NFTF

Issue #31

Basic human desires included food, reproduction, social stature, comfort, and exploration. We are a complexity unto itself in the animal kingdom because for a small part of our lives each day, we are conscious, and I don’t mean conscious as in “I am awake”; I mean conscious as in I am fully aware of what is going on at this moment. Each of us has undergone a childhood where micro or macro experiences influenced our basic human desires and tendencies to search for or guard these, ad nauseum. 

 

I’ll assume that since anyone reading this has food, shelter, a smartphone, and a level of comfort that has never been had in the history of our species, I can get to the point of this article. 

 

Through our comfort crisis, we inevitably expose ourselves to more information than we can absorb; fact. This hyper-information indulgence, as with anything, comes with tradeoffs. Many of us don’t acknowledge if the nervous system cannot move at the speed of our demands or the speed we desire to consume data. We refuse to slow down and take the path of least resistance; keep scrolling.  That route is a compensatory response that hands our attention out like a slot machine being spun on a constant. Jumping from one screen to another, one piece of information to another, one conversation to another, externalizing our problems to the car in front of us, entertaining the text message (while driving), then to the email, to the phone call, to the song, to the coffee, to the nicotine, and on. 

 

I just got off the phone with a client I’ve worked with for over a year. We spoke about why the placebo effect works so well. “Simple,” I said (although this is a rudimentary theory), “your emotions are aligned with your physiology,” and so in many of the cases where the placebo effect is working, which  is more often than you may realize,  we find ourselves dialed into a “vibration.” The context of this conversation was concerned with feeling good mentally and, therefore, physically, without invasive thoughts to tell us otherwise. Like this, there is insufficient noise (social media, news headlines, poor self-talk) to distract you from what is happening in your immediate world. Remember: our responses to any situation are patterns we’ve established over a lifetime, engrained since childhood. They are familiar to us and give us a sense of comfort or peace. Instead of worrying about what we may be missing, we can choose to bring forward our ability to sit firmly in the chaos through our own personal peace of mind. The more distracted we are, the more difficult it becomes to understand this sense of peace that, from what I have learned, seems to be a default in every person I have met and worked with. The distractions are human-made. *BTW, the placebo doesn’t always work, and emotions are not all bad. Personally, it often requires me to be distracted before realizing that I am caught up in something external to myself.

 

To be distracted is a coping strategy that has become more of an issue culturally as we have become obsessed with information. This obsession has fueled many industries to make trillions of dollars because we love thinking we know something. These industries are feeding you and me marketing and IP designed to keep us hooked, influence our next thought or buy, stay online longer, and come back for more; dopamine, norepinephrine, and a myriad of other neurotransmitters and hormones that are far more potent than most Rx drugs. The dilemma begins by not taking the time to understand our patterns, our stressors, and our traumatic responses to our unfulfilled human desires. These reactions compound when we are distracted, and we are all distracted. This has our nervous systems set on higher alert than is necessary. I’m sure you know this: your brain — to be clear — is a part of your nervous system, not separate. No part of you is a distinctly separate entity or system from what I’ve described here. 

 

So, you want to work out, exercise, and care for yourself because life is stressful, and exercise is the best medicine–100%! One of the things that brought me to many of the above details was looking deeper into respiratory physiology and breathing mechanics. I became intrigued to study and discuss the above information and started by applying the concept of breath control to training. I began to see some exciting things; one of those things was that people were over-breathing while exercising, which many experts ignored, and some continue to ignore despite the growing data. One of the leading issues in endurance sports is pulmonary function, which may not be why you think– CO2 Tolerance. At the Olympic level, breathing-related issues are the number one medical issue. Our breathing is essentially a prediction component based on a relationship (keyword) to CO2. This mechanism (our breathing frequency/rate and depth) is rooted in how we each respond to stress. These relationships can easily carry over into submaximal exercise, meaning that our exercise routines do not solve the stress equation. A slight caveat here is that those who regularly participate in high-intensity exercise can develop the pulmonary muscles quite well. However, none of us can be too intense for too long; thus, we default back to a manageable intensity (sub-maximal) and our breathing behavior.

 

Without a foundation in breathing mechanics, physiology only follows suit (just as it follows emotion), which is derived from how we psychologically or behaviorally breathe. Unless you were born into an Eastern-based practice such as  Yoga, Tai Chi, or Martial Arts as taught through their antiquated processes (and I can guarantee none would mold into today’s modern-day Westernized versions), you’d of skipped – like me – breathing as a foundation to training. Breathing is an opportunity to present to you a reality you did not see before. That reality does have some physiology behind it, though. We know you are more aerobic, or rather you are using oxygen more effectively if your mouth is shut and your intensity matches. We also know if you are hypersensitive to CO2, you are prone to hyperventilation and even episodes of hypoventilation (apnea–sleep). Ironically, as cited above, mouth breathing at high intensity can and will train those primary breathing muscles much more effectively; it may just come with a prescriptive time frame. You are also training those primary breathing muscles at lower intensities in a way they have never been used in the modern world, with a bit of intensity while our mouths are shut. 

 

In this paradoxical world, we all respond to stress differently but still with similar behavior patterns. Those patterns are not just acting out in anger, frustration, and fear; they show up in how we hold ourselves, how we walk, and at the root, how we breathe. Again – a reminder with more context – just changing our breathing will only present a reality you are willing to see, avoid, or ignore. I see this almost daily as people nasal breathing beyond their means, and it backfiring on them physiologically (not enough O2 delivery at higher work rates), or backfiring on an easy run or ride, and their jaws slack wide open, offloading excess CO2 and rendering oxygen more useless and destructive. 

 

Confronting our behavior is the foundation of all training; everything else is secondary and beyond. Awareness is the foundational tool for this. Every other tool, including breathing and exercise, is secondary. Our basic desires have been so exploited that we have lost their foundations. Many have misplaced one of them totally; exploration. So many of us no longer have purpose and rarely are invested in deep work, creativity, and play; not everything is training. 

 

We suffer socially, as we BEHAVE as though social media is social interaction– a place where I show you exactly what I want – usually all the beautiful things, and you voyeuristically watch, compare, and contrast based on a one-two sense ability of an eight-sense, multidimensional being – you judge accordingly, and I react to the comment with my survival instincts, all the while pretending we’ve got our shit together and this is normal. We only text message our “friends” and family and avoid phone calls or fundamental interactions because we are so busy we can’t (or won’t) make time for real social interaction. Missing the reality that our self-esteem is in the shitter, and we don’t value our time in the slightest. We then green-light the food and supplement industry to make it so convenient for us to live in our worlds that we are willing to eat toxic food or take said pill, just so long as we don’t have to get uncomfortable or chase the illusion of comfort. The dilemma is we are psychologically making up for what we physically no longer can or will do. The placebo is not a placebo when you figure out that your old thinking was the parking brake you had on the entire time you have been driving.

 

SH//FT Health helps you rebuild from the foundation. Each aspect of what we do in this business is about guiding you to take the time to understand that each one of us may have a parking brake on at times. The membership, courses, and coaching are all geared around you and developing your foundation… and this is the foundation of training; for any world champion, executive, operator, first responder, mom, or whatever your flavor. Without it, it’s all a show. Every season and event comes to an end.  

 

You are the environment; you do not live in one. Every part of your sensory system communicates where you’re at in every moment, consciously and unconsciously. You are adjusting and calibrating to ensure you find balance or homeostasis. Imagine never knowing who you really are because you are so tied up trying to suffer in comfort.  

 

References:

 

Winkler, A., Hahn, A. & Hermann, C. The impact of pharmaceutical form and simulated side effects in an open-label-placebo RCT for improving psychological distress in highly stressed students. Sci Rep 13, 6367 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-32942-5

 

Banzett, R. B., Lansing, R. W., & Binks, A. P. (2021). Air hunger: a primal sensation and a primary element of dyspnea. Comprehensive Physiology.

 

Conde, S. V., Polotsky, V. Y., Joseph, V., & Kinkead, R. (2023). On the origins of sleep disordered breathing, cardiorespiratory and metabolic dysfunction: which came first, the chicken or the egg?. The Journal of Physiology.

Bassi, M., Furuya, W. I., Zoccal, D. B., Menani, J. V., Colombari, E., Hall, J. E., … & Colombari, D. S. A. (2015). Control of respiratory and cardiovascular functions by leptin. Life sciences, 125, 25-31.

Shapiro, S. D., Chin, C. H., Kirkness, J. P., McGinley, B. M., Patil, S. P., Polotsky, V. Y., … & Schwartz, A. R. (2014). Leptin and the control of pharyngeal patency during sleep in severe obesity. Journal of applied physiology, 116(10), 1334-1341.

Nicolò A, Girardi M, Bazzucchi I, Felici F, Sacchetti M. Respiratory frequency and tidal volume during exercise: differential control and unbalanced interdependence. Physiol Rep. 2018;6(21):e13908. doi:10.14814/phy2.13908

Sikter, Andras, Rihmer, Z. O. L. T. A. N., & Guevara, R. (2017). New aspects in the pathomechanism of diseases of civilization, particularly psychosomatic disorders. Part 1. Theoretical background of a hypothesis. Neuropsychopharmacol Hung, 19(2), 95-105.

 

Issue #30

But your life is so good!

When I get depressed I feel:

Stuck

Sludgy

Pudgy

Gross

Unmotivated

Ashamed

I can feel this way and still be grateful for all that is going for me in life. If I tell someone how I’m feeling, I’m bound to get reminded, “Look at your life. Look at all that is working! Have you tried a Gratitude Journal?” Or, “Something must have happened to you. Let’s talk about your past and dig this all up to see why you are stuck.”

Those forms of help, being told I should be grateful or digging up anything bad in my past, only make me feel worse. Please note I value talk therapy very much and there are profound counselors and therapists out there who make a huge difference every day. The best ones understand that how we think and feel is part of a larger system than the one between our ears.

We’ve all been trained to think of depression as a psychological problem. Look at your life. Think about it. Feel better. Look at your past. Understand it. Feel better.

We’ve also been trained to think of depression as something you ‘have’. Like a disease.

Depression for most people is not in the mind, and it is not a disease. 

Depression is a signal from the body of imbalance.

When our physiology is depressed we feel depressed. Of course things that happen to us and things we do or do not do play a part and talking that through can be helpful to a point. However, chronic stress and trauma create physiological changes to the brain and body that are not just ideas. 

Forms of chronic stress that can accrue into depressive patterns include being sedentary, pushing too much in training or work, isolation, lack of exposure to nature, not moving, eating, sleeping, or hydrating well. The trick here is that depression makes it harder to move more, eat well, be social, sleep deeply etc. 

In essence depression causes changes to the operating system that make it harder to use that operating system well. These changes are not repaired through thinking and talking alone. 

Medication is the other tool our society uses to “treat” depression. Medication can help some people lift up. But those who rely on talk therapy and medication alone will not address root causes in their physiology to make lasting balance a possibility. 

The stigma everyone is trying to disrupt around getting help for depression comes from this misunderstanding; if depression is a disease of the mind (see your problems and life more clearly, possibly get medication to adjust your perspective) it is personal. The phrase “mental health” only continues this misunderstanding. 

Depression is not a mental health problem. It is a health problem. Lifestyles of disconnection and chronic stress exposure create imbalances to our metabolic and nervous systems. This is not in our heads. 

I and many others have said that depression is when you are stuck in the past and anxiety is worry about the future. After 20+ years of supporting people through stress and trauma and going through this myself I now say that depression is not being stuck in the past, it is being stuck – in the now. The body is always present. If it is stuck and we want to move forward again we need to meet the body where it is and listen.

To line up healthy behavior and create balance from a depressed state is a skill. 

Our movement, breath, and recovery programs are about learning and training metabolic and nervous system health to disrupt this broader misunderstanding around so-called mental health by giving you the keys to your own biology. The Skill of Stress and Art of Breath programs will give you the tools to start down a path of creating balance by working with your body, breath, and yes, your brain. Whatever tools and support you find along the way, I hope you are guided back again and again to the simple practice of listening to what your body has to say about your current state. It’s asking for simple things from you. A nap. Time outside on a walk. Sweat and play with friends. A long sequence of smooth conscious breaths. From there you can adjust your course in small ways that add up to the balance and agency that our modern lives are calling us each to find.

Yours in Health,

Emily Hightower

 

Issue #29

How much bandwidth have you spent worrying about the meaning of a text from someone you have issues or insecurities with?

Texting is great for logistics; “running 5 minutes late” or “out of eggs”. It’s great for staying connected with photos or quick quips. Texting is terrible for relaying context-dependent or emotional content. How painful are those long threads of descriptive language trying to get across a point? Even worse are the short direct clips when emotions run hot like “Maybe later”.

How many ways can you interpret the phrase, “Maybe later”? The tone and context can make the difference between a positive connection and a dismissal. It’s often cited that 80% of communication is nonverbal. Albert Mehrabian, a researcher of body language, found that understanding comes from 55% non-verbal cues, 38% vocal cues, and only 7% from the words themselves. What does this mean? It means we rely on cues from body language, tone, pacing, touch (or lack of) and eyes to read what is really being said. In-person you can understand nuance such as:

“Maybe later?” with a promising wink and a soft touch.

“Maybe later….” with a dismissive glance down and shifting weight insecurely

“Maybe later” with sharp eyes, contemptuous posture, and annoyed tone

“Maybe. Later.” with indifference moving on to other things

In a text you read flat words that leave you to fill in the missing potential 93% of context. The stories you insert tell more about your own insecurities and assumptions than what the other person is really saying. Your response likely returns confusion and a game ensues of 7% understanding that can blow up into real problems or uncertain endings.

We engrave in our teenager lost rules of engagement such as “never break up by text”. Texting “When can we talk” shows more maturity and mutual respect than “This isn’t working for me anymore”. It’s an easy way to rise above the sea of avoidance going on behind these screens. Some people will dodge the request to talk by typing out more emotional content in response. It’s seductive to think we can use our thumbs to get our point across while escaping a conversation. We’ve trained ourselves through screens to lose touch with boundaries. There’s an indulgence to communicating through apps instead of in person that has allowed us to worship our own take on things without needing to feel the consequence of real connection. 

Relationships are one of the most important aspects of health. It’s stressful to connect when there might be problems brewing. We text to avoid this discomfort. The question is, would you rather sit alone and deal with the constant stress of interpreting little typed words or face the stress of actual contact? Healthy communication starts with understanding your nervous system response to this connection stress. 

When you can read and regulate your state you can face real-time conversations with skill. You can better read the other person and check your own assumptions. From a regulated state you can adjust your tone and body language to help the other person hear you, and to listen well in turn. If painful content comes up and you know how to manage your nervous system the live exchange is invaluable for real understanding. 

Eye contact and physical cues alone can forge meaningful bonds, create healthy boundaries, and collaborate to solve real problems. Even a phone call can produce more connection than texting because of the complex power of the human voice. Imagine reading the lyrics to a favorite song instead of turning up the volume to hear it. If Mehrabian is right, voice makes for 38% more understanding.

If you just follow the novel concept of asking to meet up when you sense a misunderstanding you will find relationships improving. Live exchange back and forth offers no time delays and no guessing. With this approach you also have a litmus test to know if a relationship can handle being real. Some will prefer to hide behind their thumbs. If you explain why you want live connection and they can’t meet you there they’re showing you that reality isn’t their primary investment. 

Find some eyeballs even if through a screen to fill in the blanks left in your connections that deserve more than 7%. See how it helps you restore lucidity in your networks. Ultimately the time you spend interpreting texts will be saved in favor of comprehension. “Maybe later” can turn into “let’s meet in 5”.

Issue #28

The Paradoxes of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) & Where Unlimited Growth Lives

 

The ANS is the largely unconscious regulator of our bodily systems. Yet, we also can control many of these systems through our manipulation. When we manipulate our breathing, we alter many, if not all, aspects of how the ANS functions. This is one paradox.

Another paradox is that as long as we’ve understood a bit of this system, we have communicated about the push/pull or antagonistic relationship between the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). So although there is a bit of one dominance over the other, the fact that the SNS is always on tells a different story. 

The third paradox is that although the PNS activates a calm side to us, it is anything but calm and may have more energy output than the SNS. We love to romanticize things far beyond our understanding of them for a good reason. It makes us feel good to think we fully understand something we’ve yet to fully understand, and I am no stranger to this. 

The ANS is engaged through nervous activity to help maintain homeostatic integrity and the functioning of our bodies as a whole. It responds to stress to maintain this integrity. 

Stress is the response of an organism to factors that actually or symbolically endanger its homeostatic integrity. It is any physical or psychological stimuli that disrupt homeostasis. The stress response happens through our sensory system; Interoception, proprioception, vestibular, visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory (taste). 

Our sensory systems are electrically based. Meaning you will need an ear for sound waves to be interpreted into nervous signaling to hear sounds. Otherwise, there is no sound, only waves.  

With the nervous system, stress involves all three branches of the ANS. I will focus on the SNS and PNS. The most basic version of this system works like this. 

In the presence of a stimulus, or psychological or physical stressor, we engage more of a response from the SNS, which activates the adrenal glands. When an acute stressor is no longer present, the PNS system facilitates the body’s recovery after the stressor. The PNS goes to work; it does not shut off. 

Your circadian rhythm has your adrenals releasing cortisol just before you wake. You go for a ride on your bike, and your body begins to go into the motions of preparing for more movement and using more oxygen. You get into a car crash, and hormones and neurotransmitters flood your bloodstream immediately following your NS response to the impact. The role of biochemistry following high SNS responses can not be understated, and I could write an entire article on one facet of it and still need to cover more. Biochemical reactions to the SNS can retard or suppress things like loud noises and pain in an emergency. This is simply a sample of the intelligence of our biology. 

Due to the nature and design of the SNS, we see that it is used to protect us. This protection aspect is much more important to understand than we have considered. Every part of us defaults to the modes of the ANS, as the entire organism of being human is built on a model of scarcity, except for our thinking brains, and yet we all behave and dip into scarcity thinking at times when we are – in truth – safe. 

When we engage in physical and psychological stress, symbolic or actual, we use acute survival strategies. These all come with circumstances; most of us have learned how to manipulate stress for our lifestyles. Consider briefly how many of our lives are tied around avoidance and protective behaviors that, for whatever reason, continue to drive the same tone of this SNS or PNS. 

As I stated, PNS is anything but an off-switch. It is just as involved in our survival as the protective side of the SNS, as it requires the SNS for the PNS to operate well. Don’t let the deceleration of our heart rates fool you, as there is a lot of nervous system activity going on when this side of the ANS is engaged. After all, all those protected organs and systems now return online to help preserve and regenerate those who went to work.

_______

The SNS and stress. 

The sympathetic nervous system’s (SNS) primary process stimulates the body’s fight-or-flight response; in our world, that shows up as posturing or submissive behavior. Of course, it can also mean physically engaging in this fight response through work or activity. Still, it is typically accompanied by posturing or submissive behavior, as we have patterns of behavior that follow biochemical activity through our experiences. Since energy sits at the foundation of life, the SNS’s primary job is also to mobilize glucose. I’ll come back to this. 

The SNS is constantly active at a basic level to maintain homeostasis. It is traditionally described as antagonistic to the PNS. It isn’t if it is always on. 

It is essential to note the posturing and submissive behavior with fight or flight. As far as I understand, this was something Lt. Col. Dave Grossman came up with. He used it to understand the psychological costs of being at war and coming home. That said, looking at the many behavioral patterns of posturing and submissiveness, this is a unique opportunity to understand more about how you can tend to lean into more dominance of this part of your ANS. 

 

Quick examples: WE ALL DIVERT INTO VERSIONS OF THESE. However, I am not here to analyze you; that is your job. My suggestion is PAY ATTENTION. 

Posturing: behaviors related to impressing or intimidation (we all have them)

Submissive: behaviors related to shying away or not saying what we want (we all do it at times)

 

When we engage more in this system, we will begin to engage in nervous activity toward more energy mobilization (glucose) and the necessary metabolic shifts that all come with a cascading of energy from ATP, lactate, hormones, neurotransmitters, immune response, proteins, genetics, and plasticity.  

Our interoceptive experience begins with whether we like what we feel or not. Then, what do we do if it’s a threat or if it’s just exciting? This can follow several paths (refer back to posturing submissive behaviors) that ultimately can land with how we like to do things or don’t. We often keep repeating a process, getting the hormones and neurotransmitters of our liking that continue to express genes and layer in our conditioning (plasticity).

Culturally we are running hot, and by the looks of the global consensus, most of what is killing us is living in this SNS dominance. 

Globally, Cardiovascular Disease is the number one killer. We can lump blood pressure issues into that. Then, bring in metabolic disorders; most cancers, obesity, and diabetes are up there too. While nutrition plays a significant role in all of this, consider that the constant ON and demand for ATP with the mobilization of glucose for symbolic issues are pushing our physiology to respond by activating a muscular system that isn’t engaging in the actual fight/flight responses; meaning instead it becomes posturing and submission– acting out. Note: When I use the term ON, I am also writing about emotional intelligence and reactivity or suppression of these emotions and, ultimately, feelings. 

From an acute basic perspective, the SNS does the following:

• Increased HR 
• Increased Blood Pressure
• Increased Respiration
• Increased Attention
• Decreased Fine Motor Skills 
• Decreased CO2 Levels
• Decreased Digestion
• Dilated Pupils

Most of my 30s were spent running in a chronic state of survival. I was convinced this was perfectly normal, until it was not. With the above information and knowledge about disease, what do you believe the outcome of long-term chronic SNS behavior has on us? 

_______

 

The PNS and its role in stress are as essential as the SNS.  

The PNS stimulates resting, feeding, digesting, and reproductive activities when the body can relax. Although these activities typically occur after eating or exercising, they include sexual arousal, salivation, urination, digestion, and defecation. The PNS is a complementary action to the SNS. 

Pay attention to the activities I mentioned, as we can start to understand where we might indicate where our ANS is getting “sticky.” More on this in a minute. 

While many overreaching issues can happen with the PNS, it is essential to note that, in my experience, this is due to needing to understand our SNS engagement. Overreaching is the body’s attempt to keep us down a bit longer. From an HRV perspective, this is leaning more heavily into the PNS. From a feeling standpoint, we are much more lethargic. This does not, however, mean we are shut off and less activity is going on in the body or nervous activity. This means more energy and action are being engaged towards getting the systems, tissue, and organs associated with this side of the ANS the appropriate time to respond and restore themselves. It requires nervous activity. It requires energy.

An overactive PNS is associated with more depressive-like behaviors. However, that does not mean someone is depressed or diagnosed with depression; this outlines that in more depressive behavior, we see a more active PNS. While these behaviors may look like inactivity, the internalization occurring with these behaviors is anything but inactive. Much like the SNS, there can be a propensity to lean into the chemical processes or biochemistry associated with these states. There is a particular flavor we all lean into, and although genetics plays a role in this, it does not always mean something is wrong. Often most of us may want to listen a little bit more intently.

Much of what we see is related to this, and we all fall into this from time to time; lethargy, stress sensitivity, similar to the SNS – avoidance or submissive behavior, or a general lack of motivation. When we fall into these submissive behaviors, we can quickly transcend into staying in them and ultimately struggling to get out. Eventually, we should seek professional help when this is no longer acute or short-term. 

Returning to the activities involved in the PNS; resting, feeding, digesting, and reproduction. One way to understand where you may have an opportunity to learn how or where you lean with SNS dominance is when one or some of these activities struggle to operate well. 

Examples: however, not relegated to these

Struggle to relax, rest, nap, or sleep.

Struggle with appetite and digestive issues (this can and does affect the Enteric Nervous System, another side of the ANS). *of note, make sure you’ve addressed nutrition too. 

Struggle with libido issues or not having a healthy sexual appetite. 

Please pay attention to addictive behaviors (we all have them) towards any one or all of these, as this has become a coping strategy, and more than likely, at the root of this, is our inability to regulate the relationship of our ANS. There can be many versions or variables to this, so take your time and just learn to pay attention. 

Many of us struggle to want to look at the reality of our struggle to regulate. We use alcohol and drugs in the evening as a normal response to unwinding because many people we associate with do the same thing. We eat and crave sugar at night after we eat to fulfill the same void and a NS that has depleted the body of glycogen as we struggle to eat regular meals during the day. There are many ways to understand our behavior, and I’ve looked at several of them. The truth is cutting out the sugar, or the booze might change some things. However, suppose we pay close enough attention to learning to observe our behaviors associated with regulating these states of our ANS. In that case, you will begin to get a blueprint of where some of the lowest-hanging fruit of your growth exists. 

The only growth that comes from removing something without understanding its root is an opportunity for the next vice to take its place. And so the cycle repeats.

The basis of SH//FT Health is built off this entire piece. The framework for everything we are doing at SH//FT – albeit piecemeal at times – is also embedded in this. Should you be interested, we kickoff a new Health program that gets right to the point with all of this on July 19, 2023, and we’d love to see you. Click HERE 

Sources:

• Natalia Bobba-Alves, Robert-Paul Juster, Martin Picard, The energetic cost of allostasis and allostatic load, Psychoneuroendocrinology, Volume 146, 2022, 105951, ISSN 0306-4530, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2022.105951 
• Cristina Rabasa, Suzanne L Dickson, Impact of stress on metabolism and energy balance, Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 9, 2016, Pages 71-77, ISSN 2352-1546, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2016.01.011.
• On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society is a book by Dave Grossman 
• Halson SL, Jeukendrup AE. Does overtraining exist? An analysis of overreaching and overtraining research. Sports Med. 2004;34(14):967-81. doi: 10.2165/00007256-200434140-00003. PMID: 15571428 

 

Issue #27

We had a girl in our class growing up who would lie all the time. Ridiculous stories that she seemed to believe. “I can’t run today, coach, my dad ran over my knee with the lawn mower”. “I didn’t finish my homework because my dog almost died this morning”. 

I ran into her in our twenties. She had a wild look with hair past her bum and said she had been living in the jungles of Mexico dealing with some kind of psychotic breakdown. While that made perfect sense I couldn’t fully believe her. The power of her word had eroded long ago for me.

The truth is, we all lie. 

We start when we are very young children. It’s an inherent protection quality that actually shows intelligence. We are also taught how to lie from parents who leave the house arguing and tell everyone at the party “We’re GREAT thank you how are YOU?”. Parents tell us they like our drawings when we know they’re crappy, and say the Easter Bunny hides eggs and poops jelly beans.

Meanwhile we are told lying is bad. Is it? In the book “the Secret Power of Yoga” Nischala Joy Devi writes about a yogic principle called “Satya” which can be interpreted two ways; “non-lying” or in her more approachable terms “benevolent truth”. She explores how truth is never black and white. In her example, if a friend is about to walk down the aisle and appears glowing before you in a wedding dress you find distasteful to ask “How do I look?”, what do you say? There are many truths in that moment you can choose to focus on. The most benevolent one is probably “You look so happy and radiant!” even though another truth is “Wow, that dress looks terrible”. Are you lying if you don’t tell her what you think of her dress? What would telling that truth do for her or for your relationships? There is no commandment or ‘right’ answer here because the truth has many facets. The power of the human being to interpret and create meaning is at the heart of the story we choose to ‘tell’. 

Everything that comes out of our mouths is a story that reveals more about ourselves than any single “truth” out there. If the story you are telling is not true for you, you know it instantly in your own nervous system. The nature of YOUR truth and how that comes out of YOUR mouth affects how you relate to yourself and how people relate to you. Can people trust you? Can you trust yourself?

According to authors of a research paper called “Developmental profiles of children’s spontaneous lie-telling behavior” from January – March 2017, “prosocial lies” protect a relationship. These start when we are young. We learn that words can hurt feelings and start choosing half truths that make others and ourselves feel better. “I like your dress.” We later develop working memory and learn deceit to protect ourselves from pain.

“Antisocial lies” emerge to protect the self in denial of something true that is scary. These truths are not as negotiable. These lies can be very harmful. Think: cheating on a test or cheating on a lover. Not telling the truth in these instances erodes relationships first to the self, then to others. These lies are designed out of fear. The truth feels terrifying. Your nervous system wants to fight or flee. Being honest would create pain but leave you with lessons and integrity. Following the fear by telling the lie saves you temporarily but costs dearly over time.

There is an underlying instinct in all of us encoded in our nervous systems. We just KNOW when someone is a cheat in these more selfish, fearful lies. We can feel that something is ‘off’. If you have tried to keep an antisocial lie you learn you have to keep on creating more lies to protect the original one. It’s a zero sum game that usually ends with crumpled relationships and a long road to regain trust in the self and with others. 

We have an innate social fear of shame that can perpetuate antisocial lies. Yet the shame of hiding the truth is like a pebble wearing down a great dam over time. When that water breaks, the shame can drown you like a flood. Facing the shame comes either way; through a quick burst of initial honesty or a long drawn out game of internal erosion. Repairing the damage can be beautiful. I know this from growing up around substance abuse recovery communities where owning past deceit becomes a potent form of self-realization and bonding. Rarely is someone protected from the urge to hide from themselves and a truth that can hurt. Most of us learn the hard way. 

Regulating the nervous system is a key skill in learning how to read beyond fearful stories to reinforce alliance with reality (truth) and personal integrity. When you practice reading and regulating fear in the nervous system to be comfortable with reality you can rest in a truth with not only courage but ease. You know the cost of hiding.

In lies there is a human quality that is a super power; the ability to choose narratives and create worlds. Like any Tony Stark technology in a Marvel Comic these powers can be used for good or evil. Only the user can choose what world they create through the power of aligning with courage and benevolence or fear and selfishness. Reality finds us either way.

The ‘truth’ lies in your own nervous system. Think about the irony of that phrase!

Seeking Benevolence,

Emily H.

Issue #26

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Proverb

 

Every part of us is constantly striving for homeostasis or balance. Stress is the response of an organism to factors that actually or symbolically endanger its homeostatic integrity. When we do not get what we believe we need, the dynamic moves from an actual threat to a symbolic (felt) one, and we are out of balance. The twist is that we can experience a real danger that can be felt and curate actual physiological responses that we symbolically generate or have generated for years, decades, and even lifetimes that satisfy our feelings. 

From the earliest times in our lives, we seek many things centered around affection, safety, stimulation, food, rest, etc., to maintain our homeostatic integrity. This search can and does follow most of us through life by attaching ourselves to certain forms of affection, ways of feeling safe and stimulated, eating particular foods or not, developing specific sleeping patterns, etc. 

I remember vividly feeling like I discovered what I wanted to do 25 years ago. I wanted to help others through physical performance. But, I didn’t understand that much of the help I was offering was a little misguided. 

We often jump into situations trying to save the world without uncovering our feelings of what we desire, value, and believe we need, and a shadowy inadequacy that lurks in the background, making us feel better by ignoring all this. In contrast, we go out of our way to show others the same path. Just chipping away at all the best intentions and attempting to show everyone how much happier we are by serving others. In a chameleon-like way, we jump from one role to the next without ever taking the time to understand what is occurring inside us and how insidious the fear might be. 

Alan Watts described what he did when he heard people talking about love and being goody-goodies by buying a gun and barricading his door. Knowing these people were full of shit and that none of us is doing this well all the time. 

Often we do enough surface-level work to recognize this darkness and talk about our self-diagnosed identity as though we have a handle. This can be incredibly frustrating for professionals, as many of us jump to this self-diagnosis and believe we’ve solved our issues. Or, we diagnose those around us and live under the guise of simple fixes and explanations of, “If you/I just stop doing this, your/my life would change for the better.” And from the outside, it does. The good news is there is nothing wrong with you or me. However, there may be a deeper side to this that most of us are unwilling to go into—understandable. Pain works like that. 

Fortune, fame, and power come with one standard principle; responsibility. Yet, all too often, we avoid this or protect ourselves from this truth (principle) like the plague. So, why am I using the word truth, and what do money, popularity, and power have to do with this?

It can feel terrific to make more money, and you deserve it. It can feel terrific to make more friends, and you deserve them. But it can also feel terrific to feel like we influence people and things; in many cases, that’s the trick. While helping the world see that this new way of life will make you happy, wealthy, or famous, we’ve yet to learn of the truth inside and how we just showed these folks a magic trick without explaining the truth (principle) about magic. Replacing one behavior with another is shape-shifting without growth. I’m smiling while I am dying inside. This entire charade creates a very effective response in hormones, neurotransmitters, and ultimately down to proteins and genetic transcriptions, satisfying sensitivities and encoding old behavior patterns with the same old feelings that got us into this mess in the first place. It’s a cycle. So, yeah, there’s that. 

Just work your ass off and hustle; it’ll all work out as the influencers decree!

Excitement is a potent drug that can be far more powerful than the drugs currently on the market. 

The most common thing I see in my work is the one I encountered with myself—the pursuit of feeling better by helping others. Sorry, the pursuit of feeling better by helping others, by not looking at why I was trying to feel better.

There is real love in sacrifice for the greater good and in caring for others, and I am not implying we should not be doing that. However, while we have good in our hearts, many of us hide our insecurities and do not deal with what is killing us by just going out of our way to help others do the same We also aren’t addressing many of the issues in relationships and work that had we have been open to this paradigm there is a damn good chance we’d be making much healthier decisions. Unfortunately, this is the mask we wear through Goodwill, and we cover it up by sticking a hand out to help while our insides crumble or we deny the pain altogether.  

One of the darkest realities of this problem is that this do-good but hide-my-pain behavior passes on to the next generation of people in pain. So often passed to our children; however, it has no limits. We all are susceptible. It’s like real-life cooties. These behaviors usually show up in working more, making more, gaining or being around more friends (now followers), or trying to control more. Then, the chameleon takes on the identity of the new role with a smile on his face getting the chemical fill that changes the feeling of fear and hollowness. 

At the foundation of all addiction – not just the guy under the bridge drinking a bottle or snorting lines in the bathroom, the one that has each of us grabbing for phones and likes – is an attempt to regulate a sensation of discomfort that transcends our nervous systems and biochemistry. We can fill voids at the speed of physiological reaction with the excitement of money, people, and false control, and the more we get, the harder it can get to want to grow any further.

Fortune, fame, and power were and have always been there! They are exposed when we are comfortable inside our skin. Financial freedom has nothing to do with how much we make, and that doesn’t mean we can’t make millions. Likewise, fame has nothing to do with how many people know who I am; it is more about knowing myself and who I really want to know. And power is and has always been about what I really have control over because when we lose that, we will try and control the things we never had control over or pretend someone else or something has the power to make us happy. 

Rupert Spira said it beautifully in a talk on our natural state being happiness. I’m paraphrasing, “Nothing makes you happy. If you believe something makes you happy, you have just guaranteed that thing will make you miserable.” 

Be careful of excitement, my friends, but please don’t take that to mean not to experience exciting things. Unfortunately, the road to hell is usually paved with good intentions reinforcing a symbolic pain as old as we are. 

Issue #25

An eddy in a river is where water flows back upstream to fill in behind an obstacle like a rock or bend in the river. Eddy’s are often calm. This eddy was different. The water was calm but my nervous system was flooded with rapids of stress hormones. 

The other river guide was sitting casually on the side of his raft. Feet propped up on the cooler doling out snacks and conversations with his guests. I was about to poo my pants trying not to let the 12 year old kid, mom, and other guests on my raft sense how nervous I was. Annoyed at their casual small talk I had other things on my mind. The rapid just below our eddy was a class IV called False Flush. It contained a ‘must make move’ followed by an absolutely must make eddy for a mandatory portage around the next rapid. Royal Flush is a class VI rapid that is, by definition, ‘unrunnable’. Just move the “I” to the other side of the “V” and you have twisted guts.

How was this other guide so chill? 

This wasn’t just about not feeling the urge to shit myself. This was about making sure the paying customers, as well as myself, didn’t die. 

The problem was pretty simple. Unregulated nervous energy spoils performance. To function well through risk (running whitewater or giving a presentation in public) we need to be focused and energized but not overly anxious. Anxiety, however, usually produces more of itself.

In this situation, if I’m anxious I make people on my boat anxious. When people are nervous they don’t paddle well. Swims, flips, and a potential miss of the eddy to portage around the unrunnable Royal Flush all become more likely. A runaway train starts. Anxiety creates anxiety. Been there?

So I thought more about the ucpoming rapid. Enter left avoid the large hole then move right and avoid being pushed on the rock that flips boats on river left. Line up to hit the waves in a big drop, then immediately start heading right to catch a small eddy above Royal Flush. Flip, swim without catching people, or miss that eddy and you run the unrunnable.

I had to get it together. But the unregulated nervous energy infected my thoughts. Instead of planning I was worrying. What if someone swims? Which spot should the young girl sit in so I can keep an eye on her? What if the mom stops paddling to keep looking back at her daughter? What if we miss the eddy above Royal Flush? Why can’t I stop my hands from shaking?

How is this other guide SO CHILL? 

What is his secret?

Then I realized it. 

He’s in the eddy. 

I was downstream in my mind playing out mus- make moves and terrifying scenarios. 

And he was in the eddy. 

And so was I, if I would only notice. We were not, in fact, downstream. 

Somehow this moment grabbed me in my physiology. Literally, I realized myself in present time. My guts started to mellow out. I took a few breaths and noticed the calm water where we were parked. The buzz of negative ions from the rapids behind and below us. The perfect breeze easing the bright hot sun to an ideal temperature. The smell of sunscreen. The way my body was positioned in real time. I started engaging with ease with everyone in my boat. In fact being centered and present became the very secret power that would keep me resourced for whatever came next. There was suddenly no negative stress in that eddy.

This is not a small thing.

Once I got present, I realized I didn’t know and couldn’t plan for exactly what was going to happen in False Flush. It’s a wild river at high water with commercial guests. I knew only that I was in choice to run it. I had enough experience to guide it so if things went south that was part of running rivers. We had a system in place to help make sure everyone made the lower eddy. Throw bags, safety kayakers. This wasn’t Major John Wesley Powell’s raw expedition into the unknown. This was a well-oiled commercial operation. 

I was in choice. It was a clear choice. Decide to be present and enjoy each part of the river from eddy, to pulling into the current, to running features and beyond, or be downstream spending my energy worrying, depleting resources, and infecting the group with jitters.

We all spend way too much time thinking about what’s ‘downstream’. When you’re flipped about the future, you make it more likely to flip IN the future. It’s one thing to assess an upcoming situation; to apply logic, reasoning, and knowledge to be prepared. It’s another to do that with negative anxiety. Your state during preparation determines a lot about how you will perform. You can assess with anxiety and worry, or you can assess with presence. 

How many times have you been awake in the middle of the night worrying about the future? Meanwhile you’re just in a safe warm bed. Whatever you’re facing when you face it you’ll face it and learn. Usually anxiety goes down when we finally engage with the risk. The trick is not taking the risk a thousand times in your mind before you actually get there.

Worrying is ineffective on so many levels. In the simplest terms, it’s missing the reality of the moment to pay interest against your own nervous system and performance. 

I’m not immune to worry. But since that experience on the Kern River so many years ago when I find myself fixating on a future problem/ ‘rapid’, I often remember that eddy. This helps me practice presence, preparation, and a release from the expense of worry.

Calm waters are nice but they are much sweeter when a chosen adventure awaits downstream. Lean into the excitement of that. It shows you that you care. Use the stress to train presence. Notice the environment around you, regulate the one inside of you. We are all capable of so much more when we drop the future worry and outcome-fondling to kick our feet up in the eddy of presence.

Bottoms Down,

Emily Hightower

Issue #24

“We are more interested in measuring the footprint than actually seeing the dinosaur.” 

– Anonymous 

I got this quote from a friend about a series of research papers and articles we’ve gone through recently. However, it applies to more than science, medicine, or whatever industry you participate in. It applies to life in so many aspects, the conveniences and the answers we think we need or have become accustomed to. 

So instead of a rambling of thoughts this week, I thought I’d leave this with you to think about until next time.