One of the keys to recovery breathing was to elicit positive emotions to help activate your parasympathetic nervous system. Using positive experiences, images, or memories can help to override human’s natural tendency towards negativity and stress.
Despite living in a diverse modern world full of technology and innovation peoples’ brains still use the same software as their hunter and gatherer ancestors. That software was designed to recognize threats e.g. predatory animals or other humans. Early humans that learned to avoid danger were more likely to live longer lives and thus more likely to pass on their genes. Fast forward to today and none of you will leave the gym today fearing that a tiger or lion will jump out of a bush and eat you, but your brain’s vigilant security system will be on guard. Despite living in a world where most of our basic needs for food and shelter are more easily met people still devote to 2/3’s of scanning towards the negative. This hypervigilance and negativity seeking causes us to overestimate threats and underestimate resources and opportunities. Thinking in this manner tilts your brain further in the direction of stress and the tendency towards fight-or-flight activation. For instance, most people are able to remember negative experiences from their past more easily than positive ones. Negative experiences are stored immediately in the brain so that we learn from the situation. Positive emotions do not automatically gain traction in our memory stores and often get lost before making it through our working memory to our stored memory. The simple fix is to be able to generate positive emotions. Gratitude is one of the easiest and most successful positive emotions to deploy. Take the time to think of three things each day that you are grateful for. Take the time to think about “why” you are grateful for this. If you are able to hold the positive emotion in your attention for 30 seconds you will help it to transition to your stored memory. Over time this technique can literally change the structure of your brain, build optimism, and support well-being. In addition the latest research suggests that a person can learn to override traumatic experiences through the use of positive emotions. Recovery Breathing
Proper breathing is one of the easiest ways to improve overall health and enhance recovery, however it is not something we put much thought into. When done correctly breathing blends our physiology, emotions, and thoughts to activate our recovery. Three steps to remember for proper breathing. 1.) Mechanics. Recovery breathing starts in the abdomen. Most people are chest breathers especially under stress. Learning to breathe with the diaphragm enhances efficiency and initiates recovery. Sit in a comfortable position with one hand on your chest and one hand on your stomach. Just be aware of how you are breathing. Specifically what hand is moving more. If your top hand is moving more focus on filling your abdomen with air as if you were filling a balloon. It takes time and practice. 2.) Cadence Begin using a 4 in 4 out cadence. Breathing in through the nostrils and out through the mouth. As your progress you can increase the time. You will notice that when you are stressed you respiration rate is quicker, this is the case for physical, emotional, or cognitive stress. In those situations concentrate on slowly extending the cadence. 3.) Attitude Eliciting positive emotions has a big impact on our recovery. Our emotions play a crucial role in both how we think and how our bodies are, so being able to remember or imagine something positive as you breathe is a bonus. This is especially true for feelings of gratitude. A few years ago I was helping a unit perform some range PT and we were utilizing the biofeedback equipment some of you have tried in the gym. It took most Soldiers a while to recover, but one went "green" right away. This was after about 25 burpees, a shuttle run, and 50 jumping jacks. When I asked him what he did he said that he thought about playing with his daughter at the beach. He continued saying that he had been deployed multiple times and been in some difficult situations and that he always went to that image of he and his daughter playing. It was practiced and implemented under stress, and when we tested him his default habit kicked in. Your homework try breathing for 2 minutes in a comfortable spot. When your done just take note of how you feel. This post was originally published for the Home Base Program.
For those who were not at the nutritional workshop on Monday, I wanted to share some mental strategies for supporting healthy eating. 1. If...Then... Planning We talked about if then planning in goal setting and it really helps out short term nutrition goals. Take a moment before hand to think about if this happens then I do this. For instance: If I am tempted by a third dessert then I will play with my nieces and nephews. 2.) Healthy Habits are within your control People who believe that their weight is something they have an influence over stay fitter over the holidays than people who believe that their weight is genetic and they have no control over it. 3.) Willpower Part 1 Families can be stressful and stress makes us crave glucose. If you are trying to avoid certain foods stay away from stressful people. Traditional ways of being outside, breathing, and exercise all help this out, but if you are around family and friends the easiest way to combat this is to hang around people that make you laugh. 4.) Willpower Part 2 Avoid decision fatigue. Too many decisions in a day limit your ability to resist temptation or make sound decisions. Shopping is a great example of this. Supermarkets are built to cause you to suffer from decision fatigue. Cereals for example are spread out and the more you scan or compare the more likely you are to make an impulse buy. This is the same reason candy and tabloids are at checkout aisles. 5.) Bonus Tip: Small Plate Nicole mentioned this Monday night, but the benefit of using a smaller plate helps control eating habits. Our brain likes when things are complete. This is the first in a series of posts on goal setting previously posted for the Home Base Program.
Goals that state exactly what needs to be accomplished and that are challenging result in higher performance outcomes than goals that are vague or easily attainable. When you are specific with the goals you set you remove the possibility of settling. When you set a specific goal you are held accountable by the fact that you either accomplished the goal or not. Setting a challenging goal leads to increases in effort, focus, and commitment. In addition when you accomplish something challenging or succeed at something difficult you have greater satisfaction, happiness, and increases in sense of well-being when compare to things that are more easily accomplished. The best part is when you achieve goals through setting a specific and challenging goal you are more likely to repeat the process which leads you into what researchers refer to as the “high performance cycle”. This cycle is a continual loop of success and well-being that builds off itself. Vague Goal: Lose Weight Specific Goal: I will lose 10 lbs by New Year’s. Reference: Dr. Heidi Grant Halverson's book Succeed. |