by Michael Plank
That tile is a phrase coined by meditation teacher Bob Roth (full disclosure: this was in 2013, pre-Covid – he might have a different answer now). You might think, this being a health and fitness blog, that I’d share that phrase because he thought the Black Plague of our time was obesity or sedentary living or processed foods.
Nope.
The Black Plague of the 21st Century, according to 2013 Bob Roth anyway, is…
Stress.
Not drugs or alcohol or sugar or social media or even cancer. Stress.
Negative impacts of stress aren’t really a secret. A quick google search will give you pages and pages and pages linking stress to everything from depression and anxiety to forgetfulness and heart failure. I doubt any of that is surprising to you. But, weirdly, stress is still something that we all kind of accept at a fairly high level. And it’s literally killing us. (And even in the short-term, raising the risk of injury, slowing down muscle gain, interrupting hunger cues, and making fat loss significantly more difficult).
So how do we manage it?
A lot of people say with exercise. And there’s some truth to that. But it’s not the whole truth… because some kinds of exercise, especially high-intensity exercise (ahem – CrossFit – ahem), actually increase systemic stress. Now, not all stress is bad, but it all has an impact. So if your favorite HIIT class or CrossFit workout doesn’t help decrease stress, then what’s a person to do??
Here’s a non-exhaustive list:
*High-quality sleep; 6 hours at an absolute bare minimum, in a dark, cool, quiet room
*Human connection: in-person, with eye contact; physical touch can help too, but that clearly depends on the relationship and your past history
*Meditation
*Breathwork
*Sunshine on bare skin
*Being in nature
*Therapy
*Laughter
*Spiritual experiences
*Nutrient-dense foods
And look, one of the key reasons we have so much stress is that there are so many things clamoring for our time and attention. So it is very easy to look at that list and say “I’ll do that when I have time.” I get it. (I’m right smack in the middle of house renovation, moving residences, end of summer fun, and back-to-school demands. Not all of my usual habits are getting done this week).
But here’s the kicker. Working harder without managing stress will actually make you less productive than if you took the time to manage it in the first place. Think of a test in which you have to do as many push-ups as possible in 2 minutes. Will you do more total push-ups with max effort sets or will you do more with small sets and lots of breaks? (Answer: small sets and breaks). Rest (i.e. stress relief) isn’t laziness.
Whenever I’m especially stressed, I think of two of my favorite quotes.
One is by 16th-Century Bishop St. Francis de Sales: “Half an hour’s meditation each day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed.”
The other is attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”
It’s Friday. This weekend, get some of that stress off your plate.