The Secret to Mastering Stress: Fitness, Survival, and Thriving in Modern Life

Ep 92. How Stress Affects Your Body and Mind: Mastering Stress with Fitness Training. 

Stress is a constant factor in modern life, much like it was for our ancient ancestors. Whether we were paleo hunter-gatherers or navigating today’s fast-paced world, stress triggers a physiological response in our bodies, activating the same fight-or-flight mechanisms that once helped us survive physical threats. In today’s world, modern stressors may not come from predators in the wild, but they still challenge our ability to adapt and problem-solve quickly, affecting both our mental and physical well-being.

When stress is sudden, unexpected, and beyond our immediate control, it can feel overwhelming—leading to a sense of losing control and safety. This can trigger severe physiological reactions, with potentially harmful or even life-threatening consequences if not managed properly.

But there is hope: by becoming aware of your stress symptoms and incorporating fitness training into your routine, you can build resilience against stress. Fitness not only helps improve physical health but also enhances mental toughness, enabling you to better cope with and thrive in stressful situations.

By conditioning your body and mind through regular exercise and stress-management techniques, you can improve your ability to adapt, survive, and ultimately win in the face of life’s challenges. Take care and walk well. 

Transcript

Welcome back folks to episode 92 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project Podcast with me, your host Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at our local community college. And what we're going to be discussing today will have to do with some of the internal workings of what causes me stress and the differences between psychological stress, mental emotional stress if you will, and also what brings on

arousal similar to physiological stress just because we're thinking about it our body still responds as if it's real stress sometimes and there is definitely belief component involved in that so from this point what we're going to touch upon are the facts that we do have things that bring about stress and and arousal levels that are elevated as a result of what we perceive in our environment what's it look like out there outside of my eyes and looking at my environment

If I'm in my living room looking at my books and there's nobody else here in my living room with me, chances are I'm probably not under threat. And I say probably because, you know, stuff can happen in the absolute potential within a life sense, earthquakes, that sort of thing. But the probability of something like that happening are pretty low where I live. But generally speaking, I feel safe in my environment. My assumed sense of safety or the assumption of safety

something that we all have and we kind of live with but we don't really think it out the way I just did so I'm flushing it out on purpose for the point of making the distinction between whenever I'm actually safe versus perception versus thinking I'm assuming safe my thinking process or cognitive process that tells me based on whatever information I have that I am either safe or not safe and knowing the difference between the two

because it will help us understand what it is that might bring us to a point of not only stress, but also anxiety, hyperarousal, and even reactivity for that matter. So to kick this off more effectively, so what is stress? The stress of an environment is also called an irritation that causes our body to adapt or adjust. And that adaption could be moving in the sense of changing environment. Maybe if there's an argument in a classroom, I might want to leave the classroom.

armando (02:49.167)
Maybe I'm at home and I am by myself and as far as I can tell nobody's bothering me So I'm probably gonna stay there but the thing is whatever it is that I'm perceiving or taking in by virtue of my Perception or my senses through my eyes my ears my tactile sense Gustation of what does the air taste like if you will or even smell like if there's a skunk in the room? Those two will be affected may determine whether or not I stay in that room even if there's no perceived threat, but yet

the ventilation is bringing in a smell that is very, I will say, insulting to my senses and my sense of comfort. So therefore I have to get out because it's not comfortable in there smelling skunk smell, for instance. But the idea is that we have to to change as a result of whatever our environment may deliver to us. And some of those things are controllable, some are not. And the idea of control, belief of control, or sense of control,

walks rather closely with this sense of assumed safety sometimes and also plays a big role in the development of anxiety over time when we feel like there is no control. So at this point what we're going to differentiate are two systems that are in our body. One is called the HPA axis, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and the signals by the hypothalamus and the pituitary and the adrenal are

going to be the release of hormones and these hormones are categorized as stress hormones but whenever the HPA axis is triggered that hypothalmic to pituitary then finally to the adrenal cortical response at the end is going to be what releases cortisol into the blood and that is considered a stress hormone. Cortisol even though it's usually

implicated in many negative things and this is under chronic stress such as belly fat around the waist, also increase in visceral fat around your organs, but also the fact that in the more immediate sense, if we were in a fight or flight response, it's also blood thickener. That means that we tend to coagulate more effectively, so if you ever cut or bleeding out, less of that precious fluid leaks out, so to speak. So within a very episodic sense, we have a spike of a cortisol.

armando (05:12.419)
level in our blood, then that's not such a bad thing. need that. But when we have a chronic level of chronicity of stress or regularity of stress that causes me to fire off that HPA axis, then I have a perpetual level of cortisol, then we start seeing things such as thickening of the artery walls because now the blood is thicker and the kidneys and the heart have to pump harder because the blood is thicker. It's harder, it requires more work. So over time, we have this

anabolic effect in the not only venal structure, venous structures and arterial structure, but also in the cardiac muscle and in the physical muscles as well. But we also have a loss of elasticity as a result of that. Now that's getting a little deep in the weeds, but I've made the point. Now the next system that is within our body that also is stress related is the SAM system. Now the SAM system is an acronym for

what are the terms sympathetic adrenal medullary system. So the sympathetic response actually triggers the medullary area of your kidneys where we have the adrenals to release epinephrine, which is also adrenaline in the United States and norepinephrine, which would be the noradrenaline. Those two are terms that we use interchangeably largely in Europe and in the United States.

But the really important things involving these two catecholamines is the fact that each one of those works under either physiological stress or mental stress. And what we realized is that in the science epinephrine is known to be released not only by physical stress or adrenaline when we're under physical stress, but under physical stress nor adrenaline tends to go hand in hand with the epinephrine. So we have the arousal awakening.

adrenaline, epinephrine, and then we have the cooling or the slowing down or the break effects, which is the norepinephrine or the noreadrenaline. And that tends to be something that responds better whenever we are physically engaged or responding to a physical activity. Whereas epinephrine itself, adrenaline, generally is very hypersensitive to mental stress, the product of thought.

armando (07:37.989)
such as anxiety often that brings on physiological arousal and stress can bring on the epinephrine. But you know, what is really interesting is that the fact that it is sensitive to the mind stress or what we believe to be stress, even though maybe things haven't occurred. And this is where our ability to predict and expect tends to get hijacked in a sense by virtue of the lower brain that says stress, arousal, stress, arousal.

So therefore we need to fight, flee or those sorts of things. And that tends to reflect the fact that we tend to get stuck in mental loops. That means that we have cognitive decline during that stress, not like in a permanent sense, but during that stress, because one, the blood flow by default, we become skeletal muscle dominant. That means it's going to the muscles, it's going to the peripheral muscles.

It's even getting drawn away from the organs that would be doing the rest and digest our intestines and our stomach don't need the blood right now. Especially if I'm feeling like I'm the bologna sandwich and I'm under the sense of stress that I'm under some sort of physical threat or believe that there is a stress or threat of some sort, even though I may not see it. And it's enough to get our body not only wound up and aroused, but also ready to fight, flee, run this sort of stuff. And

We have to recognize that the belief quality is one that based on the intensity of the stimulus on the outside or maybe our thought, expectation or prediction of potential threat based on history may be enough to make our body respond by virtue of a quality of belief. So this is where I say that our seer, that's our mental seer inside our mind's eye versus the seeing process.

with our eye into our mind where we interpret signal but our seeing that which we remember in our mind once again is also our believer. This is where I'm going to ask a rhetorical question. Something you should ask yourself, something I ask myself frequently whenever I'm doing stress training such as knife and stick training to help maintain my ability to respond to things and I may never get attacked by a knife or stick but if somebody attacks me with a hand or anything along those lines

armando (10:00.476)
I'll be more prepared because of my familiarity, which means my stress and arousal levels will not get out of hand. They'll go up, but also be able to maintain my higher cognitive processing. And whenever we look at the studies on stress, we realize that there is a regression to simpler problem solving where we tend to respond based on assumptions and averages, if you will.

and tend to believe things to be the way they are because we don't have time to read into things and to think into things whenever we're under potential threat. And this is where we start seeing things like what the police and first responders and military do, what we call stress inoculation training, where you get immersed frequently into the same type of scenario with different variables, but where they're not learning more and more different skill sets, but rather they're trained on some very universally useful

skill sets, minimal extras, but in principle being able to apply them based on managing not what is happening on the average, but rather the exception, those things that stick out that aren't typical. Those things that are the exceptions are what's managed first because by nature we tend to look for the differences and we tend to hyper-focus on those as the heart rate goes up.

And not only does our visual field narrow, once we start reaching close to about 140 beats per minute, for someone that's in average health and fitness, and it's actually lower, because if your fitness level is lower, it doesn't take you 140 beats a minute before your visual field narrows. You just have to walk at a pace that is brisk, about 110 beats per minute. And it's called low intensity steady state cardio for some.

and you're able to talk, but if you get to the point where you're getting a little breathy and you have to breathe in deeper and your words take longer to speak, you're reaching the level wherever you start noticing that your visual field does narrow. Because if we're in some sort of mock fleeing, I'm walking away from somebody, or mock pursuit, I'm chasing or trying to pursue somebody, I tend to be able to see more with depth and clarity forward, but I lose some sensitivity to my peripheral areas.

armando (12:22.548)
And that's just natural. our depth perception comes from our foveal vision, our central vision, and we need to be able to see clearly where I'm going versus where I've been or what I'm trying to outrun. That would be my periphery. And just as long as I'm moving, I'm making egress and hopefully progress away from that. Now, what does this have to do with self-regulatory skill? Oh, it has a whole heck of a lot to do with self-regulation because the things I'm kind of pointing out are not just things that we've seen other people.

but there are things that I feel. And this is why it was a rhetorical question that I asked Curly, because I want you to apply this to you. Apply it to me and how I respond. And we're going to be covering a couple of aspects of stress response that will elucidate some details as to what happens when I'm under stress. And why is it that I might do the things that I do that one can be embarrassing, two can be like a repeating behavior that's not working, but yet I continue to do.

as a result of an extreme stress, for instance, where we go back and patterned behavior that we know very well, but we keep doing it as if somehow it's going to change and work when we, even after we realize that it's not working. And we'll cover some details about that in just a moment. There's quite a bit of study done on stress that was done not only for industry, but also for military and people that were even as far back as the civil war, trying to determine what are the things that

limit a soldier's capacity to respond under stress. Back in the 1860s, we even had some stress response training because we're moving towards industry and trying to keep people focused and getting the greatest output from everybody at the time before we had labor laws and things of this nature. But one of the studies that we had back in 1959, for instance, by Easterbrook, he discovered that low stress and lower levels of arousal

usually preserved our ability to see to the peripheries, kind of like what we're talking about when we're walking. But also whenever we have high stress, we generally can see very clearly forward, but we lose our ability to see to our periphery. But also whenever we have high stress, what was noted is that we have some cognitive decline. That means that I'm not able to think as clearly, as deeply, or as broadly

armando (14:50.708)
and making sense of abstract becomes rather frustrating. And we had a suspicion that it had to do with not just stress itself, but also the fact that the heart rate was pumping. But we didn't know at that point in time that the blood flow was actually leaving the frontal part of the brain, the higher cognitive process, or prefrontal cortex. Now, one thing that we did realize is that we do have, over time, a drop in

our ability to access the fullest level of our IQ. If we have an average IQ of about 100 into 105, and this is straight out of the running man model that I'm teaching right now, we have an average drop of 10 to 14 percent or about 10 to 14 IQ points in most cases that will put us at a level of 90 to 86 IQ, functional IQ at that moment in time, which means now I'm having trouble processing simple things.

like 1 plus 1 equals 2, not that you don't know it, it's just I don't have the fuel or the mental capital at that moment, not because I'm tired, because it's just not in the brain at this point, because the blood flow, the carotid and the glucose to fuel what we call thinking has gone to the periphery because I'm really under stress and that's the priority. And once I climb the tree and I thumb my nose at the creature that was trying to eat me and they can't climb the tree, I just have to wait them out.

then I can have my higher thoughts of I live and therefore I can philosophize and think about planning dinner later, but not until I'm out of the stress zone or out of the threat zone, so to speak. And what's really important is that there's a level of heart rate that we have to be cognizant of. And if you don't pay attention to your heart rate, I would occasionally do this, you know, with either a heart rate monitor, sometimes even use a blood pressure cuff, one of those for your wrist and stuff, just to

Test myself, what is my average heart rate and what's my blood pressure like whenever I'm just walking across the room from here to there and then have a seat? What does it look like when I'm completely prone? There's a difference whenever you're prone taking blood pressure versus seated. And what if I've been seated there for a while versus walking across the room and then seated? There's going to be some differences, but also heart rate too. There are some of those really cool watches that'll tell you what your heart rate is when you're moving, when you're walking.

armando (17:13.733)
Also your oxygen saturation really important stuff, but how are these things useful is my question Other than just knowing some really neat numbers and trying to track your your stress and health There's also some use for it in realizing what my stress level is whenever I'm under the duress of my day-to-day life What is it that it looks like? Is it like, know average heart rate? Is it the same like when I'm walking in and drawing myself and listen to an audiobook for exercise or do I tend to have a higher rate of

Beats per minute in my heart rate because it is a cognitive stress. I believe things to be Particularly threatening it could be towards my livelihood because it's my job and once again the adrenaline that responds very sensitively to mental stress and that belief quality Tends to be harder to manage because we don't have as much of this nor a drone popping up when it's just mental stress There is just a stress the belief and then we have this

Anxiety response because it doesn't want to go away and one of the things that tends to ameliorate some of the Negative effects the fact that we're feeling that kind of stress one of the most important things This is one of the self regulatory skills is to get up and move We have to speak the language of the body and sometimes the body language is that of stress and Something's threatening even though there isn't anything putting me in threat or danger But yet my body's responding with the same threat system

that I would have used whenever I was a cave person many thousands of years ago. Now here's the important thing. So if we get up and move, we speak in the language of the body, even though the language of the mind distress and worry and timelines and these things that I have to get done and quote as this sort of stuff. We tend to believe those to be very, very real and they are. We get paid for it. That makes sense. But they're not threatening to our body in the sense that we're going to die as a result.

but yet it's the same stress system. So just the way that we would use for physiological stress by giving away from the stress, the language of the body is safety is over there, it's not here where the threat is, then the language of the body whenever I perceive a threat in my mind is by moving as if the threat were there and I'm moving myself away, which you are. Then you're letting your body perceive that sense of I can get away from consequence and circumstance.

armando (19:35.743)
And I could also continue to have that sense of, I have a sense of control that's coming back to me. I mentioned the term control earlier or that perceived belief sense of loss of control. And whenever we have a sense of control, our assumption of safety tends to be much stronger, but also much more believable and much more compelling. Whenever we feel heart rate goes up and then we have trouble thinking and coming up with solutions.

That's whenever we have that perceived loss of control and that belief loss of control that tells me I'm under threat somehow, even though I may not be under physical threat or any kind of physical danger, yet my body responds as if and we have to treat it as if it is a real threat. Now the next progression of discussion, this is going to be near the end of it by the way, is the fact that whenever we know that there's a stress, there's a prediction, I go to work, there's a measure of stress that I have to meet.

And therefore there are certain behaviors and skills that I must use and outcomes I must generate to let's just say that we survive successfully in quotes the day of work such that we continue to be employed. So that is a parallel to actual survival on the planes and that's our most modern equivalent. And here's the thing, whenever we get to a level of heart rate that makes us dysfunctional in the things that we need, if we're in a very

head and thought and cognitive processing job, then we need to maintain our wits about us but also a sense of calm so we can maximize, so we can optimally perform in those areas that we call our job, our life, this sort of thing. Now, one thing that was noted whenever they were doing stress studies was that optimal range for semi-physical performance and being able to preserve as much of our cognitive capacity

to make decisions under relative stress, relatively low stress. The range was between 115 to 145 beats per minute. Mind you, that's relative in the sense of what level of fitness you're at. If you're at a higher fitness level, 115 to 145 beats per minute is very tolerable. But if you've been sedentary for a long time, if you have an issue with a leg or an arm that limits your ability to move really well to get to

armando (21:58.893)
higher degree of fitness, that may be a little lower. Now, what they figured out is that 80 beats per minute and below is not great, and this is where performance suffers if you're trying to do something particularly physical and intense. If you're not ready and relaxed and calm, like whenever you're chilling in Netflix and this sort of stuff, then well, you're not ready to respond very quickly, and if somebody startles you, somebody jumps out and scares you.

or something happens that requires your immediate attention, you can feel that heart trip hammer. It feels like it's in your throat. Blood pressure goes up and you could put yourself in a level of stress that's not particularly functional because of the suddenness of the onset of that stress or surprise, so to speak. But whenever we're at below 80, we're at a rest and digest state, wherever we're in a comfortable place, but not necessarily expecting nor predicting.

anything sudden or dangerous or maybe even shocking to occur. Now things do occur in life and you may remember those events wherever things like that happened where you got a call and Sophie is ill or someone's been in a car wrecking those things over terrible and frightening but we get that kind of startle and we have a memory of that emotional response and often that can become very triggersome if it was particularly traumatic. It can become traumatic as a result of how we interpret it internally.

for us, but yet somebody may be one level removed, might've been surprised, but it won't be traumatic to them and they'll able to sleep for the most part. So something to think about. Now, the next thing is whenever we're above 175 beats per minute, of course, this is average to probably a little above average fitness. And whenever we have 175 beats per minute closer to the 200 range, the heart is working very hard. This is what we're looking at, extreme pain or terror.

This is where trauma could tend to happen if you're in a place wherever you're fighting for your life or trying to run for your life away from a fire or anything like that and this is also where the highest level of cognitive incapacity occurs where we become not only perceptible we see and Following that but we tend to be hyper focal and look try to look in the direction of where egress is or try to identify that threat

armando (24:23.029)
if it's something that it's adversarial or maybe an animal that's dangerous to us and we have to keep our eye on it because we have to know where the danger is coming from. But also that will, to our detriment, not allow us to see as many details. We will miss details and what it is that we recall as a negative or a threatening event. So that's about it for the discussion today. But also the reason I wanted to do this is that there's so much going on in our world today that is very quickly changing and often we don't have enough time.

to really sit down and go through the details and really determine whether things are right or whether or not that some of them are very stress inducing. And part of it has to do with our capacity to believe what appears to be compelling. And all I'm going to encourage you to do is kind of limit the amount of media that you take in and the quality of the media you take in because often that will lead to a level of stress that the adrenaline gets released but now we don't have a way to manage or mitigate that.

So try to get out there and walk if you can't get up and move when you find yourself getting mentally stressed Emotionally stressed think about this better body responds to mental stress as it does to physical stress with the same system So therefore movement is probably one of the first things try to match the movement to the heart rate If you're doing 110 to 115 beats per minute, you're in low intensity steady state But you're seated on the couch. You better get up and move because that gets really uncomfortable

And it can lead to anxiety, to some really dark thoughts over time. Especially we don't have answers to help alleviate what it is that's causing the stress. Even more so, whenever we can identify specifically where the stress is coming from. So in that vein, as far as self-regulation skills, this has been kind of a reminder of what happens to me under stress. But also, what it is that I can do whenever stress does affect me, and what can I do to minimize stress so I can feel like I'm...

not only flexible and responsible but a better survivor so that I can thrive and enjoy better quality things in greater quantities over time and I want to tell you thank you for spending this time with me this early Saturday morning here in Texas kind of cold didn't feel like going out early but I certainly want to talk to you and I want to tell you thank you for your listenership and please if you see my stuff on YouTube please like subscribe and share and I do mean share I do ask you this because

armando (26:44.823)
I'd like to see the channel grow, but please give it to people that you think can benefit. And would love to hear from you. If you have any feedback points, please send it to the gmail running man get skills project at gmail. And I really hope to hear from you and we'll talk to you soon. Take care. Don't stress. Walk one.