Are you exercising too hard or not enough?

There was a time when I trained hard to achieve my goals of running my first marathon and then ultramarathons.

Pushing myself was demanding in terms of effort and discipline, but I felt good about it. I could see the progress and the overall improvements in my fitness and overall life satisfaction. 

But I have also pushed too hard at times. 

Training is stressful on the body 

If you don't support your efforts with quality nutrition and proper rest and recovery, your body only breaks down and does not get to rebuild stronger (which is the purpose of training!).

I noticed this past 4 years that I didn't have the capacity to challenge my body as much. And this, even though I adopted an healthy lifestyle to sustain my training.

And I don't believe it has to do with "getting older."

Different forms of stress

Creating my business in 2019 has been exciting but also quite demanding and thus, stressful.

I also dealt with challenging relationship and family situations and then, the disruptions related to the pandemic. And more recently, I moved overseas, starting a new life in a new culture away from friends and family. 

I already had too much stress to deal with (mental, emotional and even spiritual -see my blog post about discomfort for more about that).

Adding physical stress was not a good idea. And my body reminded me of that a few times during these past years (I had a variety of minor but persistent injuries and pains, hormonal imbalance and digestive issues).

For our body, whatever the source of stress, it all comes down to the same biological response: increase cortisol levels, arterial pressure, heart rate and insuline resistance. And the more you experience stressors (physical, mental, emotional or spiritual), the more taxing it is on your body.

Exercising can stress or calm down

As per Jennifer Heisz (author of Move The Body, Heal the Mind), exercise, by up-regulating neuropeptide Y, helps soothe the anxious amygdala, dial down the fear and hyper-vigilance and keep us calmer.

Low to moderate intensity exercise also reduces inflammation which may be involved in causing depression.

But high intensity exercise or too much exercise may increase symptoms of anxiety and inflammation. At least temporary. 

The key is in the dosage and appropriate recovery

Short burst of stress followed by appropriate recovery increases health and boosts resilience.  

If you are already maxed out in terms of overall stress in your life, go easy a lot when you 'exercise'.  Actually, don't focus on exercising, just on moving a lot: walking, easy runs, bike rides, playing with the kids, stretching, dancing.

Moving will boost your brain with feel good chemicals and reduce your anxiety. It will release the energy of stress from your body and help you sleep well at night.

If you can, go at moderate intensity 2-3 times a week as well. You will get your boost of dopamine which provides energy, motivation and courage.

And when times are getting better, don't become complacent. Go hard at least 1-2 times a week (peak cardio and strength) to build back your resilience and be better prepared when things get very demanding again.

Note: One of the main energy drainer and stress-inducing activity are fear-based emotions such as pessimism, frustration, impatience, irritation, worry, doubt, anger, jealousy, guilt, insecurity, grief, and powerlessness. If you learn to raise your emotional state to higher frequency emotions, your body will operate in a more coherent way, and thus, be more energy efficient and more effective at repairing and regenerating damages caused by demands put on it. For more on emotional energy, read this blog post.