Stress & Burnout: Train Smarter, Not Harder

Homeostasis is where the grass is, in fact, greener. Homeostasis is a term that refers to your body being in harmony. Your organs are happy. Your hormones are happy. Life is good. 

Stress is the ‘bad guy’ that likes to drag us away from homeostasis and put us to work. So how can we use exercise as a tool to optimise stress reduction instead of adding to it and spend more of our time in a state of homeostasis? 

Before I jump on the ‘demonising stress’ bandwagon, you need to know that not all stress is bad. The fitness industry loves to demonise stress - it’s a billion-dollar industry. The term “eustress” refers to positive stress that is associated with improved performance and productivity. “Distress” is negative stress that is associated with decreased performance and negative health responses. For this article, I’ll be referring to distress. 

How does stress work? When a person encounters a stressor, e.g. your ex or an important deadline, the body prepares to respond to the challenge or threat. The autonomic nervous and endocrine systems respond by producing ‘stress’ hormones. The result being a tornado of physiological reactions, including increases in heart and respiration rates, blood pressure, perspiration, and energy production. There’s also suppression of the immune function and production of the body’s natural pain killer. These changes make up the fight-or-flight response, which prepares the body to cope with the stressor. 

Unfortunately, most of us are living in a constant state of fight-or-flight. With technology constantly invading our privacy at all hours of the day, notifications from emails, socials, texts, alarms, calls, emails, inhibiting our ability to switch off mentally. Living in a constant state of alert is exhausting and often leads to ‘burnout’ and other serious health concerns. Cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, depression, anxiety, headaches, neck pain, and sleeping problems are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to stress-related illness.

Exercise is commonly known as a great way to relieve stress. The main reason is that it’s a ‘break’ away from our stressors reported to have calming effects on the brain. Studies showed that when the stressor was still present during exercise, the stress was not relieved. So exercise itself is not what relieves stress but instead the time away or the distraction that reduces your stress. Although, exercise does produce endorphins that have a positive effect on our mood, which has shown to help us better cope in stressful situations. Once again, this does not remove or reduce the stressor but instead gives us tools to combat it. On the contrary, exercise also produces similar hormones to a fight-or-flight response which can add to our stress levels. And no, this is not an excuse not to exercise! Keep reading.

Different styles of exercise produce different levels of hormones. The higher the intensity and load, the more stress hormones we produce. Intensity on a spectrum would be Yin yoga on one end and a high-intensity interval training session that leaves you dripping in sweat on the other end. As for load, this is how much resistance (weights) you add to your session. The heavier the weights, the more stress you put on your central nervous system. 

There’s a reason I ask my clients how they are feeling before we start training in the gym. It’s important to tune in to their stress levels to indicate how the session should play out. The higher the stress levels, the lower the intensity and load should be.

When stress levels are high, and you add a HIIT or heavyweight session on top, you increase your stress response and risk of injury.

Be your own trainer and ask yourself, what stresses have you experienced over the day? How has this left you feeling? Do you need a gym session that amps you into that fight-or-flight mode even more? Or would it benefit you to lower the intensity and load by opting for a low impact/ bodyweight session or some yoga?

This is how we can move past the outdated ‘go hard, or go home attitude and become intuitive gym goers that train smarter, not harder. Give it a go and reap the benefits with a more sustainable training approach that leaves you feeling like you’ve filled up your cup, not emptied it. 

Written by Georgia Brown - Ex NZ Footballer & Nominated NZ’s best up and coming trainer, 2019.