“You cant be an optimal athlete if you’re a halfway human being” – Christian Plascencia
NZ sunset
Your sympathetic nervous system or “fight or flight” is what’s meant to protect you in times of danger or stress. An example is that feeling you get when you get close to being in a car accident. Your heart rate and breathing rate increase, you’re on alert and you’re ready for action. When it comes to human biology, this “fight or flight” mode should be specific to life or death situations.
Most of us live in this constantly stressed out “sympathetic state” and don’t even realize it. Work is a stressor, kids are a stressor, school is a stressor, working out is especially a stressor. Our brains are constantly on alert, flooded with endless information… Constantly on our phones, watching TV, listening to music, etc. Not very many of us know how to be present with the world around us and alone with our thoughts.
Our bodies aren’t meant to handle the amount of stress/stimulus we throw at them. People wonder why they’re constantly sick, tired, restless, unhappy and unfulfilled… it’s because your body is constantly going going going without getting the chance to actually process what’s going on.
Lake Tekapo, NZ
Try slowing things down. Take time for yourself. Be away from others and alone with your thoughts. Shift more of your focus to breathing, movement, sleeping well, nurturing your body with food and creating productive relationships with others….. Things that all human beings must to do survive optimally.
We CANNOT be optimal students/parents/employees/sisters/brothers/etc if we don’t respect the one thing that we all have in common, being human. Honor the way you were built and own the only thing that’s truly yours (your body)