HANDLING STRESS
By Catherine Symons
Our lives can be pretty stress filled can’t they? Whether it’s from work, family life, even training hard there are many reasons to be stressed.
We all know being stressed doesn’t particularly feel nice. But how is it impacting our health and what can we do about it?
Stress firstly is caused by something becoming harmful to our body; we are faced with the fight or flight mode, or stress response, where we can either run or fight… it’s a way of protecting ourselves.
Some stress can be quite small and we are able to cope with it, but when it becomes too much that is when it can be detrimental to our health both physically and mentally. Too much stress can cause depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes. Eating disorders and gastrointestinal problems may occur, as well as skin and hair problems!
In the gym, exercise is a stress to our body, and when that stress becomes too overwhelming it can lead to injury and illness.
Deloads are a great tool for handling stress. Just by taking a little step back, reducing reps or weight, our body is able to repair and prepare for training again.
Certain exercise can help prevent or keep a cap on stress too; meditation, for example, can fully and completely relax the body and mind. Taking a long walk in the countryside with no phone, or simply taking a long bath can also help.
Talking about our own stress and not being afraid to seek help if needed is very important too.
Photo by Indian Yogi (Yogi Madhav) on Unsplash
About the author
Catherine Symons is a qualified level 3 personal trainer, and currently studying to specialise in sports performance enhancement with strength and conditioning. Having competed from a young age in middle distance running, including representing Kent in many cross country championships, she understands what hard work is.
For the past two years she has begun to move away from competing in distance running, and instead found a passion in strength training. Combining the two disciplines together, Catherine has a good knowledge of many aspects of sports training.
Recently Catherine has completed an internship at University of East London in their strength and conditioning programme where she helped out with a variety of athletes, as well as helping out with athletes at Tonbridge Athletics Club.
Catherine’s passion is to help athletes and the ‘everyday gym goer’ to perform to their absolute best, in the most efficient way possible, to reach their goals and to achieve great results.
