De-Stress for Success
Posted May 18th, 2007 at 9:30 AM by Christopher Jack
Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise
Are you digging for the doctor’s number more often lately? Aches and pains forcing you to miss workouts? If you suffer from nagging injuries it may be more than just a streak of bad luck holding you down; it may be your state of mind.
In a consensus statement issued last year by the American College of Sports Medicine, a team of doctors and sports psychologists discovered a link between psychological factors (mainly stress) and injury.
As stress levels rise, so do athletes’ chances of injuries. Therefore, learning stress management techniques can help some athletes to reduce the “offs” of any forced time off.
In a different study dating back to 2003, the University of North Texas Center for Sport Psychology and Performance Excellence found that over the course of one football season, athletes facing high levels of stress were more likely to suffer from an injury.
Stress is ever present and several different things can induce it. For some people, all it takes to feel stressed out is drinking a cold cup of coffee when they wanted a hot one; for others, it might be more severe – like being laid off at the job. When we feel stress, our bodies go through a serious of biochemical and hormonal changes that can potentially escalate into bigger problems like depression.
Stress increases fatigue, muscle tension, and shortness of breath.
Not surprisingly, there are several ways to explain how and why stress can lead to injury. The most basic of which is that, when coping with a great deal of stress, an individual’s senses become limited. That is, studies show that stress can cause people to ignore visual cues.
For a runner, this presents an obvious danger. As periphery vision narrows, a twig or ditch could spell disaster.
Stress can also cause muscles to tense, increasing the probability of muscle tears. A tense muscle also impairs coordination and balance, making those mountain trails that much more risky.
Stress causes an increase in hormone flow throughout the body, most notably cortisol. Cortisol increases blood glucose levels, but during periods of high stress it can begin to convert lean muscle tissue into glucose. For any athlete in the midst of serious training, this reduces the body’s ability to repair muscle, slowing recovery and increasing the probability of injury.
Elevated levels of cortisol can also cause a decrease in both strength and performance, along with a number of other internal complications.
Stress clearly affects those without the proper coping mechanisms that much more so; hence, finding time to relax is essential. It is with this in mind that the American College of Sports Medicine recommends that team physicians incorporate mental health into an athletes training, as well as recovery.
Adding a half an hour of yoga, picking up a book or sitting down with a friend can do wonders for your stress levels and, in turn, for your training. So remember, next time you try to run off your frustration, you may be better off booking that vacation.
Research sources and for more information: [ACSM], [Fit Sense], [HelpGuide], [Runner’s World]
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Tags: cortisol, fatigue, hormone, injury prevention, performance, psychology, relax, relaxation, sport psychology, strength, stress, stress management
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The Final Sprint
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July 3rd, 2007 at 1:41 am