What’s Chronic Stress?
From my experience, it’s where your nervous system gets stuck in fight or flight and it becomes very challenging to get back to calm and this continues over a long period of time. In my case this has led to fatigue and panic attacks, which have often included migraines, and I had a few so intense that I passed out and while driving and totaled my Tesla. I have passed out on other occasions, once while running on the road, and two other times behind the wheel, but they only resulted in a fender bender and hitting trash cans fortunately.
The thing about chronic stress is that it can create mystery illnesses. My heart is fine and I’m healthy in every other way, but the anxiety has laid me low.
The thing I want to check in about in the post is an active recovery plan. I can’t just sit back and say I’m going to get more sleep and de-stress, I need it spelled out and I need to feel like I’m doing something to move the needle in the direction of returning to normalcy.
What can we do to settle the autonomic nervous system/ sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight), and activate the parasympathetic nervous system?
- Breathwork
- Sleep quality and quantity
- Yoga
- Meditiation/ mindfulness
- Manage diet and delete or minimize stressors such as caffeine, alcohol, sugar
- Appropriate exercise that won’t over tax our nervous system
- CBT- cognitive behavioral therapy to get at the root of the anxiety and re-frame anxious thinking
What’s an active recovery plan?
For me it has started with monitoring my body with a variety of tools, checking heart rate, HRV, blood glucose, sleep, and diet. Next has been to manage my activity level and accept that I may not be able to push my body the way i have been accustomed to doing all of my life.
Tools:
- Apple watch for heart rate, sleep and exercise. I also have a breathing app on there
- Heart rate monitor for HRV daily checks
- CGM for blood glucose
- AI apps for CBT reflective journaling
Plan:
- Check HRV in the a.m. first thing and structure my activity for the day based on the reading
- Have a menu of physical activities that fit within HRV ranges, including yoga and foam rolling
- I chose keto to normalize blood glucose so that I wasn’t dealing with spikes, which were contributing to stress.
- Incorporate wellness practices into my daily routine- breathing, meditation, heart coherence (breath and HRV practice), solid sleep and sleep hygiene, appropriate exercise for my available energy, daily CBT reflective journaling, sauna and cold exposure, etc
- I’m actually re-framing physical experiences that have been triggers for panic attacks such as coughing, shortness of breath, dizziness. My condition had escalated to the level of panic disorder, where these things would create anxiety about a possible panic attack and become a self fulfilling prophecy.
Conclusion:
Using this strategy for the past week, I’ve been able to play intensive 2 hour competitive pickleball sessions without any panic attacks. The HRV a.m. check ins have really helped me not to push on days when I shouldn’t. Dialing back my activity level/ intensity has been challenging for me, as a guy who is very active and athletic, but I’m looking at a long term benefit, and trusting the process. I definitely wasn’t improving by trying to push through, white knuckle it. That approach was working against me. Now I’m learning to be patient and gentle with myself, and I have a road map and a process toward recovery.
I have hope. Hope is good.