short), gives and indication of how well the body?(and brain) is dealing with stress (also known as allostatic load). In general, a higher HRV is good, as it indicates that the heart?(via the ANS), is able to adapt to both higher and lower demands of activity and stress. In contrast, a low HRV could indicate the the body is fatigued or overly stressed?and thus, is?not as able to vary the heart rate adequately?to keep up with the demands of the day momemt by moment.
If You?re Going to be Chased by a Lion, Make Sure it?s This One!
Typcially, the only way to measure HRV is with a very expensive medical device used by cardiologists or via a high-tech device such as the Omega Wave, which is used by some elite athletic teams, trainers, and coaches around the world. This device and others, can cost as much as $30,000 per unit, so the technology hasn?t been that available to the majority of athletes (both recreational and elite). Recently, over the last couple of years however, there are some much more affordable options for measruing HRV on the market including a device called the Ithlete, which can be used with a Smart Phone (iPhone or Android), iPod touch, and the iPad. Joel Jamsion, a very succesful MMA fitness coach out of Seattle, WA, has also created his own version of the Ithlete, which he calls Bioforce. I could go on and on about all this stuff but it would just be easier if you watched the video I made below!
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Improving HRV, Anxiety Control and Breathing
Now that you?ve got an idea of what HRV is and why measuring it is important, let talk about some practical ways in which we can all improve our ability to keep our bodies calm and controlled under the stress and pressure of life. One such method to help prevent?our overactive lizard brains from turning us into piles of stress hormones, is through deep diaphragmatic breathing, such as has been taught in various types of meditation and prayer for thousands of years. From the ancient wisdom of Eastern traditions such as Taoism, Buddhism, and Yoga, we have learned of the many benefits of meditation. Although many of the goals of meditation involve religious-oriented prayer towards some universal God or Gods, for non-religious people like myself, meditation can still offer some real benefits to helping us control our autonomic nervous system, and thus our stress-response and the anxiety that ensues when it gets out of hand! The ultimate goal for stress reduction when meditating is to blunt the stress response and activate what is known as the relaxation response.
Meditating is Great..but Can You Stick With It??
However, what do you do if you are ADD like me? I have tried so many times over the last two decades to meditate and time and time again, my racing brain makes it very difficult for me?to stick with it. Fortunately, there are some devices and technology?out there now that make deep breathing (and thus meditative benefits) more possible in our increasingly ADD world. A couple of devices that come to mind include a device called the emWave, and the Stress Eraser. What these biofeedback devices do is basically take your resting and heart rate whille measuring your HRV simultaneouly. From this measurement, a breathing wave is created which helps you to entrain your breath with a wave on the screen. By following this wave, you balance out your heart rate, and lower the ravaging affects of the stress response. These responses are very similar to what happens when we?meditate. If you can meditate well and consistently however, there is no need to get this type of device as they can run between $140-$230 depending on which type of device you get.
Below is a great video about the Stress Eraser, how it works, and how to use it.
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For those who can?t afford a device such as this, I?ve found a few options in the world of smart phone Apps that might be of help to people as well. In the video below, I explain what I?ve found.
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Breathing Techniques for Anxiety and Stress Control
If? one wants to try to improve their ANS via no devices, which is probably best long term, there is still good old fashioned diaphragmatic breathing techiques that probably stem from Yoga and other Eastern tradtions. One such technique is called ?pranayama? in Yoga and can work very well to help balance the ANS. There are many permutations of this technique or practice, and?one that I?ve used with good results is called the four-fold breath which is listed below:
1) First, make sure you know how to belly breath without too much chest expansion. Then practice what is called a ?Complete Breath? where you first fill up the belly and lower lobes of the lung followed by the chest and the upper lobes of the lungs. This complete breath is what should be used for this specialized breathing technique.
2) Next, set a rythm or tempo to your breaths where you inhale to the count of 4, hold for a 2 count, exhale for a count of 4, and then pause for another 2 seconds; repeat for several cycles. ?This would be a 4-2-4-2 rythm ot tempo and can be modified to suit one?s personal comfort level when breathing. Someone might like as long as 8-4-8-4 or maybe 6-3-6-3; play around with what feels best for you and try this for at least a couple of minutes. This might be best done sitting in? a relaxed and supported position. Lying down could work but many people might just fall asleep; which might be what the person needs if they are super sleep deprived anyway..like so many of my clients! 
Another technique for controlling arousal and anxiety is one that I learned from the writings of the great?Osteopathic bodyworker from the UK, Leon Chaitow:
1) Sitting comfortable, place one hand on the abdomen and the other on the chest. This will help to monitor the sequence of breathing which should be belly first, then chest as described in the four-fold breath above. Inhale slowly through the nose and then exhale even more slowly through pursed lips, as if trying to bend a candle flame without blowing it out. The key with Chaitow?s technique is to make the exhale approximately twice as long as the inhale. Do this for around 30 cycles for a therapeutic and calming effect. However, even just a few cycles during stressful moments might be enough to remind the body of the relaxation response!
Conclusion
Hopefully this blogpost and the videos within it, have been helpful to understanding the imporatnce of monitoring and controlling?the stress response in our lives. Also, if you were not familiar with heart rate varability (HRV), and the importance of measuring it, you now will be motivated to start including the measurement in your daily training process. New techonology has made this measurement more accesible than ever. Also, I hope that many of you will attmept the breathing and stress control techniques, inlcuding use of stress eraser, which is working very well for the many people out there who will use it regularly.
Now go control your stress and reap the rewards of a healthier body and mind!
Thanks for reading,
Keats
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