The 5 Traits Shared By The Pain Free- Part 2

This is part 2 of a small series, if you have read part 1 i would head over there now and come back once you’ve read it. 

 

For those still with me you’ll now know we are onto Emotional Health and Recovery, and we’ll continue with the car analogy as I feel it’s been working well so far. 

 

Emotional or mental health, in my experience, is by far the most sensitive area to discuss. Not because of people's willingness to discuss it, more so because of people’s inability to perceive or monitor their emotional health. Thankfully this is where developments in science have enabled us to objectively measure a person’s emotional health/stress with a Heart Rate Variability (HRV) test. We won't be talking about the science of the HRV test today, instead we will be discussing how your emotional health will impact your overall health. Broadly speaking your emotional health can be one of two key modes ; Rest and Digest or Fight, Flight, Freeze. These are scientifically referred to as Parasympathetic and sympathetic. The parasympathetic or Rest and Digest is like your Sunday morning driver, you know the one who has all the time in world and isnt in a hurry, driving 10 mph below the speed limit and taking in the views with there roof down. If you were to drive your car like that all the time you’ll be putting minimal stress and strain on the car and therefore every part would last alot longer and need far less maintenance. The opposite, Sympathetic or Fight/ Flight/ Freeze is style of driving you would do if your wife's water had broken and you were driving them to the hospital. It would be blue lights on the roof turned on, beeping, swerving, taking evasive action, red light running kind of driving. Great for short bursts as it was intended thousands of years ago if we were faced with a tiger or lion. Nowadays with early mornings, work, kids, financial stress, politics, war, etc it is far to easy to be in a chronic or long term state of fight, flight, freeze and even more worryingly be completely consciously unaware of it. Thrashing your car 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, red lining every gear change, driving on the limit and emergency breaking into every corner will lead to an increased degeneration in your car parts. Meaning problems and breakdowns become much more likely and common. 

 

Lastly Recovery, this is most commonly found in sleep but also in new discovered times of non sleep deep rest or similar. If sleep were not essential it would be the single greatest evolutionary mistake. Spending 8 hours in the dark unconscious unable to protect ourselves is a huge risk in the times of cave dwelling humans, so if evolution is willing to take that risk it must be for something important. The fact of the matter is when your asleep not only does it give your body time to recover but also your brain. There is a system called the glymphatic system where your brain is sleep of waste products like proteins (which are found to elevated in Alzheimer and Dementia patients) and adenosine which is the cause of sleepy/ tiredness (that coffee temporality blocks from acting). If you were to drive a car 24/7 around the clock in some sort of constant Le Mans race its easy to see how the car is going to breakdown and generate quickier. Needing more repairs and maintenance work than if it had 8 hours per night resting. 

 

I hope the car analogy we have used has helped you to understand the effects your neurological, structural, chemical, emotional and recovery pillars have on your health.