Stress Sparks Brain Growth

It does us no good to pigeon hole ourselves into a life devoid of intensity, excitement and challenges believing that we're safe from emotional turmoil. Stress is all around us in our day to day lives, in our finances, culture, catastrophic events, grief, and the unknown. Since stress is unavoidable, how do we cope?

I go for the run.

In previous posts, I've explained how running allows me to face my anxiety as well as the connection between running and the mayhem of my life. I'm a mother of four children with normal stress like everyone else. Additionally, my past has included surviving divorce, the death of loved ones, job loss, severe financial strain, and single motherhood. I know stress.

Over the years I've learned to build a coping tool-kit, which includes self-care activities such as meditation, visual prayer journals, self-kindness exercises, crafting, reading, practicing gratitude, and yes, beer. By far, however, the most effective self-care activity that I indulge in is exercise. After a challenging run, a Jillian Michaels dvd, or Zumba I'm much more ready to handle whatever mayhem is thrown at me. When I'm at the height of training for a race when the weekly miles reach into the teens and twenties, I relish in my joyful nature and how easily things roll of my back. Sure, stress is unavoidable, however I'm so much more emotionally prepared to handle it.

How does this work?

I first read the term stress inoculation in the book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John Ratey, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and have been fascinated with the idea ever since. Stress inoculation works similar to receiving a vaccine. Stress is introduced in a limited and controlled manner to promote emotional immunity for future stress.

The article, "How Do Muscles Grow" by Young sub Kwon, M.S. and Len Kravitz, Ph.D. explains the process of muscle growth in biological terms. Simpler put, the brain is a muscle and operates like every other muscle in our bodies. When worked, muscle fibers in the brain as well as the body tear, rebuild and become stronger due to an increase in muscle fiber across the muscle.

When the brain is active it does not distinguish forms of stress. Activity is activity whether it's emotional, traumatic, educational, or exercise. Stress in the brain is registered as activity that causes neurons to kick it in high gear. As neurons are worked, they're damaged. Given the appropriate time to repair, they're hardier than before due to an increase in neurons.

When we feel stress it is the emotional output of brain activity.

What exercise does.

Putting ourselves in limited and controlled situations that are stressful inoculates us against future stress. In addition to the physical demands and awards of exercise, the brain also undergoes an intense workout. Multiple parts of the brain are triggered into action; hormones are released for muscle function and the intensity of the activity is taken into account. After the exercise is completed, information is stored. Muscle memory in the body and brain take place. And muscle fibers in the brain and body tear, rebuild, and become stronger.

I believe that the highly sought after runner's high is the emotional response to the stress and accomplishment of running.

When it comes to future stress that we all know is unavoidable, assemble a self-care tool-kit with exercise as the most essential stress vaccine. Consider running as armor to the fight or flight human instinct.

It's time to consider something different other than the widespread belief that exercise is only meant for people who need to lose weight. Exercise has evolved out of our human bodies' necessity to move in order to survive.

I'll end with a few quotes Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall, a book worth reading with a handle on running as the human response to the fight or flight instinct..

“Perhaps all our troubles - all the violence, obesity, illness, depression, and greed we can't overcome - began when we stopped living as Running People. Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way.” 

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“Suffering is humbling. It pays to know how to get your butt kicked.”

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“We've got a motto here-you're tougher than you think you are, and you can do more than you think you can.” 


References

McDougall, Christopher. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Best Race the World Has Never Seen. ISBN 978-0-307-279187. http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/6473602-born-to-run-a-hidden-tribe-superathletes-and-the-greatest-race-the-wo. Retrieved January 18, 2013.

Meichenbaum, Donald. “Stress Inoculation Training: A Preventative And Treatment Approach.” http://www.brown.uk.com/anxiety/stress-inoculation.pdf. Retrieved January 14, 2013.

Meichenbaum, Donald. “Stress Inoculation Training for Coping with Stressors.” http://www.apa.org/divisions/div12/rev_est/sit_stress.html. Retrieved January 14, 2013.

Ratey, John. Spark: The Revolutionary new Science of Exercise and the Brain. Hachette Book Group. ISBN 978-0-316-02835.

Rizzo, Albert. ” Stress Inoculation.” (video.production). PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/waging-war/immersion-training/stress-inoculation.html. Retrieved January 14, 2013

Young sub Kwon and Len Kravitz. “How do muscles grow?” http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/musclesgrowLK.html. Retrieved January 17, 2013.