...There are certain types of stress
that are acutely good for us and can benefit
our health, such as exercise. We sometimes
hear that stress is “the spice of life” and
a life free of stress would be filled with
boredom and hardly worth living...
We have, as a species, risen to the top of the food chain
because of our superior predatory instincts and intelligence,
but we are sensitive to our environment just the same. Our
environment is filled with life threatening microbes, and
the resurgence of diseases, which were once thought to have
been eradicated. This, with the combination of the natural
ageing process and the wearing down of our physical systems,
affects all of our performance. Our environment today has
contributed to the piling-on of stressors, which has placed an
unnatural strain on our systems, a strain we are not designed
to handle.
I have chosen to focus on why understanding
elevated cortisol levels and learning how to better regulate
it increases performance and well-being. Some of the many
performance factors that can be affected by cortisol include:
body composition, anaerobic and aerobic respiratory
exchange, other hormone activity, nutrition, dynamic
resistance, caloric intake, and glycemic index ect.
the stressor. This is called adaptation. If the stage of resistance is
prolonged, or the response is excessive, hyperadaptosis can occur
(the second stage). This is why it is important to increase one’s
ability to cope with stress. The (third stage) of stress is exhaustion,
involving a depletion of energy reserves and leading to fatigue, or
other symptoms or diseases.
Executive function, a term to describe brain processes
responsible for planning, cognitive flexibility, abstract thinking,
rule acquisition, initiating appropriate actions, inhibiting
inappropriate actions and selecting relevant sensory information,
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