The common topic I see/hear floating around Facebook, grocery stores, Wal-Mart/Target, parking lots..(you get the point) is STRESS. Over what? Back to school, work, the gym, food, finances.. the list goes on forever. For parents with school age children back to school means either relief that the kids are in school several hours, giving them a break during the day to get some stuff done; or the opposite, now they need to work in drop off/pick up, after school activities, making sure homework gets done.. shopping. And then there is work place stress. Performance on the job, arriving on time, promotions...
So is stress completely toxic, or to some point necessary?
Necessary?! uhm, no.
Well in my reading, I find that stress can be pretty crappy for your health and can lead to some awful things, (like insomnia, depression, and suicide). All of those things sound like an awful time any day of the week. What I found interesting though is that in some cases, some level of stress in necessary and beneficial. Weird, I know. Lemme explain, there is a happy medium.
When someone has too much stress in their life, they tend to have
increased blood pressure, can develop asthma, skin conditions may occur,
arthritis, depression and suicide if it’s not treated. Too much stress
is caused when multiple occurrences of overwhelming tasks are on your
plate with little to know break from them. In relation to your exercise
schedule, stress can even hinder you from successful weight loss as your
body releases several hormones to help combat stress. One of those
buggers is cortisol which at heightened levels can actually slow your
metabolism and increase fat storage. Aside from preventing weight loss,
it can actually lead to weight
gain when the combination of
stress-related hormones insists your brain you’re hungry, despite not
having burned any additional calories.
Stress levels have gotten so bad that OSHA has declared it a hazard in the work place.
One thing that we can be sure of is too much stress is no good. If you feel super stressed out, try to decrease it in other aspects of your life or even just take a day off to recuperate.
On the other end of the spectrum, there is an issue when someone has
little to no stress in their life. I know you’re thinking I’m a nut job
who can’t read a textbook properly but I swear it’s true.
In our makeup we have been designed to face and deal with stress. Today
we aren’t stressing over how to flee from the woolly mammoth but we still
get stressed. When we are never faced with stressful situation, we
actually tend to get depressed that there has been no stress or change
to challenge us. Ultimately, you may become bored and depressed about
your non-dramatic life and become complacent in moving forward.
”We fall so we can learn how to pick ourselves back up again,” -Thomas Wayne (Bruce Wayne aka Batman’s pops).
Nothing could be more true. If we never fall or face situations
where our ass-kicking instincts can save the day, we can never grow as a
person. For some this may sound like a dream but to many, including
myself, plateaus are a death wish.
Whether you choose a high-stress career, have a high-stress relationship
or just watch the Real Housewives of New Jersey, be sure to balance
some levels of stress and drama with a work out at Rock Star Boot Camp and maybe a bit of yoga and zen.
You know what else is a great stress reliever? Talking with friends and like-minded people. Head on over and join our
Rock Star Boot Camp Fit & Healthy group on Facebook.
