<span style="font-weight: 400;">So a topic we hear a lot about is stress. There is a lot of talk about how it influences our mood, behaviour and even health. Most of you, I am sure, will have felt stressed at some point in your life and maybe regularly, but do you know how to manage it? </span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">What happens when you feel stressed? </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Maybe you have clients who get stressed?</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Do you wonder what you can do to help them? </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Do you really understand what is causing their stress?</span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Is stress actually a bad thing?</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Now before you jump all over that last question, read the rest of this post...</span>

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<b>What Is Stress?</b>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Before we explore this, let’s have a quick look at some of the Oxford Dictionary’s definitions of stress;</span>

<i><span style="font-weight: 400;">A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.</span></i>

<i><span style="font-weight: 400;">‘he's obviously under a lot of stress’</span></i>

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<i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Something that causes a state of strain or tension.</span></i>

<i><span style="font-weight: 400;">‘the stresses and strains of public life’</span></i>

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<i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Subject to pressure or tension.</span></i>

<i><span style="font-weight: 400;">"this type of workout stresses the shoulder and knee joints" </span></i>

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<b><i>Stress</i></b><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> is primarily a physical response. When </span></i><b><i>stressed</i></b><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">, the body thinks it is under attack and switches to 'fight or flight' mode, releasing a complex mix of hormones and chemicals such as adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine to prepare the body for physical action. www.anxietyuk.org.uk</span></i>

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<h3><b><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5363" src="https://www.biomechanicseducation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Is-stress-a-bad-thing--1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" />Is Stress Good or Bad?</b></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In his book </span><b>‘‘</b><b><i>We KNOW what to do, so WHY don’t we do it?</i></b><b>’, </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nick Hall suggests that we should not be looking to </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">reduce </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">the stress, but to </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">increase</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the recovery.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">He suggests we NEED stress!</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The brain AND body both need stress for stimulation, to grow, to develop and to maintain a healthy system. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The problem often isn’t how much we DO, but how much we DON’T DO. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Personally, I am a big believer in the power of the mind and that having methods in place to improve the way we think can be extremely powerful. </span>

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<h3><b>The Stress Of Exercise Is A Good Thing, Right..?</b></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">It is well documented that stressing the body with physical activity is good for us. Within our professions we advise people on how to move, to move well and to move more. The physical stress of exercise replacing our previous physical demands as hunter-gatherers of building fires, climbing trees and running away from sabre-toothed tigers.</span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">We have learned that when we don't move we gain all sort of undesirable compensations and adaptations that we, as exercise professionals, spend our careers helping our clients with. </span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Going for a run would be a form of stress on the body and would be seen by most as a </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">good or acceptable</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> form of stress; as it exercises the cardiovascular system and the leg muscles, for example, to name just a couple of the positive physical demands. But to make that ‘stress’ </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">valuable</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> we then need to recover and rest. If we just went running again straight away without recovery the body would begin to feel TOO stressed and eventually would start to break down. </span>

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<h3><b>Mental Stress… Same or Different?</b></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Mental stress is the same, or similar, if you consider that mental stimulation/stress, is how we gain knowledge and process information. Mental stress requires some kind of a recovery phase too, like meditation for example. </span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Basically what Hall is saying in his book, is that the problem isn’t necessarily the STRESS itself but more often than not, the fact that we are not recovering from the stress or stimulation well enough. We should measure the stress with enough, equal or ample recovery. </span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">He uses the example of Newton’s law of physics, where each action causes a reaction, as something of which we should be mindful in this example. The reason for this, Hall says, is because it is during the recovery phase that we grow and when the ‘de-stressing’ occurs. </span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">It reminds me of the Kubler Ross curve we discuss during our workshops, that we receive information and may go through a phase of discomfort while we process it. However, with time we can start to make sense of it to allow homeostasis to return to both our mind and body.</span>

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<b>So Ask Yourself This…</b>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Are you experiencing too much stress?</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">OR</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Are you simply lacking recovery?</span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">What changes do you need to make to your routine to allow for sufficient recovery?</span>

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<h2 style="text-align: center;">Are you ready to take your skills to the next level?</h2>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">Want to be able to help your clients move better, move more freely and get even better results on their programmes?</h3>
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