EP4, Stress Management

In this episode of Unstoppable By Design, hosts Matt and Anna Terry delve into the pervasive issue of stress and its impact on our lives, from work to personal relationships and even gym routines. They discuss how exercise can be a potent strategy for managing stress, supported by their personal experiences. The episode covers the biology of stress, biochemical effects, and the role of cortisol and adrenaline. They also offer practical tools to combat stress, including exercise, breath work, and journaling. Listeners are encouraged to implement at least one stress-busting technique into their daily routine and are reminded of their innate ability to handle tough challenges.

00:00 Introduction to Unstoppable By Design

00:17 Meet the Hosts: Matt and Anna Terry

00:34 Understanding Stress and Its Impact

01:12 Personal Stories of Stress

02:24 The Science Behind Stress

06:40 How Fitness Fights Stress

09:30 Practical Stress Relief Strategies

18:13 Warning Signs of Burnout

23:15 Final Thoughts and Challenge

Transcript

Matt: Let's Goooo! Welcome to Unstoppable by Design, where we talk all things fitness, mindset, and what it means to truly be unstoppable inside and outside the gym. I'm Matt Terry, and today I am joined by my wife and fellow owner, Anna Terry. How are you? 

Anna: Great. How are you? 

Matt: Great. And today we're confronting something that sneaks into every corner of our lives… It's stress. Stress at work in our relationships, even stress about getting the perfect workout in. We all have it. But what if I told you that the very thing you sometimes dread, exercise, could be your best defense? 

Anna: And lucky for you listeners out there, you have two pretty experienced people with stress.

I think we both have had space in our lives where stress has been very strong, and honestly who hasn't, right? But we've done very intentional things to work through it. Do you have any stories that you would like to share? 

Matt: Yeah, I got a quick story. So last spring I found myself waking up at 3:00 AM heart racing, mind spinning about everything happening in life. At the time I was so wired that I could barely drag myself through the next day's workouts. And if that sounds familiar, that spiral led me to reexamine how I was approaching fitness and stress. Because when we get it right, movement doesn't add stress, it's supposed to melt it away. 

Anna: Yeah. I, my express crew that comes with me at lunch from work, it's something that we look forward to every day to de-stress at lunch through movement.

Matt: Yeah. And this episode we're gonna talk about what stress is, why it matters. We're gonna talk about some education about stress. What it really does like from hormones to your heart. Signs you've crossed into chronic stress territory how exercise biochemistry fights back. And then we're gonna empower people, empower listeners with tools they need to combat it.

By the end, you'll have a clear research backed takeaway and actionable steps that you can use today. So let's dive in. 

Anna: Cool. The first piece you wanted to talk about, why- what is stress? Why does it matter? Why are we here talking about it today? 

Matt: Yeah. It's more than just a feeling, right?

Anna: A hundred percent.

Matt: Yeah. If we talk biology for a second, when you're stressed your body releases something called cortisol and adrenaline. Increases your heart rate. If you're thinking, Hey, what the heck is cortisol? Cortisol's a steroid hormone produced by adrenal glands. It's often called the “stress hormone.”

'Cause it plays a crucial role in the body's response to stress. Cortisol helps the body cope with stress by preparing it for fight or flight situations. Increases blood sugar, heart rate, and blood pressure, together. 

Anna: Listen, back in the day, we needed this 'cause we were fighting bears. Maybe, but 

Matt: Saber-tooth tigers. 

Anna: Saber tooth tigers, yeah maybe that was more what it was, but we like really needed that to kick in. Unfortunately, our bodies haven't totally evolved to understand the difference between a saber tooth tiger and maybe a difficult conversation or meeting a deadline or coloring in the lines, depending on what stage of life you're in.

Matt: Yeah. When stress is constant, chronic stress wears you down. It increases inflammation, disrupts your sleep, it can affect parts of your brain responsible for memory and decision making. It's not just in your head, it's in your gut affecting your digestion. You can have muscle loss, you can suppress your immune system so you get sick a little easier.

It shows up when you're always tired, short tempered. Maybe you're unmotivated or you're hitting snooze five times a day or five times a morning just to delay the day. Just an overall feeling of burnt out is probably a pretty good indicator. 

Anna: It sneaks up on us. Like we don't know that we're living in stress sometimes 'cause we just cope with it and we're like, this is normal.

It slowly creeps into our life, slowly increases and we just keep adjusting our body and our brains are magnificent in that way. It's really important to tune into these things. And it's funny 'cause if now if I can share a little story, recently I was having a lot of these symptoms. I was using our InBody and I knew I wasn't undereating, so I was really confused.

Why did I keep losing muscle? Like I was rapidly losing muscle. I was grumpy all the time. Sorry. And I was just tired, like I couldn't roll out of bed. I remember just like being- sitting in like the slump in my chair at work all day. Like I just had nothing to give. And I met with Emily. One of the first things that we uncovered was actually like my gut health around my increased stress levels and how my adrenals were, and I really had no idea that it affected digestion.

Like I didn't know that chronic stress changed the makeup of your stomach acid or reduced how much you had in there so you don't digest your food as well. So I was lacking in a bunch of nutrients. I had no idea. 

Matt: Yeah. And clarification for listeners out there when she says she met with Emily, she's referring to our head nutrition coach here at Juggernaut Fitness.

So her name's Emily Hyde. Very smart, very talented individual. Runs all of our nutrition stuff. Offers a lot of stuff around functional nutrition and functional medicine. 

Anna: Yeah.

Matt: Very smart person. 

Anna: I'm making a couple shifts that she recommended. In one month, my body completely flipped from what we call a catabolic state, where essentially was just eating itself, which is why I was losing muscle to more of an anabolic state.

So now I can gain muscle again. But it really came from acknowledging these feelings and doing something about it. 

Matt: Isn't that wild? Yeah. It was a good thing. You paid attention, so now you're on the right path. 

Anna: Yeah, and I want, I gotta give one more plug. I'm sorry. The change could happen quickly.

If you guys are like, if any of those things that Matt just read made you go, I have that. Call, please. I felt change in two weeks. Two weeks? Yeah. Okay. I'm done with my plug. 

Matt: It wasn't built in.

Anna: It wasn't at all, but I had to share it.

Matt: But, all right, so we talked about stress. Now we want to talk about, how fitness fights stress, right?

Fitness or exercise. Exercise is commonly referred to as a natural stress reliever. It releases endorphins, which are feel good chemicals. So if you're thinking like what's an endorphin? It's a- something naturally produced in the brain that functions similarly to painkillers or mood boosters.

Released in response to things like pain, stress, pleasurable activities like laughing or working out. You could hear after workout maybe some of you refer to something feeling like a runner's high, if you've ever heard that. That's- they're referring to the release of endorphins in their brains.

So that happens through exercise. Exercise also improves sleep, regulates cortisol levels, enhances brain function and emotional resilience. 'cause then you can start to say things like, I do hard things, and yeah, 

Anna: It’s like we talked about that. 

Matt: Yeah. Like a previous episode two.

Anna: Have you been working on that blueprint, by the way?

Matt: Yeah. The good news, your body has a natural, it has stress relief systems built into it. Movement just activates them. So exercise boosts, endorphins, regulates cortisol like we talked about, improves brain chemistry. Whether it's- we talked about runners high, but it doesn't have to be just running. Could be lifting, could be stretching, could be walking, just movement itself signals to your nervous system that you know you're safe, you're in control. 

Anna: So Matt listed off a couple of examples, like you can lift, you can run, you can stretch, you can just walk. Some people say that there's actually specific kinds of workouts that can impact how you feel from your endorphins. So like for example, if you do something more like a high intensity workout, you might feel more empowered, right?

You're doing something really hard. You push yourself to a threshold. You did it. You feel good, feel empowered. You know you can do more. Strength training might help you feel more in control. You're lifting something really heavy. Maybe it's equivalent to or more than your body weight. Maybe it's less.

You're still moving a heavy object that can help you feel really in control and like you're progressing. It's a very tangible, I lifted 10 pounds, now I'm lifting 15 pounds. That is another type of achievement endorphin that can be released. Of course, I think we know a lot about like yoga and just general stretching.

Many people do that for a primary stress reliever. You got a lot of parasympathetic activation that goes on in there, which is really quick and easy to feel, which is why I think a lot of folks naturally gravitate towards yoga for a stress relieving exercise routine, and then of course, go outside, get some sun.

I know he can't always do it if you live up in New Hampshire with US or New England in general. But when the weather's nice, go outside, move. That sun can do a lot for you too. 

Matt: Yeah. Being outside, just breathing in the air, being out there. But yeah, I'm, so we're talking about simple, sustainable stress relief strategies, things that you can do now that'll bring you a little bit of relief for stress.

And we're talking about movement as medicine. Which is great 'cause we're a gym we're all about fitness. When you exercise, there's certain things that happen. We touched on it, but you have an endorphin release your brain's natural, sense of like pain relief and euphoria.

Then we're working on neuroplasticity boost. 

Anna: Ooh, I didn't know you had that in you. 

Matt: Big word. So making those new neural connections in your brain that help you handle stress more efficiently. And then like we talked about, cortisol regulation. Regular, moderate exercise, it actually lowers your baseline cortisol, which is a good thing.

Anna: Yeah. And it, we really have to emphasize that it's not just high intensity. There are some folks especially women who are going through that menopausal stage, walking, go for a walk. It's actually some of the best things that you can do to help reduce stress. You don't always have to come in and try and kill yourself to release stress.

Walking might actually be a better choice for you. So that's all that you have. Don't downplay it. Go for a walk. 

Matt: Yeah, 

Anna: Go do your yoga. 

Matt: Yeah. Whether it's barbell complexes, a 5K, mobility flow you're literally rewiring your stress circuits. It's a good thing. So things to think about when you're inside the gym, if we're talking about stress relief, is making sure you prioritize consistency and not intensity.

I don't think that there's enough out there talking about this. Where not every day that you show up has to be a hundred percent in your workout. In fact it, it should be less.

Anna: It's actually healthier. 

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Your training days maybe around that you're having around that 70 to 80%. There are days that we go a hundred percent. There's workouts that we do.

Anna: For sure. 

Matt: Yeah. There's benchmark workouts. If you're thinking about CrossFit style stuff, maybe we whip out a Fran. 

Anna: Just whip out a Fran real quick. 

Matt: Just, you gotta go a hundred percent right. There's time, there's days and times when that's appropriate. And for the most part, when we're training, we're shooting for consistency. Like we talked about in episode two, those small little changes that are layered over time. 

Anna: Yeah. And we gotta emphasize the importance of training with the community. I can't tell you how many stories we have had from our members.

Who have had a tough day and they're like, I just wanna go home and sit on the couch. Somebody catches wind and they're like, no, you're coming to the gym. And they come to the gym and they say the people made them feel so much better. 'cause we've all been there and we're all striving for the same things.

And because of that, we're such a, such an unstoppable community. 

Matt: Yeah. You think about it this way you don't want friends. That you're like, Hey, I'm tired. I'm just gonna go sit on the couch and be by myself or isolate myself. And they're just like, all right, sounds cool. See you tomorrow.

Yeah. Like, that doesn't help. No. You wanna surround yourself with people that are gonna be like, Hey let's get outta that slump. Let's go do something. Let's pull you out of that rut. Let's make you better.

Anna: And they're there cheering you on too. E-even when we have like tough like workouts where we're not our best.

We're still getting cheered on. Because effort matters. 

Matt: Yep. Yeah, you can. It's still talking about things you can do inside the gym. We can use fitness as active meditation time. You can track your progress, make sure that you're building confidence. A lot of people, an underutilized tool is workout tracking.

How do you know that anything's worth it or that you're getting better if you don't track your progress? 

Anna: Just like the journaling we talked about in episode two. Yep. We're really reflecting back there a lot today. 

Matt: Yeah.

Anna: But it's important. You gotta reflect on what you've done and it really does. It helps boost your confidence. And that's massive for stress reduction. 

Matt: That way when you look back, you're like, yeah, this was hard. This was hard last week as well, but I did more of it. Or I did it better. Or it felt better.

Anna: Or even if it felt the same, you're still doing hard things.

Yeah. And that's huge consistency. All right what can I start doing today, Matt? 

Matt: Okay. So today, if we're trying to implement some of these things to help with a little bit of stress relief and talking about working around stress we could, let's say your schedule's busy, right? You can't get to the gym that day.

Something we could try are micro workouts. These are five minutes body weight movements. You can spread 'em throughout the day. You could probably think of a time when you've seen a short clip. Or somebody's- I'm going to write a paragraph and then I'm gonna do five pushups. 

Anna: Can I tell you a secret?

Matt: Go ahead. 

Anna: Do you wanna know what we do at work? 

Matt: What do you do? 

Anna: We all do five squats every time we go to the bathroom. 

Matt: Hey. 

Anna: And it's like we all do it. Like we all hold each other accountable to that. 

Matt: Yep. 

Anna: So even though things like that, you're just moving periodically throughout the day. As it fits.

I also, I wanna talk about breath work because this is another story I'm gonna share. It is meditation, breath work, things like that are a space that I'm working on. They're very challenging for me, but I was introduced to box breathing probably like a year ago. I did the five by five.

You can find it really easily on YouTube. I like to do it and I'm driving 'cause I'm not, I don't have the kids around or anybody talking with me. And it like it does sound so you can still focus and you can just listen to when you have to inhale. So box breathing is, you inhale for five or whatever- they have 'em as little as two seconds, up to 10 seconds when you do them. But you inhale for five and you hold your breath for five, you exhale for five, and then you hold your breath for five and you repeat that. The one that I typically do is for five minutes. So I repeat several times, but even if you just did it for three to five times in a row, it's still really gonna calm you.

And I remember I tried this when I was like hitting a fat loss plateau and literally the only thing I changed was adding this box breathing to reduce my stress. 'cause I was showing signs that you, I was just way over the top of my stress levels and my CNS was tired. I lost four pounds. Just by breathing and managing my stress better.

Matt: Yeah. Making one change, it doesn't have to be all of them. Just making one change.

Anna: Consistently. I did it twice a day and I did it before work, so I went into work calmer and I did it on the way home so I could be better for you and our kiddos.

Matt: And another tactic. If we're thinking about breath work, micro workouts, I mean making sure that maybe you were thrown in some strength training at least twice weekly.

It's gonna help you build confidence. Maybe we're looking at recovery routines. Could be foam rolling yoga, or simply a walk outside or even a post workout walk. You'll see sometimes here. At Juggernaut after a workout, we'll do a cool down walk and we'll go outside and we'll walk a little bit, talk to each other, work on that community part.

We've got community check-ins, so making accountability partners or group classes even that keep you connected. Social connection by itself can reduce cortisol. And so talking things out, having that friend talking about your day, what's going on, what things are stressing you can really help and make an effort in reducing that cortisol.

And then, we have things like journaling reflecting through writing, which is what we talked about earlier. 

It's back. But making sure that we're in there talking about things we can learn a lot about ourselves and learn a lot about different situations we experience just by taking the time to reflect and write about it, and then read it back.

Anna: And there's a lot of guided journaling out there too. You can buy books. Or use Chat GPT. Say what you wanna focus on, ask it to give you some journaling, props, prompts. But I want you to write it down. It feels it actually will leave your body when you write it down. They've done some studies out there around it of typing it versus writing it versus saying it.

And they actually say that writing it out is. The most effective method of helping stress reduction. 

Matt: Interesting. I didn’t know that. 

Anna: Yeah, so journaling is huge when written. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Anna: Talking is next. Typing is third. Use Chat GPT to get your prompts and then go write it in a notebook. 

Matt: Yeah. Wow. 

Anna: I just let it flow.

Matt: And lastly, outside of journaling, we have time in nature. 

Anna: Journal while outside. 

Matt: Yeah, but preferably not. 

Anna: Two for one. Why not? Sit on the porch. 

Matt: You never know, squirrel's gonna go up, steal your food or something. 

Anna: Oh my goodness. I don't think so. You're journaling, not eating.

Matt: I'm doing both at the same time. I'm always eating. All right, so the next part- Signs we're headed for a burnout, right? We need to talk about the warning signs. We've talked about tools and ways to, to work around stress. What is stress, the different chemicals involved 

Anna: And how do we catch it before? You're- it's never too late, but before you get to a point where you're just not your best self.

Matt: Yeah. So from experience, thinking about some things where you're not just normal, busy, but you're in that chronic stress territory. Some red flags to pay attention to could be one including sleep disturbances. So tossing and turning oversleeping and still feeling drained is a big one.

So it's let's say you got a full whatever it is, good amount of sleep for you. 'cause everybody's a little bit different. You wake up and then you're like, oh my God, I feel like I, I got two hours. 

Anna: I was experiencing that, before Emily. 

Matt: Yeah. Just felt like a pretty big, just endless cycle. 

Anna: Yeah. Another one too is emotional volatility. So swings, mood swings, irritability, over small stuff. Could even include the opposite, where you're just numb, like detaching from your family, detaching from work, not really listening, not engaged. 

Matt: Yeah, things that normally make you happy  are feeling like nothing.

That's a pretty good red flag there. You could see performance dips. Could see stagnant lifts, lifts that have stayed the same. There's been no improvement whatsoever despite work, maybe slower run times, or just a lack of enthusiasm for the gym where you're like, man, I just don't want to, and it happens more than once. That could be a good red flag. 

Anna: And those performance dips can also happen. At work. Or at school, like you start getting worse grades on your homework, you start missing deadlines. You'll see it in that space as well. You also experience some behavioral changes. I think for a lot of us, this might show up through emotional eating when we're stressed.

I will completely own that piece as well. If I have a tough day. First thing I want is some Reese's- also working on that with Emily. You may withdraw socially, so like maybe you're somebody, you typically like to go out with friends, but that reduces, you wanna just stay home, go into your own little cave and hide for a bit.

And constantly saying I should be doing this or I should have done that. Doing that, like shame talk to yourself. Those can also be major indicators that you're hitting that space of chronic stress, 

Matt: Feeding those negative core beliefs. Keeping an eye out for these red flags.

A good way to, to catch it early or to watch for signs of these if you're not sure where to see them, or how am I gonna catch them on my own. If you wear like a trackable technology, like a watch or a Fitbit. Listen to biomarkers, listen to your sleep quality, your resting heart rate, your HRV if you track that.

So your heart rate variability. 

Anna: I think it's also a good too, to plan some like deload weeks if you're going to a good gym, *cough cough* Juggernaut. You might experience those every four to six weeks. So even if you're off on your own, doing your own thing or maybe it's not even around working out. It's just you have a very high stress job.

Can you give yourself a three day weekend or something like that every four to six weeks and do something that you know, relaxes you, whether it's like a massage or you go to the beach or whatever it might be that you can do year round. Give yourself that space roughly every four to six weeks. 

Matt: Yeah. Mission check, are you training to feel better or are you just grinding, make sure you like- having those deload weeks is a good way to check and make sure that you're not just grinding through, make sure that your training's enjoyable. If it's not enjoyable, recalibrate.

Anna: Yeah. 

Matt: Take a moment. Pivot away. I actually overheard a member talking earlier about how a class they attended the coach encouraged them to treat the session as if they were having fun at a playground. And it allowed them to be enthusiastic about trying new things, not be so scared to try new things. And it really brought fun into the training, which was great. 

Anna: Yeah, I love that. We see that every once in a while we have opportunities to play while we're here too.

And that, I know we didn't like really talk about that too much, but I think that's another. Piece in there as well is don't forget to play. I know we're adults, but not everything has to be rigid and structured. Find some space to play. Whatever that may be for you. Maybe it is working out. Maybe it's going ax throwing. 

Matt: Yes. 

Anna: Go play. Don't forget about that. 

Matt: Basically mental fitness is just as important, daily gratitude journal or a quick check in with a friend can tilt your mindset and kind of fight against some of those things like cortisol and really help you out. Maybe check in with a friend just to see if they've noticed any red flags in you.

To keep an eye on those biomarkers. And everybody feels a little stress burnout it's just what do we do when we're there? 

Anna: Yeah, stress is a given. It's always gonna happen. How we respond to it is ultimately up to us. And we hope that with these techniques and these red flags and these warning signs that we've shared with you will give you tools for your toolbox to better combat it.

We obviously are a little bit more biased towards movement. We believe that movement primes your body to face life's challenges head on. So, today's challenge, Matt, what do you got for them? 

Matt: I’d like them to pick one, stress-busting move.

Anna: Stress-busting. I like it. 

Matt: Could be a 10-minute walk after work. Could be five box breathing cycles before your next meeting.

Maybe you're throwing in some journaling. Maybe you're getting a quick workout session in between tasks. But I want you to pick one of those, one, one from that list and just implement it into your daily routine. 

Anna: And then once you do it, I want you to remind yourself that you were built to handle hard things.

You are unstoppable by design. 

Matt: Yeah. 

That's it for today. We're planning to answer questions from listeners in an upcoming episode, so please send any questions to info@juggernaut-fitness.com with the subject “Unstoppable by Design”. 

Thank you for joining us for this episode. Remember to follow the podcast if you haven't already, and enable notifications so you can stay up to date in all of our episodes, which come out weekly on Tuesday.

Join us next on episode five for an interview with Juggernaut Fitness' head, nutrition coach Emily Hyde. And drop a review if you think some of the information here would help you in some way. 

But until next time, be well be unstoppable.