One Nation Under Stress: Is There Anything We Can Do?

A couple of weeks ago, I watched the documentary, One Nation Under Stress. It was eye-opening and informative. According to the latest research, the stressed state is becoming more common.

“Stress-related psychiatric disorders, including anxiety and depression, are currently the most common mental health disorders in the United States. By 2020, depression will have the second highest lifetime burden of disease, exceeded only by heart disease (1)”

After finishing the documentary, I wanted to get a better understanding of stress and its effects. And since the stressed state is taking over the world, I figured others would be interested too. So without further ado, let’s get nerdy and talk about stress.

What Is Stress?

There are two main nervous systems in the body: the parasympathetic (relax and digest) and the sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system. Stress is the body’s response to a real or perceived threat or challenge. These stressors can be short or long term, also known as acute and chronic stress.  The acute response is the body’s survival and reproduction mechanism. You will either fight, flight, or fuck. Focus, reaction time, and pain tolerance increase. For a brief amount of time, you become superhuman! How cool is that? 

Unfortunately, those superpowers can’t last forever. The body has to rest and recover, returning to a parasympathetic state. Problems arise when stress levels stay elevated for too long. Research has shown chronic stress to be detrimental to health.

“Among healthy individuals, anxiety can be associated with unhealthy behaviors such as physical inactivity, smoking, and poor diet, leading to increased risk for developing health issues (2).”

Now, this doesn’t happen overnight. The body is extremely resilient. But over time, stress levels can add up, especially when you are deprived of sleep, whole foods, and exercise. At a certain threshold (see graph below), muscle breaks down, fat storage increases, and parts of the brain responsible for memory and rational thinking shrink (3). Yikes...No wonder people think climate change isn’t real.

Where do you stand?

Why Are We So Stressed Out?

I believe that perceived stressors are the main cause of chronic stress. Perceived and physical stress are broken down into eustress and distress. Eustress is seen as beneficial to us, i.e., exercise, sex, a promotion at work. Whereas distress is perceived as negative and detrimental to our health, i.e., lack of sleep, loss of a loved one, losing your job. Remember, the brain reacts to perceived and physical stressors the same. So the stressor will be specific to the individual. For some, sitting in traffic could be just as stressful as running up a hill, especially if you live in Los Angeles. 

Let’s pretend you are driving to work and have an important meeting at 9 am. You can’t miss this meeting, or you might lose your job. On the way to work, traffic starts to accumulate due to a car accident. Your hands are tied, and you are stuck. You can’t do anything about the situation, and you will be late for the meeting. Frustration builds. You try to play it cool, but cars aren’t moving. You are stuck bumper to bumper. The lack of control sends you over the edge. So, of course, you lose it and start screaming...“FUCK!!!” 

At this moment, the body goes from a relaxed, parasympathetic state to a stress-induced sympathetic state. The brain releases a chemical cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters to get the body ready for war. Adrenaline pumps through the veins. “Thump….thump...thump..thump..thump!” Heart rate and blood pressure skyrocket. The eyes dilate—cortisol, the primary stress hormone, increases, and triggers a cascade of events.

Stored sugar is broken down and sent into the blood. The stomach empties, and blood is sent to muscles. The body is primed for movement. But unfortunately, you are stuck, and there is nothing you can do about it, or is there?

Train The Mind

The ability to stay relaxed and calm in the situation above is key. You must focus on what is in or outside your control. Traffic happens to be outside of our control. We can't change what has happened, but we can change how we react. This is highlighted by Viktor Frankl, a renowned psychiatrist, author, and Holocaust survivor,

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  

When we lose the ability to control our stress response, we increase our risk for disease. Therefore, we must strengthen the muscles responsible for awareness. We must learn to recognize perceived stressors and not react. To do this, we must train the mind with meditation. But how long is enough? In my next blog post, I will answer this and many more questions about meditation. For now, I recommend downloading a guided meditation app like Headspace. You can get the app at headspace.com, the Google Play Store, or the Apple App Store. (Seriously, give it a try.)

From Intern to Coach

Before I moved to Los Angeles, I was a student at East Carolina University studying to become a health fitness specialist. As you know, you have way more free time during college versus the real world. I took advantage of the free time and dedicated it to my health. I slept 8 hours a night and lived in the gym. I would meditate every morning and exercise two hours a day. On top of the exercise, I would train 5 to 8 clients a day. My mind and body felt great. I was focused on my career and had a purpose. But that all changed after I graduated and moved out to California.

Change Is Uncomfortable

I was moving to LA to complete my bachelors degree and further my career in the fitness industry. I had to complete a 480 hour unpaid internship to graduate as a health fitness specialist. I was very excited to graduate and start my life after college, but with the excitement came anxiety and fear. I had to start all over again and this intimidated me.The first month was fun, new and exciting. But I soon became homesick and struggled to find my place for the next three months. It was hard, to say the least. I was living on my cousin's floor and interning at Equinox Downtown Los Angeles. I wasn’t allowed to coach anyone. I felt emasculated.

Since my internship was unpaid, I had to make money elsewhere. I started working for Handstand, an on demand trainer app. Between my internship and Handstand, I had very little free time. I didn't have a car so I would bike back and forth to work. And then I would bike, Uber, or metro to private clients on the side to make ends meet. My schedule had me up at 4 am and in bed around 8:30 pm. My social life crumbled. I was miserable. I smoked marijuana each night to numb the loneliness. I was worn out and lost my disciplines. I stopped meditating. I played the victim card and thought I deserved a break, but this only made things worse.

As my meditation practice decreased so did my focus and drive. My mind felt scattered and the symptoms of depression slowly took over. At times I wanted to move back to New Jersey, but luckily my parents didn’t let me. My mom and dad forced me to stay. They told me I had to stay for at least nine months and give it a chance. This was no easy task for me. I felt lonely and lost. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have a sense of community nor a purpose. It felt like I was losing a sense of myself. I was clueless and didn’t know what to do. And to top it off, I was still an intern without a job.

Practice Extreme Ownership

I counted down the days until the internship was over. Halfway through, I was given an interview by my personal training managers. I was confident that I would be hired. Unfortunately, it didn't go well and I was turned down. I was too confident and arrogant. The rejection was a crushing blow. I questioned my skill set and my future. I was lost and hopeless. I blamed others and didn’t take responsible for my mistakes.

After a failure, you have two options. You can learn from it and use it as fuel to get better or you can blame someone else for your mistakes. I am not sure what happened or what motivated me. Most likely it was a podcast or book that drove me to change. It was not fun. It was hard to look in the mirror and admit that I was fucking up. It was uncomfortable and didn’t happen overnight. It took me a couple weeks to quiet my ego and own my mistakes.

I used the failure as fuel for motivation and forced myself to get my act together. I ordered the 5 Minute Journal and started to journal every morning. I wrote down my goals every morning for the day. I would keep it simple and write, “Meditate for 15 minutes this morning.”  or “Listen to your boss and don't argue.” With each day of practice, my focus and sense of purpose started to come back. I forgot how good it felt to achieve a goal I set. The small achievement built momentum and allowed me to get back on track.

Meditate & Journal 

Eventually, my internship came to an end and I was hired. After getting hired I continued with my morning routine. I would wake up, meditate for 15 minutes and then journal my goals for the day. As the months went by my focus and productivity continued to improve. I soon climbed the ranks from intern to tier 3+, the highest ranking trainer, in record time.

I am not here to brag, rather I write this to show you the benefits of a journal and meditation practice. Both practices kept me focused on my goals and improved my mindset. If you are struggling with change or feel lost, I implore you to start journaling.

Why Am I Suffering?

"Many people in our culture are chronically overworked, undernourished, tired and suffer from an insufficiency of time to simply be in community, to rest, to be creative. Living with such limitations and pressures should be expected to produce a population that is reactively hedonistic, impulsive, and prone to addiction. Behaviors that are addictive (e.g., drugs, alcohol) and destructive (e.g., over eating, alcohol, sugar, fat) are simply frustrated and maladaptive coping strategies to combat the stress caused by a damaging, unnatural paradigm from which most people cannot escape.”

- Dr. Alex Vasquez  

So before we go any further, it is important to understand that you are fighting an uphill battle. You are not alone in the fight, everyone in the world is fighting a battle inside themselves. It is what makes us human. But you also have the ability to choose and fight back.

Question Your Emotions

Let's face it, life is going to suck at times. One day you are the king or queen and the next day you are the jester in the courtroom. So what gives? I believe our feelings are just symbols, ideas our subconscious mind generates. The emotion itself doesn't cause any harm. It may change how we feel and think, but it doesn't take hold of our body and force us to do anything. At the end of the day we are responsible for our decisions.

Suffering Can Teach You

Throughout my life I have been held captive by my emotions. Over the last two years, I have learned to question them and be aware of my reactions. Granted, I still fall prey to the emotional beast inside of me. But I am able to control this irrational animal by slowing down and asking, "Why am I suffering?"

You are going to suffer. It is inevitable. But you don't have to let the suffering last, nor let it determine the choices you make. There can be beauty in pain, it can bring attention to an underlying problem. For example, if you are working out and your shoulder is numb, there is a good chance that you hurt your shoulder. Should you keep going and ignore the pain? No! You should stop and figure out what is wrong. The same can be said for our emotional state. Usually you feel a certain way because something happened, be it good or bad, there was something that influenced the mood. So you should ask yourself, "What is causing my current mood? And how can I fix it?" Whenever you feel happy, you should do the same thing. Ask yourself a simple question: "Why am I so happy?" This simple question can show what you truly want in life.

What Makes You Happy?

For me, happiness lies in problem-solving and coaching others. But at times I forget. I complain about the early mornings and late nights. I feel pity for myself when I am tired. Thus, we must train ourselves to not forget what brings us joy.

Viktor Frankl, the author of Man's Search For Meaning, brings light to the subject. I think it is the perfect quote to leave you with.

“What man actually needs is not a tension less state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”