It's not the heat but the humidity that'll kill you

October 20, 2012

60 pounds to go <-- 40 pounds lost bitches!!

Stress.  It is a mother-fucker.  The worthless platitude goes "you have to find a way to manage your stress or it will kill you."  Then the details on how to do this are shady.  Deep breaths, exercise, etc -- it all seems like advice that is given in broad terms but never details to figure out how to deal with it on a real level.  First, it is helpful to know that there are three different types of stress: 

1) Hypo-stress - doing nothing.  Gee, I slept 15 hours last night, I think I'll get a monster burrito, take a nap and worry about 'what-if's.'

2) Eustress - good stress, like getting nervous for a presentation, and

3) Hyper-stress - OMG! I have 7 to do lists and another list prioritizing my to-do lists.  Did the JC Penney ad print right this weekend? Did I feed the cats this morning? I need to sleep.  Where is my lunch? Where are my pants?? Where is my brain??? 

The "bad stress" that all the studies and articles talk about concern 1 & 3 but not only is it the stress, but the negativity associated with it it evolves into the disease-causing monster.

This is bad.

For me, I have one thing that cures my stress every time: a sauna.  This seems weird and wacky at first glance, but getting in a small wood-scented room and sweating my guts out makes me stop and slow down.  If I've had a bad day I can get in the sauna and sweat out the stress that's pent up in my body.  It is also helpful on a meditative level where I can "work things out."  I can also take my time and let my mind wander to the real thing that is bothering me.  Oftentimes it doesn't happen right away but by the end of it I'll have a clearer idea of why I'm so upset and how I can handle it.  Sometimes I'm just in a bad mood and it snowballs, so not only is there the thing that triggered my anger / stress (i.e. I can't believe you went behind my back, you bitch!) but then I start thinking of everything that person ever did that made me mad and by the end of it I'm ready to explode.

I am an elephant.  I remember everything.  

The other thing with the sauna is that I have a childhood comfort-association with heat.  When my brother and I were young my Mom was constantly dragging us to the desert for hiking, camping and flying trips.  She flew an ultralight (think of a hang glider with a motor and a double bucket seat) which she could only really do in the desert with her buddies.  Since she had kids, we always went with her.  I spent a lot of time playing in dry dirt, eating melty sandwiches and wailing on my brother.  (I also remember spending an Easter out there and getting a basket entirely filled with melted chocolate - it was awesome.)  Whenever I was getting stressed out in the last few years I found myself driving out to the desert and not really knowing why until I made the obvious connection.

As a last plug for saunas, any salesperson will go on and on about the health benefits.  It improves circulation, your skin, removes toxins, reduces chronic pain and burns calories.  I've heard some of them make claims that one half-hour session can burn up to 1,000 calories which is a sham.  The truth is when you get in a sauna your body works harder to regulate it's temperature so your heart rate goes up (similar to exercise).  However, to get your heart rate up to the level of burning 1,000 calories in 30 minutes it would have to be in the 90 - 100% + of your target heart rate range which is impossible (or possible if you're ok with being dead).  I once brought my heart rate monitor into the sauna to test how many calories I was actually burning.  It got up to 90 beats a minute when I was really sweating my guts out at the end or 48% of my target heart rate.  In 20 minutes I probably burned about 70 calories over and above my resting metabolism.  Whereas with normal exercise I need to be at 55% - 85% of my target heart rate (103 - 159 beats per minute) to get the maximum health benefits and best calorie burn. (500-1000 calories in an hour depending on how hard you work.)

However, no one has the time to jump in a sauna and de-stress in the midst of a hectic day.  Not only do I need a cure-all for when I have time to let it go, but I need a fast way to slow down (besides drinking folks!).  I think think this plays a major part in controlling stress and is what the doctors have no real solution for as it is different for everyone.  The most important thing is to find the one mechanism that will de-rail you from the train to insanity so you can start over fresh.  Here is a list of quick de-stressers that consistently work for me in order of effectiveness:

1) Find a way to laugh.  For reals, no faking here.  It will give you a clean slate.  (Yesterday I spontaneously started singing to my new boss over the phone and then realized I was on speaker.  Want.to.die.  The website damnyouautocorrect.com is also a favorite.)

2) Rock out to dorky music that you would never admit you listen to but makes you happy.  (Bad 80's music is my go-to.  Footloose!  Footloose! Kick off your Sunday shoes!  Please, Louise, pull me offa my knees!)

3) Call someone who is a positive influence who can talk you off the ledge. (No whiners, they'll just spin you further into the void.)

4) Exercise (groan). 

5) Come up with a mantra you actually believe.  Me: "Is this something I can control or can't control?"  Figure it out and then act accordingly.  With weight I say "I can't lose 100 pounds but I can lose 10 pounds 10 times."

6) Cruise travel sites for 10 minutes for cheap vacations.

7) Find an isolated place where you can scream and punch something with no judgement. (Go for a drive and let 'er rip and smack the steering wheel.)

8) Weekend de-stresser: go for along drive or a hike to somewhere that makes you calm.

9) Deep breaths / 5 minutes of quiet time.  (This never works for me.)

I feel like I say this a lot but there is no magic-bullet-miracle-cure.  Like with emotional food issues there are a lot of little things that add up to one big problem.  With stress there isn't one answer on how to abate it.  You have to recognize when you're participating and then find something that brings you back reality.  In the end there are a lot of tools at your disposal, but I wanted to at least give several prompts on how I've found my different paths back to sanity.  I've also opened the question to others and heard a plethora of other answers including: meditating, yoga, prayer, thinking about their children, looking at a picture of a tropical island, petting the cat, laying down in a dark room, taking a bath, journaling, getting a massage, reading, playing an instrument, flying, window shopping, and dancing.  You never know which one is going to work for you, but the next time you're stressed pick one and see if it works.  If it doesn't work then try something else until you find your calm.  It may be trial and error or a combination of tools to get you to your happy place, but it's there to be found.