Stress Management, Burnout & Recovery

Stress. It’s something we all experience, likely daily. Our experience is individual, and differs to how others may experience the same pressure, according to our own perceptions.

Our stress response is part of our ‘fight or flight’ mechanism, but we are seldom ‘fighting and flighting’ from acute physical threats, but rather from ongoing workload, financial problems, relationship tension and deadline stresses.

Too much stress hurts, and hurts many body systems. There is an impact on our bodies, physiologically and emotionally often resulting in a reduced quality of life overall.

It becomes habit-forming and we forget that it’s a warning system that the body is out of balance. We can’t avoid it, but we can often better manage it.

The first step to making changes is understanding where we are at currently and we can measure that response.

The involuntary part of our nervous system is referred to as the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and is responsible for our breathing, heart rate, respiration, salivation, perspiration etc; body processes that we don’t often consciously think about.

There are two branches to the ANS – the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) which could be considered our accelerator, and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) which in contrast is our brake.

When we are stressed we are in SNS activation and during periods of rest and recovery we are utilising our PNS. Optimal health requires a careful balance of both. Just like driving a car, if we have our foot hard on the accelerator for a long time we’ll burn out the engine; our bodies are similar.

The functioning of the heart and cardiovascular system is regulated by the ANS. By measuring the time between consecutive changes in our heartbeat (see above), called Heart Rate Variability (HRV), we can analyse the balance between the sympathetic (activating/accelerating) and parasympathetic (recovery/slowing down) branches of the autonomic nervous system. This provides insight into our balance between stress and recovery.

Our heart rhythms are a powerful reflection of our inner state. During stress they become chaotic, and with a release of stress hormones, which makes rational decision making much harder.

One of the tools which we utilise in clinic to help enhance recovery and build resilience is HeartMath. It provides a unique biofeedback of our current state of balance of stress or recovery. Using a simple and effective breathing technique, with or without the technology, we can change our physiology within just a few minutes to a place of balance or coherence.

This allows an effective switching from a state of stress to a state of calm which allows us to be in a more focused cognitive state, enabling better decision making. Coherent emotional energy is the fuel that powers clear intuition.

The capacity for emotional regeneration allows you to recover more quickly from a stressful episode and buffer yourself from future stressors enhancing your overall resilience.