Good Stress

image via Famille Summerbelle

Hello there,

Mostly in these emails I write to you about reducing stress. We know that most of us live busy, stressful lives where we spend a lot of time in our sympathetic nervous system, in a state of defence and ready to ‘attack’. We also know that the stress that most of us experience is chronic, ongoing stress due to work, financial or other factors of modern life. We’ve all heard the concept that our ancestor’s stress response might be activated as they escape from a predator, but once safe they return to the parasympathetic state (relaxation response) where as for us modern day folk, our stressors of a full inbox or another bill don’t seem to go away resulting in us constantly being in fight or flight mode.

Therefore it makes a lot of sense that we should be making an effort to balance this curse of modern day living through activities that help us to access the parasympathetic nervous system. That’s what I usually share! However today I want to explore good stress, and the idea that we intentionally turn on stress so that we can then turn it off.

Breathing.

You will mostly hear from me that slow, deep breathing is what we should be doing, and for most of the day that’s what we want. However occasionally, we benefit from fast breathing. Turning on stress so that we can then turn it off. Once again, the fact that the breather is in control, consciously breathing fast is important here.

Breathing really fast and heavy on purpose flips the vagal response the other way, shoving us into a stressed state. It teaches us to consciously access the autonomic nervous system and control it, to turn on heavy stress specifically so that we can turn it off and spend the rest of our days and nights relaxing and restoring, feeding and breathing.

James Nestor, Breath

I’ve shared a short practice in the audio attached to this email, Kaphalabhati pranayama for 108 rounds. A simple exercise to help you experience the idea of turning on stress to then turn it off. If you’d like to see this visually, you might be like to join my online yoga membership, where I have video classes including Kaphalabhati pranayama.

** Please note: avoid if you’re pregnant, have high blood pressure or hypertension, ulcers or slipped disc. Please always check in with your health care provider.

Cold exposure.

A perfect example of ‘good stress’ is cold exposure. Exposing the body to temperatures where we feel very uncomfortable, with our instincts telling us to get out now! yet (when we know intellectually that it’s safe) stay with intention for a short amount of time can be so beneficial. Increased metabolism, reduce inflammation, improve mood and increase longevity of the cells to name a couple.

Winter Swimming by Susanna Soburg is an excellent book by a self proclaimed former ‘cold sissy’ who has extensively studied the benefits of cold exposure for our physical and mental health.

"Change the temperature in the cold and heat to push hormetic stress in the cells. This will build them stronger”

- Susanna Soburg

Here’s a Substack post by Kate Spicer from Sort Yourself Out all about cold water therapy.

The temperature of things is very important, as anyone who has drunk warm white wine will know. In an age of self-healing, must we make friends with cold?

Intention is (once again) important here

I’ve written previously about the power of intention in yoga and life - read below if you missed it - and in this case, our intention plays a big part. With any practice that stresses the body, we need to keep at the front of our minds that we are in control, it is our own intention to take the practice. When this happens, something shifts and the practice becomes beneficial instead of detrimental.

The power of intention

‘Dinner party stress’

I remember someone once told me that the stress of hosting a dinner party was their example of enough ‘good stress’. There’s enough pressure to be focussed on the end goal of the event that evening. A surge of energy means we shop, cook, clean, style and plan the evening with precision, yet the end is close enough in sight that the stress isn’t chronic like that of the aforementioned ongoing work emails or financial stress. We are quite possibly in our fight or flight state while we prepare (snapping at the kids about the mess they just created after you tidied?!) and feel quite exhausted but satisfied after the event is over. Afterwards, the stress response switches off and we can shift back to rest and digest (maybe have more empathy towards the same children who made a mess the evening before?!)

Thanks so much for reading. If you have a friend who might benefit from or enjoy these emails I’d love you to forward it on.

Sarah

Here are some ways we can connect:

• Join my yoga membership for movement, breathwork and rest. $25/month with a 14 day free trial. I’d love you to check it out!

• There are a few spots available at my upcoming yoga weekend in Yamba. 19th - 21st May 2023.