Stress resiliency
So much of our lives and health involve and revolve around stress. Stress is usually viewed through a negative lens. Truth is, not all stress is bad as you need certain stressors to increase strength, power, speed, and health.
It’s how you recover from stress that makes all the difference. If you can’t bounce back from any particular stress or cumulative stress you’re under then you won’t make any gains. You only dig yourself a deeper hole that’s harder to get out of.
How much you get knocked down from a particular stress and your ability to come back from it (the amount of bounce and time it takes) is your stress resilience. You want high stress resilience and it’s something that you can increase just like fitness.
Enhancing stress resilience is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
General areas to consider if you’re trying to improve stress resilience are sleep, nutrition, movement, and boundaries. Using your “NO” button is necessary to prevent an overscheduled life.
Understanding how your genes function (called epigenetics) is immensely helpful: can you detox efficiently? Does your system generate a hyper inflammatory response to toxins, hormone metabolites, or oxidative stress? Can you absorb or activate vitamin D? Do you make a lot of androgens (like testosterone) or excess estrogens? Having answers to these questions and then some is invaluable when navigating short-term and long-term health.
Knowing your starting point is also advantageous. What’s your current state of adrenal (dys)function, hormone balance, thyroid function, gut health, or inflammation? Understanding how each system is currently functioning helps you identify the root of what’s going on and know where to start.
Remember that pain is a form of stress and stress is cumulative. Good stress, bad stress they’re all added to the same stress bucket. Removing any negative stress that you have control over will be immensely supportive in lowering your stress burden.
Knowing what makes your body thrive or struggle allows you to be efficient and targeted in what lifestyle, nutritional or training changes to make. Why guess when you can test. It’s what Wild Pursuits is all about: get data, make a plan, execute.
Building resilient and vibrant women (& men) is my mission. Optimizing your stress resilience is key to thriving in this busy and abundant world. Support your body, protect your time & energy, and nourishing yourself exactly how you need to be nourished.
Questions about how to upgrade your stress resiliency? Scheduled a strategy session and we’ll chat.
Keeping you in pursuit,
Dr. Marsha✨