Welcome to the first blog of our 4-part Stress and Mental Resilience Series: How to implement realistic strategies to increase and further develop your stress tolerance and resilience.
When we look at building our stress tolerance and resilience, we need to look at our lifestyles as a whole, understanding where, when and how we can realistically implement different strategies that can be sustainable. As you may have realized by now, we are all about sustainability! The harsh reality is that stress won’t ever go away, and stressful situations in life will happen. Being able to overcome and move forward from those situations is what we call resilience.
Now, before we get knee deep into it, we have to remember two things. One, not everyone is the same: our lifestyles, likes, dislikes, past history and current circumstances will all affect our openness, willingness and ability to implement some of the things we will get into. Secondly, try and not to have this “all or nothing” mentality, especially, when it comes to implementing strategies, making mistakes and negative feeling and/or emotions this may come from that.
Alright, let’s do a little dive into some science first. There are a magnitude of evidence-based studies that show a significant correlation between physical activity and mental health (I’ve listed a few of them below). When a person engages in physical activity, our bodies increase the production of endorphins, norepinephrine and cortisol levels. Endorphins, help with reducing symptoms of pain and stress which can help with cognitive functioning, increased mood and decrease in stress (1). Furthermore, when engaging in in physical activity on a consistent basis, there are some psychological and psychosocial aspects that can help build stress tolerance. This meta-analysis systematic review in 2023 looked at over 97 other reviews that included 1039 trials with over 128,000 participants showed that physical activity can have significant positive impacts on mild to moderate symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. (2). When we subject ourselves to physical activity, ultimately we are subjecting ourselves to create a stress response. Our stress response is no different from our muscles and brain, the more we actively, purposely and positively use our stress response, the better it will become. Our brains then learn to adapt in a positive way to stress, which results in the ability to bounce back, overcome and foster resilience.
So now that we know a bit about the science behind it, let’s go into why it’s important implement more movement into our lives in relation to stress. “Movement” can mean multiple things to different people and for the sake of what we are talking about, think “movement” as a physical activity that can actively induce a stress response. Now, studies have shown that moderate to high intensity physical activity has a more positive effect than lower intensity activities, however, any sort of physical activity is beneficial. (2). Again, moderate to high intensity will look different to different people, so take a look at your life individually and remember to try and move away from that all-or-nothing mentality. Some examples of medium to high intensity physical activities include, resistance training, aerobic exercises like swimming, jogging and spinning while low intensity activities include yoga, walking, etc.
Alright, now you may be questioning “do I need to run everyday to make myself less stressed? I feel like that will make me more stressed to try and fit in the time to get it done” or “I hate running, I’m just not good at it” - well, let’s remember a few things: One, everyone is different and YOU need to find what works for YOU, there is no one size fits all. Two, studies have actually showed that shorter, “micro-dosing” of physical activities over the week have been more effective, this could be due to better adherence, leading to better sustainability (2). Lastly, if you are someone that doesn’t do any sort of physical activity, ANY movement more than your current will be beneficial. This means you don’t need to go to the gym, run or swim for an hour (or at all).
When we look at implementing more movement into our daily lives, again, we need to look at what is actually realistic. All too often I see clients coming in saying they have started a “running program” that has them running x4 a week, yes, they may be short runs, but if you are someone that hasn’t run at all, typically a couple things happen. One, you start to dread you’re running days, you then start to skip running days because of life and then stop overall. Now, some people will start that and succeed as all they needed was a little structure, others, will need smaller and slower start. Think of a baby, most babies don’t go from sitting up to walking, they start with sitting up, then maybe scooting a bit, then maybe crawling, pulling themselves up, then taking a few steps assisted and then unassisted. That’s what we want you to do, start smaller and work your way up.
Ok, some now we get into the suggestions we have given clients in the past, hopefully, you can take some of these and implement them into your daily practices.
Park further than normal - we all have to do groceries, go to the mall or walk to the office from the parking lot. A very simple way to get more movement in your day is to park further than normal. Now, that doesn’t have to mean parking 10 blocks away, it just means walking 5 minutes to the door rather than your normal 1 minute. Think of it, 5 minutes a day, is 25 minutes a week MORE than what you were doing before.
Take the stairs - well we have all heard this one, and how many people actually do it, not many. When I ask clients what hinders them from doing that, a lot of them find it intimidating. My suggestion is to start with one or two floors and going down first. So if you work in an office building on the 10th floor, week 1, you walk down 2 floors instead of the elevator. Week 2 you go with 4, until you get to walking down all 10, then start going up one floor per week. This way tends to be less intimidating and more doable for a lot of people.
Setting movement timers - setting a timer every few hours to remind yourself to move can be a good way to increase your daily movement, walking around the house, office, wherever for 5 minutes every few hours. If you did that in an 8hr period x4 times, that gives you a total 20 minutes a day that you didn’t have before
Walk before or after work - this one can be a bit more difficult to get started, and ideally we start with walking, then move to power walking and then jogging, however anything helps. If you can get to work 15 mins early and walk around the building, or before getting into your car to go home, walk around the building. This takes leaving the house out of the equation. In the past, clients have told me, when I get home, there are so many things I have to get done, so some have started to implement their walks before leaving the office, this way, there is no physical house to entice you to go in and get things done.
Micro-Dosing Exercise Sessions - like said above, studies have showed that x3 20 minute physical exercise sessions per week can have a positive increase in stress response. Plan these sessions to have more working sets than resting. For micro-dosing, if movement is the goal, I like to program 3 full body “circuit” type workouts that can be done anywhere, with little equipment. This tends to be more realistic for people instead of going to the gym.
Hire a coach - now, a coach isn’t for everyone, and sometimes it’s a pretty hefty investment. That being said, a good coach will take the guess work out of it for you, they should be able to help you identify all these little things we have talked about in this blog and find some small changes you can make that may help you move more throughout your day. There is also an accountability factor, a lot of my longer term clients have told me that they feel they know what they need to do, they just need someone to keep them accountable. Caching can be done in different ways (in-person, virtually, hybrid) - which tends to be whatever fits your lifestyle
We really hope that some of these suggestions you are able to put into practice. Hopefully, this blog was informative, and provided you with some good ways to help you move more during your day to help build and improve your ability to manage stress and be more resilient.
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Stay tunes for next weeks Part 2 - Shift Thinking.
References
Study Title: "Endorphins and Exercise: A Review" Authors: Boecker, H., Sprenger, T., Spilker, M. E., Henriksen, G., Koppenhoefer, M., Wagner, K. J., ... & Tolle, T. R Journal: Sports Medicine Year: 2008
Effectiveness of physical activity interventions for improving depression, anxiety and distress: an overview of systematic reviews Ben Singh ,1 Timothy Olds,1 Rachel Curtis,1 Dorothea Dumuid ,1 Rosa Virgara,1 Amanda Watson,1 Kimberley Szeto,1 Edward O’Connor,1 Ty Ferguson,1 Emily Eglitis,1 Aaron Miatke,1 Catherine EM Simpson,1 Carol Maher2
Other good article and/or studies to take a look at:
"Physical Activity and Mental Health: Evidence is Growing" (Harvard Health Publishing, 2018): This article summarizes various studies that demonstrate the beneficial effects of physical activity on mental health, including stress reduction and improved resilience.
"Exercise for Mood and Anxiety Disorders: A Review of Current Research" (Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 2013): This review discusses numerous studies showing that exercise can help alleviate symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders, suggesting that it can also enhance stress resilience.
"Physical Activity and Mental Health: The Association Between Exercise and Mood" (Clinics in Sports Medicine, 2000): This paper examines the relationship between physical activity and mood, highlighting the positive impact of exercise on stress reduction and mental well-being.
"The Influence of Physical Activity on Mental Well-being" (Public Health Nutrition, 2009): This study explores the association between physical activity and mental well-being, including stress resilience, based on a review of existing literature and empirical evidence.
"Effects of Physical Activity on Anxiety, Depression, and Sensitivity to Stress: A Unifying Theory" (Clinical Psychology Review, 2001): This theoretical paper proposes a framework explaining how physical activity can mitigate the effects of stress on mental health, providing insights into the mechanisms underlying stress resilience.