Balancing Fitness

Your hormones need balance, and so does your workouts

If you run a quick internet search on how to cope with stress or anxiety you will always find exercising on the top of the list… but I don’t find that to be a good idea for the most. Exercising for sure can help you release dopamine, which is something you want to do when battling depression. However, exercising can also release lots and lots of cortisol and adrenaline into your bloodstream, which is something you don’t need when trying to cope with stress and anxiety.

Modern life can be busy and stressful. We often have one too many things in our daily to-do list. The National Alliance of Mental Health reports that, in America, 1 out 5 adults experience a mental illness in their lifetime, and anxiety is on the top of that list. 

Luckily, people in this century have been more open to talk about mental health and in return, this discussion has raised awareness, creating then, a demand for coping tools that can help you be mindful and grounded.

You and I were designed to spend a small fraction of our lives in fight-or-flight mode, and this state of mind is to be triggered when there is REAL danger, which for the most, happens rarely. Unfortunately, our lifestyle today causes us to be in cortisol-induced survival mode unnecessarily and for longer period of times than we should. Excessive caffeine, being constantly on the run, blue light from screens, little exposure to sunlight, work deadlines, negative news… eventually, these stressors will build up, affecting the balance of your hormones which will make your health decline.

Many people I know, understand the importance of addressing the busy lifestyle they lead and so, they are constantly trying to improve their life by adding things to their list and slapping a “self-care” label onto it. But at the end of the day, it is one more thing added to their list. The ideal would be to remove as many stressors as possible, but in general, we are having trouble just BEING. We need to be doing. The doing is defining us, our future and the outcome… and so we don’t stop whats harming us… we find something to undo the harm instead, entering an awful vicious cycle…

We are bringing this mentality into everything we do, including our fitness; we add high intensity workouts to a already busy schedule and call it a solution. We believe that being fit is going to the gym, grinding for 1 hour - or longer - being out of breath and then go home/work to seat all day at a desk.

Out of balance fitness

We can’t properly move, but our movements at the gym are weighted.

We have strong muscles but little range of motion.

Our backs are hunched… our breaths are shallow. 

We are doing the healthy, but we can’t seem to BE healthy.

Why?

In the attempt to save time, we try shortcuts… the shortcut to being fit? Move for an hour intensely so we can seat for the rest of the day.

You are meant to be moving. You are meant to be releasing cortisol… but at the right amount. No more, no less. Hormones need to be BALANCED. Your moving needs to be balanced as well. If your life is super busy and hectic, it is better to take 10 minutes breaks here and then to properly breathe or squat than to add 1 hour of crazy workout to your busy day.

Trust me, I have been into fitness for about 10 years now, having tried everything out there as well as the different approaches to it, and I can confidently say that although once in awhile intense workouts may benefit you… that is not something to be done every week, much less every day. There is enough scientific evidence that intense workouts can imbalance your hormones which can increase inflammation in your body. You will be better off practicing gentle fitness throughout the day, then running for an hour and seating for most of your day.

“I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one.”

- Gandhi

To slow down when we are overwhelmed might seem counterproductive, but it is the best thing you can do for your mind and consequently, to your body… after all, mens sana, in corpore sano… or as within… is without.

Although, these ideas and philosophy have been heard before, it was only when I achieved better health through one of the most gentle fitness I have found so far, that I started to fully live it.

When we are overwhelmed, a friend may say “take a deep breath”, your mom might remind you to take it easy and breath deeply. God, Himself, has given you the breath of life; the oxygen that can fill you up making all your cells anew…

…so why not take a moment to deeply breathe?