Industry Magazine Get JACK'D Magazine Spring 2017 | Page 14

STRESS WITH DR. HEIDI HANNA Your Brain On Stress THE HUMAN EPIDEMIC JUST AS your mind finally exhausts its relentless efforts to mentally prepare you for the day ahead, you are jolted awake by an alarm clock with a groggy awareness: there is not enough time in the day to get it all done. This seemingly simple thought shifts your brain-body chemistry into a state of survival, energizing only the most critical elements of your operating system. Yet, when moments become available for us to rest and recharge, we find ourselves restlessly stirring, reaching out for something to “kill time” even though we SPRING 2017 complain there is never enough of it to begin with. Our deep-seated longing for information, connection and validation makes technology an open source for our drug of choice: constant stimulation that provides a temporary fix to override the exhaustion we fear will take us down for good. “If I do stop, what if I can’t start back up again?” Welcome To The Human Energy Crisis—The Epidemic Of Our Time We’re running on empty, and the problem is not that we don’t know what to do. It’s that we don’t have the energy to put any simple practices into place. We know we should eat better. We know we should move our bodies more regularly. We know we should get more sleep, take more breaks and spend more time investing in meaningful relationships. But what I’ve learned in over a decade of consulting with organizations about health and performance initiatives is that common sense is certainly not common practice. The fact is there is not enough time in the day to complete every task that 14