Read this! and start today by integrating simple yet powerful active recovery rituals into your day

By nature our jobs/lives require us to be switched on - in a high arousal or high energy state. Think about your own busy day - deadlines, multi-tasking, sitting, looking at screens, dealing with people, work life balance and the list goes on. Amongst the busyness of your day are you actively shifting back into a calm state OR do you tend to stay in that high arousal state? If you do you will get a lot done but it tends to come at a cost over the long term. Let me explain.

Our bodies are the masters of compensation - we are adaptive machines. Staying in the busyness of our days and not allowing for intermittent disciplined recovery, during your day, results in bodily adaptations as a result of continued exposure to stress. Don't think of high level stress either, just think about the challenges and demands that are placed on you throughout your day and the necessity to get things done. This is the most common type of stress - it's not necessrily bad, it just demands a lot of our energy. However, it needs to be balanced with recovery (stress +recovery = growth). Every system in the body requires stress for optimal health. They all need stress to create adaptation for robustness. However, without adequate recovery you start building cumulative trauma of some form (emotional, physical, mental). This accumulative trauma builds up in our bodies and we simply adapt to it. Here are some of the signs and symptoms that we experience secondary to chronic stress.

Inability to concentrate or focus
Difficulty sleeping
Anxious or racing mind

Low energy throughout day
Brain fog
Emotional exhaustion
Moodiness
Irritability
Short temper
Inability to relax
Feeling overwhelmed
Body tension

We all develop different strategies to manage stress. These can range from adaptive strategies (like exercise, meditation, social support, being in nature….) to maladaptive strategies (like smoking, alcohol use, avoidance behaviors, excessive phone and social media use….. ). Maladaptive strategies are coping strategies to deal with stress, the problem is they tend to be things that activate our bodies stress response thus adding more load.

The key to all of this is to work daily on clearing what is termed allostatic load - the wear and tear on our bodies as the result of the accumulative effects of stress. This is how I do it and how I would encourage you to implement active forms of recovery into your day. These are habits and rituals that shift you into a calm, recovery state. I work hard and I am often “busy” and my focus and energy gets pulled in multiple different directions. It's not uncommon that I spend 3-4 hours in an energised state in order to meet deadlines and get things done. I then use these recovery rituals to recharge, recentre, refocus and balance my nervous system. So here are 2 key recovery rituals that I integrate into my day.

Cadence breathwork. These are the same exercises that are in the breathing for calm and focus section of the performance breathing course. I do some form of cadence breathing daily. I programme it into my calendar but also use breathing mediation at pivotal points in my day where I need more calm, focus, creativity and recovery.

Generally I do 2 lots of 10-15 minute breathing flows throughout the day. If I feel like a deeper reset I will do the 21 minute breathing flow which has been a part of my active recovery for the past 5 years. Try this in your busy day and feel the effects that it has on your physical and mental state and how that ripples over into productivity, energy and your wellbeing. It is as simple as following the instructions in the ‘create your own breathing flows video” in the course. You can start with just 5-10 minutes a day.

I integrate active forms of recovery into my day that create stress (ice bath, sauna, exercise, hiking). Purposeful exposure to stress, like exercise, will always leave you feeling more calm after. Why is this? Try it - go and exercise or have an ice bath and tap into how you feel after. This is the beauty of controlled stress - stress is good for us and when it's controlled and deliberate and in the form of things that are inherently good for us it leaves you feeling alert, calm, focused and energised.

In future posts I am going to go into more detail around how deliberate exposure to stress can actually be a powerful form of recovery and can be used to balance your nervous system and improve stress tolerance.

Get amongst it - cheers Dave

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