Stress puts us in a confined state of mind in which we feel like we have nowhere to go and we stay stuck in stressful states of anger, depression, anxiety. We can find ourselves feeling stagnant at work, sitting or standing for hours. Similar to the way our bodies adapt to become stronger after weeks of regular exercise, maintaining an optimal quality of life requires your mind to be constantly percolating and striving for adaptation to efficiently deal with stress.
How do we keep our mind percolating and striving for the next best thing that’s in front of us? A technique that we teach our clients is a little bit of meditation that I learned in a college Psychology course. We constantly talked about what an elite performer in an athletic event must go through to be successful in their competition. We connected the practices athletes must do to perform at an elite to how the general population could be elite performers as a parents, friend, or employee.
Something that is commonly taught to athletes before they execute an event is to take deep breaths.
Taking deep breaths slows down the heart rate a few beats per minute and decrease the amount of stress hormones that are telling the heart to beat rapidly. There is a physiological correlation to taking deep breaths and reducing the stimulation of the nervous system.
For example, Marksmanship athletes participating in biathlons competitively ski downhill at high speeds, aim, and shoot at a target that is 50 m away with a rifle. Skiing downhill to immediately shoot at a target 150 feet away while their heart is racing and stress hormones are overstimulating the body poses a substantial challenge. Similarly, professional Baseball athletes are taught to take a few deep breaths before going up to bat against a pitcher throwing a ball 90 MPH. Taking deep breaths helps these athletes to become a better performer because they can focus on the task at hand that takes a high amount of dexterity and concentration in order execute successfully.
Even though everyday life does not involve the challenges professional athletes deal with, stress can hit us the same way. For example, having a bad day at work can affect a person’s mood negatively, leading to a decreased desire to exercise, eat healthy or go to sleep in a timely manner due to increased stress and anxiety. The stimulus of getting yelled at by the boss or meeting certain deadlines will increase circulating stress hormones, blood pressure, and heart rate responses. This stress stimulus is very similar to the challenges athletes experience that increase their stress responses. A solution to this stress is identical to how athletes center themselves utilizing deep breathing techniques. By taking deep breaths, one can apply similar heart rate recovery, concentration, and an overall decrease in the amount of circulating stress hormones in the blood stream. This is a method in which we can become elite performers and adhere to a healthier lifestyle.
A simple form of meditation we teach our personal training clients when stress takes over is to take a few deep breaths. This is a technique that I was taught by one of my favorite Psychology teachers in my college career:
- Find an inanimate object outside (like a tree, the horizon, or some clouds)
- Look at that object. Close your eyes. Take one long, deep breath. Fill your lungs to full capacity. Take your time and keep your eyes closed.
- Let that breath out. Keep your eyes closed
- With your eyes still closed, take another long and steady deep breath. On the exhale, open your eyes and slowly let out your breath. Take as much time as you need.
- Take One more deep breath with your eyes open, still looking at the object you initially picked out. Exhale one more time and start looking at other objects that strike your interest.
Feel free to try this technique when things get rough. Not only will taking deep breaths improve focus during an athletic event, but this technique can also help reduce stress in our everyday lives. This is a technique we teach to some of our personal training clients in the Napa Valley because there are so many amazing things to experience in this beautiful area of the world. Trees, vineyards, hills. Stress is always a threat to slow us down. However, the beauty around us is always present as well.
Take some time out of the stressful part of your day and look at something pretty.
It will be alright, if we just take deep breaths.
Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.
