This is part one of our four-part series of stories exploring stress, the nuances that come with the psychological and physiological response and its relationship with running. Start running today with our beginners guide.
Too much stress can feel exhausting. Not only does it leave you mentally drained, but it can also physically tax your body. This is why many of us turn to running as a way to cope with day-to-day stressors. But, ironically enough, running itself is also a stressor – which just proves that not all stress is harmful and a little bit can actually help your health and performance.
'Sometimes [stress] gets a bad rep, like if you have a presentation at work, are dealing with traffic, or have an interpersonal conflict,' says Sarah Lyle, associate professor of psychology and director of the health and wellbeing lab at Eckerd College in Florida. 'Those things can be bad, but a little bit of stress can actually be good.'
This idea is supported by the Yerkes-Dodson Law, which states that a certain level of stress is needed for us to reach our optimal performance. For example, in the build up to race day, you'll need to experience some stress in the body so it can make adaptations and help you to work at your best. It's just a case of getting the balance right – as Lyle explains, too much stress can bring you down.
The better you can understand stress and how it affects your body, the better you can manage it as a runner. Here, we break down what stress is, explain the relationship between physical and mental stress and pinpoint ways you can keep your stress levels in check.
My running has literally kept me sane?
Best wireless headphones National Institute of Health (NIH), any physical or psychological stimuli that disrupts your baseline state of stability results in a stress response. Stress can stem from any event, activity or thought – including exercise, financial hardship, relationship issues and work deadlines – and can lead to feelings of emotional or physical tension.
Although stress may show up in our lives in different ways, there are two types of stress: acute and chronic.
Acute stress
Acute stress is short lived and might be triggered when you’re running late for work, when a dog barks at you unexpectedly, or even when you ways to boost your immune system with food.
'Acute stress is a single exposure to stress that typically remits quickly and a person can typically meet the demands quickly and adjust,' says Matthew Stults-Kolehmainen, Cortisol and exercise: What you need to know.
Chronic stress
Chronic stress, on the other hand, is long-term unremitting exposure to stress that has more harmful consequences. For example, it may lead to We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article or increased inflammation, Is it wise to run with a cold immune system and make you more susceptible to colds, says Stults-Kolehmainen. It could also lead to mental health challenges.
Any type of stress that persists for a long period of time, like moving house, caring for a newborn baby, or relationship problems, could fall into the chronic category.
How does your body regulate stress?
Regardless of the stressor, your body processes it in the same way. 'The body only has one stress response for all types of stressors and that’s true for the physical stresses of exercise as well as psychological stressors,' says Jennifer Heisz, associate professor and director of the NeuroFitLab at McMaster University and author of Move the Body, Heal the Mind.
This is why you experience similar symptoms with both physical and mental stress. For example, just as you would when you exercise, you'd also experience an Health & Injuries, heavy breathing and sweating The best GPS running watches to track your miles.
The amygdala, which is located in the brain, sets off your stress response, triggering various organ systems to help you prepare for a threat. Heisz says it somewhat acts as a warning-detection centre for your body, constantly scanning the environment until a potential threat is detected. When this threat is found, the amygdala activates the part of your brain called the hypothalamus, which then releases the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol.
'The adrenaline helps to activate the body – increase heart rate, increase breathing rate – and cortisol helps to liberate stored energy from the liver and fat tissue,' explains Heisz. 'So the stress response was really designed to help us get away from danger.'
How does your body regulate stress Resting heart rate: All a runner needs to know, also known as your 'fight or flight' response. Once this is triggered, you might start to experience some of the typical symptoms of stress mentioned by Heisz, like sweating and muscle tension, among other side effects. Once the stressor is over, Heisz notes, your paraResting heart rate: All a runner needs to know – the 'rest and digest' response – takes over and you start to feel a sense of calm or reprieve.
Again, this is how the body reacts to all different types of stress in our lives, no matter how big or small the threat may be. So, this even applies to circumstances where there is generally no threat at all, like when you exercise.
How does stress affect exercise – and vice versa?
'Acutely, stress can energise you – that’s the whole point of the fight or flight response,' says Stults-Kolehmainen. However, when you experience chronic stress, he continues, it can sometimes be debilitating to the point where you don’t want to do anything. As such, your ability to manage stress will affect your overall energy levels.
One way to manage stress? You've guessed it, and we've already mentioned it: exercise. Lots of research demonstrates that any form of exercise, including running, can help to keep your stress levels at bay – and it doesn’t take much for you to see the benefits. A small study published in Scientific Reports suggests that just 10 minutes of moderate-intensity running can benefit cognition and pleasure levels, which can aid the brain in regulating stress.
However, there are occasions when exercise actually builds rather than eases unwanted tension. For example, if you’re doing a new or complicated workout, mental stress can make it harder to concentrate, says Stults-Kolehmaimen. This is why it’s beneficial to stick with workouts you know best at times when you’re already feeling overwhelmed, or dealing with many other stressful situations in your life.
Best wireless headphones. Research suggests that chronic stress can impact your overall motivation to move as well as your rate of perceived exertion (RPE), which is how hard you feel you’re working during exercise.
increased heart rate increased heart rate suggests that high levels of mental fatigue, which can stem from stress, can negatively affect your RPE. To reach this conclusion, the two-part study examined the effects of mentally exhausting tasks on 16 men and women before both weightlifting and aerobic exercise. Researchers found that the workouts felt harder when the participants performed them after the demanding tasks, compared to when they didn’t have a mentally challenging task beforehand.
Chronic stress can also hinder your ability to recover. A study co-authored by Stults-Kolehmaimen and published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research examined how 210 undergraduate students responded to the effects of acute and chronic stress four days after a strenuous bout of resistance exercise. Those who reported higher stress levels took days longer to recover after the workout than to those with lower stress levels. The study concluded that stress can negatively affect muscle recovery, as well as factors like perceived energy, fatigue and soreness post-workout.
'Stress definitely impacts our perceptions,' says Stults-Kolehmaimen. It can lower your pain tolerance, for example, and make you feel like you’re exerting more energy, even if you’re doing something that doesn’t typically require that much effort. This may mean that you’re unable to work out at the same level you once could because your energy systems are drained, he explains.
Some research also links chronic stress to chronic inflammation, making rest and recovery even more important to runners who face high stress levels. According to Lyle, too much inflammation has been linked to at McMaster University and author of like cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders and even musculoskeletal problems. That’s why you need to make sure you have enough rest after your workouts and pay attention to your mental stress levels before jumping into a bout of exercise – especially intense physical activity.
A study has also suggested that increased stress levels can lead you to doing more exercise, which can lead to injury if you don’t give your body enough downtime to deal with both the stress of your exercise plan and your mental fatigue. So, if you're a runner who uses workouts as a means of coping with stress, this is something to watch out for.
ways for beginners to stay motivated?
There are various ways you can monitor your stress levels on a day-to-day basis.
Start running today with our beginners guide fitness trackers, you can first identify your stress levels by monitoring changes in How to cope if youre suffering from depression (HRV), which is a measurement of the variations of time between each heart beat. Over time, this metric can be used to help you better understand not just your stress levels but also your training readiness and overall health. Most experts would agree that HRV signifies how well your paraResting heart rate: All a runner needs to know responds to stressors – that rest and digest state mentioned earlier.
'Oftentimes, when you experience chronic stress, your paraResting heart rate: All a runner needs to know never quite takes over,' says Lyle, indicating that chronic stress means your body never truly reaches a state of calm. The general concept is that if you have a higher HRV, your body is better at managing stress, whereas a lower one can indicate the opposite.
Your Surprising symptoms of stress in runners (RHR), which is how many times your heart beats per minute when you’re relaxed, may also reveal your stress levels. It typically ranges from 60 to 100 beats per minute in adults, although it may be lower in athletes. If your RHR is abnormally high for you, it could signal a How does stress affect exercise and vice versa.
This is why monitoring your HRV and RHR can be a good way to track your stress levels. Avoid comparing your metrics with those of other people, though, and focus on the changes in your own readings over time. If you notice a decline in your HRV and a higher RHR, you’re not sleeping well and you’re skipping workouts, then something could be wrong, says Stults-Kolehmaimen. In situations like this, it's worth evaluating your lifestyle and seeing if there are areas you can change or outlets you can use for stress relief.
Journaling is another way to monitor your stress levels. Lyle suggests using an app or writing down your stress symptoms, like headaches and digestive issues, to keep track of your tension and to make connections between things that happen on days when stress spikes. This can help you to recognise and then address those stressful factors and bring your body back to baseline.
Monique LeBrun joined the editorial staff in October 2021 as the associate health and fitness editor. She has a master’s degree in journalism and has previously worked for ABC news and Scholastic. She is an avid runner who loves spending time outside.
