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Energy For Performance Blog

What We Think Vs. What We Know

Thursday, May 03, 2012

A few days ago I found myself having an interesting conversation…with myself. Yes, as you become more aware of your mental gymnastics throughout the day, including the stories you tell yourself, you can find yourself listening in on a conversation in your own mind as if you were an eavesdropper. Odd, I realize…but true. And I don’t mind because awareness is the first step towards using the power of your brain to create the life you want.

What I discovered in this internal dialogue was that what we think is often very different from what we know. My thoughts that morning included “I’m too tired to exercise”, “I really need to rest”, “My knee will hurt more”, “I’ll start tomorrow”, “I don’t need to do it”, and “I don’t want to do it”. But what I knew was I did need to do it, my knee was fine for moderate exercise, if I didn’t exercise my anxiety would have increased even more, and I was on the verge of a potential anxiety attack (unfortunately, something I’ve had to manage from a very young age). I know that feeling, and I know it usually happens in this exact situation – one part injury or illness, one part lack of exercise, one part stress, one part a case of the “blues” = system wide break down.

Fortunately I focused on what I knew to be true and pushed myself to go to the gym, thinking worst-case scenario I’d at least walk. I ended up getting a 45-minute workout in, chatting for a bit with a friend, and my day immediately shifted for the better. I was still in a bit of a funk, and tired, and a tad overwhelmed…but it had become manageable. And had I not exercised I am certain that things would have gotten worse.

This experience just reinforced something I wrote about in my upcoming book, The SHARP Solution (available February, 2013): our operating system consists of two fabulous leaders – our heart and our brain. While our heart provides passion, purpose, and motivation our brain controls the resources we allot to each of those things. When we’re running on empty, whether it’s physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually, our brains can shift us into conservation mode, triggering thoughts that encourage us to conserve energy. What that means is that we slow down metabolism, crave foods high in calories, consume too much food, and don’t want to move more than we have to – making eating right and exercising an outright battle between what we want to do to reach our goals and what our brain thinks we need to do for survival. If we want to make healthy choices it’s critical that we fuel our system strategically, using techniques such as the Brain Recharge I talk so frequently about or other self-care practices, so that we keep our system running at its best. Try to practice awareness of how your thoughts, guided by your brain, may sometimes be trying to protect you but end up moving you in the wrong direction – away from your goals. In those moments, tune into what you know to be true, and try to listen a bit more to your heart.

Purpose & Mindset | (0) Comments | Permalink

Stress and Appetite

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Now, you might be one of those people who will lose their appetite when stressed and wonder what this all has to do with you. It’s true; approximately 10% of the population loses weight when going through something stressful while the vast majority of us, the 90%, gain weight. It might not be your genetic predisposition, but rather the type of stress you’re dealing with and how you’re coping.

There are two basic types of stress we deal with on a regular basis: acute stress and chronic stress. The acute stress response is triggered in the body whenever there is an urgent need for change, one that is usually quite severe and time limited. When this occurs, the hypothalamus releases a chemical called corticotropin-releasing hormone, which suppresses appetite. At the same time, the adrenal glands start to pump out adrenaline (also known as epinephrine) to trigger the body’s fight-or-flight response, putting appetite on hold.

For example, you are in a building when the fire alarm goes off and you’re forced to get yourself to safety as quick as possible. Or you’re driving in the car and notice another car swerving towards you, and you intuitively jerk the steering wheel to help move you out of the way. There is a serious need to do something, the fight/flight response is triggered, and you do what needs to be done to find safety.

For most people dealing with acute stress, appetite is decreased or even eliminated because the body and brain need to focus on what’s going on right now, in the moment.  Food consumption is not a priority when a building is on fire or a car is plunging in your direction.

However, acute stress is not what most of us face on a regular basis. The real weight loss enemy is chronic stress; the day-to-day drama that we all deal with. Often times we aren’t even aware of the chronic stress we’re under as we’ve adapted to be pretty good at ignoring it. We may not notice the constant noise in our environment, the negative news on TV, the obsessive focus on what’s bad in life by the media, but our brain is receiving those signals loud and clear.

In fact, studies have shown that activity in the brain can happen within milliseconds of exposure, even if we don’t recognize that the stressor is occurring. And as all the annoying, nagging, lingering stressors continue day in and day out, our system is constantly producing stress hormones in response.

What’s fascinating is that our body actually responds with different hormones based on the type of stress; acute or chronic. The acute stress response is fueled primarily by adrenaline, which helps us to instantly fight or flight. This hormone gives us a surge of energy that lasts for a short time frame, and it is burned off rather quickly.

Chronic stress however is a more long-term need, and therefore requires a more long-term solution. When our brain perceives that we’re going to be dealing with a particular stress for a long time, it wants to conserve energy and even build up energy reserves as much as possible. And what better way to build up our energy reserves than the foods we all crave – high sugar, high fat, high salt foods! The most addictive combination available.

By the way, food companies know this too, and it’s part of the reason that some of the quickest, cheapest foods available are so highly addictive – because they meet the greatest need of the stressed out body; as many calories as possible in the shortest amount of time to build up fat reserves! (For a wonderful discussion on this topic, read The End of Overeating, by David Kessler).

Once the stress is gone, cortisol levels should fall, but if stress persists, or if a person’s stress response gets stuck in the “on” position, cortisol may remain elevated. And despite your best efforts, your brain and body will continue to fight you to hold onto the precious fat they’ve worked so hard to accumulate.

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Three Training Levels for the Brain Recharge Process

Thursday, April 05, 2012

In recognition of Stress Awareness Month, we challenge you to join us over the next 30 days to create a consistent 10 minute brain training routine to help balance your brain for optimal brainpower, including creativity, focus, and resilience.

The brain recharge not only quiets your busy stressed-out mind, it also directly allows you to feel good in your physical body in the present moment, which in turn raises your overall mood, and boosts positive endorphins – so that when you return your focus to the work at hand your overall stress is down and your health profile raised up.

Remember, the underlying idea here is not to train harder, but to train smarter. Similar to a muscle, the brain needs to be used and exercised in order to keep up its conditioning. But also similar to a muscle, if you’re not strategic about how you train, you can find yourself constantly breaking down instead of building up. Below you will find descriptions of three levels of the brain recharge depending on your previous experience with relaxation training.

Beginner: Focus on your breath and trying to quiet your mind for 1 – 3 minutes. You may want to keep a pen and paper handy for thoughts that you feel you need to hold on to, so you can jot them down and then release them instead of trying to keep them in mind throughout the process. As you get more comfortable letting thoughts go, you can move away from note taking, but in this first phase it can be helpful as you learn to trust that the ideas will still be there when you need them.

Intermediate: Continue to pay attention to breathing and add a focus phrase that gives your mind something to concentrate on and instills a sense of relaxation. You may want to try saying to yourself “relax” when you exhale and “renew” as you inhale, as you work to train your brain to rebalance your entire system. Try not to rely on note taking, but keep pen and paper handy if it helps you relax. Dedicate 3 – 5 minutes to this training practice.

Advanced: Begin by focusing on your breath, move to a few rounds of using your focus phrase (relax, renew) and then add visualization as you recharge your brain and body. With each inhalation, visualize a calm energy coming into your body through your breath and the oxygen you breathe in to your lungs, and imagine that energy filling your head and calming your brain. As you begin to exhale, imagine that calm energy moving from the top of your head down to your feet, washing over each part of your body and flowing out the tip of your toes. With each breath in, focus on renewing your brain and body with this calm energy and with each breath out washing over your entire system with the energy, leaving you in a state of complete relaxation. You can do this for a short recharge break, or you may extend your practice to 10 – 20 minutes.

Training Plan: 1-20 minutes repeated 3x a day, ideally before meals. Remember, learning to relax is hard work and ironically may be perceived as stressful to the brain as it’s a shift from the norm. Do not try to train too much too quickly, rather begin with short segments of time maintaining consistency, and as you create a routine you can extend your training segments and boost your return on investment.

Purpose & Mindset | (0) Comments | Permalink