Training Through Stress
I slam the car door and begin to ramble on and on about how horrible my day at school was. My dad sighs, and says “that sucks but you still have to go to practice”. I roll my eyes and pout the whole there. I’m in the locker room getting ready for swim practice and i’m half way over whatever thing i was mad about. 2 hours later i hop into the car and start telling with excitement about things i accomplished at practice without an ounce of attitude and whatever stressed me out completely erased from my mind. I know this seems like it makes no sense, but as soon as i drifted into my adult life the lesson my dad was trying to teach me throughout my teenage years was to always follow through with my commitments, this would become vital to my athletic and fitness success. (Source: buymyshroomonline.ca)
So, You just had what you are convinced is the worst day in the entire world, worst week, maybe even the worst month you could imagine. So what do you do? You stop training, there is just no way you can deal with your stressful life right now AND get through a work out. The problem isn’t so much that this is happening but that everyone justifies this, yourself included. I can’t tell you how many times i have used excuses for why i haven’t been in the gym for 2 weeks straight and everyone around me helped justified it, except for my father of course. When i decided to listen to my parents (for once) my goals became a lot more attainable because they werent always getting sidelined by whatever i was stressed about. So here are some helpful tips i use for training through stress:
1.) Just go there. Just show up and see how it goes, chances are you will get moving and forget all about that terrible day you just had. I make sure i scale down whatever the workout is, just so i don’t feel overwhelmed. Aside from the other health benefits of the exercise, the community is enough to jumpstart a positive attitude. If i know someone is going to miss my bright shining face that day, i feel a lot more inclined to show up.
- 2.) Keep up with your diet plan/healthy eating. Just like the exercise, its only going to add more stress to your life, if you have completely derailed a plan, that ultimately is suppose to make your life less stressful. Keeping up with a healthy diet in stressful times can actually help improve your immune system and energy levels as well. Yet again, eliminating added stressors, like a cold or flu.
- 3.) Try something new, sometimes the routine of training can actually be a root cause of stress. Go for a trail run, or lap swim, anything that’s not part of the usual routine. Just keep moving!
Most importantly, just continue to do things with a positive attitude, when you are part of a community it’s important to keep the environment around you as happy as possible, no sense in ruining everyone else’s day with a bad attitude. A good percent of the stresses we have in our life we cannot control but for the most part we can control our health, wellness, and the way we react to the stresses we can’t control.
