Spend less, exercise more, eat better, learn a new skill, make more money, find yourself . 'tis the season of resolutions, and whether you buy into the idea of "a new year, a new you", or it's just more of the same continuum of meaninglessness, there's no doubt that stress levels everywhere are on the rise. This is why there's never been a better time for a book that helps turn stress into something positive. The Stress Code by Richard Sutton is here to help you do just that.
Joburg local Sutton starts his book - which gives practical advice on using stress to aid rather than impair your life - with a personal anecdote.
A health and performance educator who has advised world-famous athletes and Olympic teams, he recounts a story about being in New York to advise a top tennis player days before a US Open tournament.
Failing to help one of his top clients, Sutton's stress levels went into overdrive, but he managed to use these high levels of stress to help himself think clearly and come up with a solution that worked.
Sutton became fascinated with how stress can either help or hinder us, depending on how we manage it. The key word, he discovers, is resilience - "because we cannot avoid stress, nor would we want to, considering the potential value that stress offers".
"Stress has two faces. Ongoing stress is one of the biggest challenges faced globally, but short intervals of stress can actually offer tremendous potential to grow, break personal barriers and excel."
Here follows a short extract from the book:
Swimming has the potential to be one of the greatest tools in stress management. The reasons that swimming, specifically underwater swimming, is so beneficial are multifactorial. It all starts with the survival reaction known as the diving reflex. This vagal-mediated safety reflex overrides all biological states and occurs in response to water submersion and our corresponding breath-holding. In simple terms, survival always takes precedence. No matter what biological state you are in, when you submerge yourself in water, the brain's first response is to stop breathing and slow down your biological processes.
Scientists have found the diving reflex to be particularly strong in infants between four and 12 months old.
However, as in many areas of our health and functionality, with advancing age this important reflex weakens and will require retraining and frequent stimulus to remain effective. This explains why I found the first few swimming sessions so challenging in terms of regulating my breathing.
While swimming and submergence in water are strong activators of the vagus nerve and result in a corresponding reduction in heart rate by 10-25%, the biological process is very complex.
According to a 2009 article, submergence in water initially triggers a fight-or-flight reaction for a few seconds. This means that there is a slight rise in arterial pressure as blood and lung oxygen stores are preferentially redistributed to the heart and the brain.
Many other biological shifts take place, including the release of red blood cells from the spleen. We have all experienced that "gasp" moment when diving into a pool or submerging our head in cool water.
Following this alarm state, there is a strong vagal presence and corresponding calming of your biological state via two distinct mechanisms. The first is through baroreflex activation from the rise in blood pressure, and the second is from chemical receptor stimulation that occurs as oxygen levels decline during the latter part of a breath-hold.
Research has shown that there are many additional factors that can intensify the vagal response and positive biological shifts, especially the combination of movement and breath-holding under water. A study on vagal activation in response to water submersion showed that swimming underwater can reduce heart rate by more than 50% within less than 30 seconds, which is greater than the effect seen in simple submergence.
Although many forms of exercise offer enormous value in chronic stress management and health outcomes, research shows that swimming offers some of the greatest value in this space...