Do Negative Emotions Inhibit Your Muscle Growth?

Training
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Been making good progress the past few months with muscle growth. Recently I’ve seen less progress – maybe even some muscle loss – and I’m wondering if it’s due to negative feelings.

Had a major rift with somebody I thought was a friend. It ended quite badly, and unfortunately I still have to encounter this person from time to time. I know I need to grow a pair, say “Fuck Him,” and move on …

My anger is a good motivator INSIDE the gym – I actually use that rage to blast through my workouts. Outside the gym, though, I have lots of tension (not just from the falling-out-with-friend incident, but also work, family, etc.). Hell, the state of the world has everybody on edge these days. Of course this disrupts sleep, which is crucial to muscle growth anyway.

Anybody seen a stagnation in your training when you’re in a bad place, emotionally? And when you’re in a GOOD place – which I’m trying my damndest to get to – do you see better progress, muscle-wise?

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Only if it impacts your training, sleep, and/or appetite. They are not directly keeping you from putting on muscle.

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It’s a clinically proven scientific fact that Thinking Positive gives you gains like steroids. And it helps you sleep. You physically feel less pain and recover faster after workouts.

And thinking your gains suck creates a self fulfilling prophecy of sucking. You can even give yourself cancer just by thinking negative thoughts.

Check out this guy’s positive mindset.

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Very helpful. Love the “Shrink Stress, Grow Huge” section.

Thank you.

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@FlatsFarmer that was pretty cool!

OP, in simple terms: stress is stress. You’re not going to put on a ton of muscle when you’re constantly pumping out a ton of cortisol (a hormone literally secreted in response to stress). It sounds like you’re having a tough time turning it “off,” so you have your acute stressor gym session (a necessary stimulus so you have something to which to adapt), but then you can’t get into recover mode because you’re staying stressed over the relationship. Obviously “don’t worry about it” is easier said than done, but, yes, it is inhibiting your maximum potential.

On the flip side, real life has stress. I think it’s silly when we try to over-optimize. Like I can’t just leave that statement there and imply “if you experience stress in life, you can’t grow muscle;” that would mean nobody in the real world should ever train. So I think it best to have a couple strategies:

  1. Be able to recognize stressors. Sometimes there’s going to be stressful periods and it is what it is. New baby, busy period, whatever. Know when those are coming, so you can pivot your training appropriately. Kind of like you wouldn’t triple your training volume when you’re going into a deep caloric deficit, this is the time to train that 20% that gives you the 80%. So maybe 2-3 days a week of a couple compound lifts, if that’s what feels good to you, or something low stress like frequent calisthenics and walks.

  2. Address the stressors you can. This is akin to the old Irish wisdom prayer: let’s change the things we can. In our example above, we’d say just cut that dude out of your life but let’s take a more constant one: finances. Let’s say money is stressing you out and we’re worried about paying bills and retiring one day. That’s stressful, can keep you up at night, and you can’t solve it in a day: so what to do? Your brain will recognize taking action, so you can drive a couple hours of Uber, defer a little money to a retirement plan, etc. Even if it doesn’t feel like you’re making a tangible difference in the short-term, we can start to get out of our cortisol cascade by taking relevant steps.

  3. Have some coping mechanisms. Find things you enjoy to spend your time on. This goes such a long way it’s impossible to overstate. We’ve long had data demonstrating moderate drinking is healthier than abstinence, although there’s really no amount of alcohol that’s improving your physiologic health (even the resveratol in a glass of red wine is woefully underdosed, which is why we supplement that to see benefits). More recent thought is it’s because of the things people are doing when they drink that glass of wine: enjoying time with people they love, reading a good book, watching the sunset, etc. Petting a dog reduces blood pressure vs sitting still, which doesn’t make any mechanical sense, but demonstrates our emotions can impact our health markers acutely. The moral of this point is stress is something of a balance sheet and, even when it’s present, you can actively pursue enjoyable activities to balance yourself out (cortisol isn’t a light switch that’s off or on, it’s more of a spigot that can reduce or increase flow).

Sorry I got rolling on a novel there; maybe it was cathartic for me and you got to be my recovery activity (don’t make it weird)!

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This is so great. I really appreciate your taking time to write this.

Yes – my cortisol levels are often through the roof. (Blood tests show my cortisol is “high side of normal,” but I know it’s a lot higher than that.). It’s so frustrating to pound out so many efficient reps at the gym, but then not get proper muscle recovery because my body is in fight-or-flight mode much of the time.

Love your coping mechanisms. Going to the gym is one of my top ones. It’s no exaggeration that I’d be even more stressed without that to look forward to. I’ve also been reading more books, cutting alcohol back to almost nothing (I say “almost” because an occasional glass of wine or two seems to be OK), and our two dogs get me in a better place too. And funny enough, I put some money into my retirement plan just a few days ago.

“Just cut that dude out of your life” – yeah. Done that. And even though I still have to see him (he works at a restaurant that we’re not going to stop going to), after reading your comments I feel much better equipped to deal with the stress of him now. (Of course there never was any actual “stress” there – was all in my head, I got worked up and shouldn’t have. No other person is worth getting inside your head like that.)

If what you wrote is cathartic for you – that’s awesome! It certainly helped me.

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Glad to hear it! Good luck!

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Yes, negative emotions can keep you from putting on muscle, but probably not the way you think.

Negative thinking–I don’t have the genetics, I can’t spend hours a day ever day working out, I don’t have the support, etc.–will make it easier to find reasons to miss a workout, skip the hard stuff, have an excuse to frequently join the afterwork gang for beer and junk food, and plenty other bad actions. I think the saying was credited to Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can’t or you can, you’re right!”

In your specific case, your dislike of that person may be fueling you to hit the weights harder. I recall in my first year of lifting I often picturing the face of a guy who bullied me when I wanted to skip a set or a rep, and that drove me on. In your case, drawing your attention and distracting from your real goals may be a side effect, along with how negative attitudes in one area of your thoughts can spill over into others. It sounds, though, like the real situation is that you hit a plateau like everyone does.

And to close the loop on my own bully story, it was across 8th and 9th grade, and over that time I had gained a lot of strength (from the lifting), 45 pounds (not only from the lifting, but from being 14/15), and six inches of height (not from the lifting!). The bully and two of his friends were picking on “the slow kid,” and something in me snapped and released all the anger I’d swallowed from getting bullied from being weak and alone. Let’s just say that the bully and his toadies left when they saw that I wasn’t going to back down.

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I think it’s not a big deal as long as it doesn’t start affecting sleep and cortisol levels. Also, there’s definitely something to be said for thinking positive–“believe in yourself” can come across to some as being a bit too full of yourself or reliant on your own works and effort, which can cross into that territory if not kept in a healthy balance. However, thinking like a winner is definitely beneficial. Also, not thinking poorly on yourself and your own progress is good too–otherwise we get to this:

^this is very true. When I’m too hard on myself (in the form of mentally beating myself up, not in the form of healthily pushing myself to improve), my overall mood and progress suffers. Since I’ve managed to escape that self-fulfilling prophecy more and more in the past couple years, I’ve seen a lot more stability mentally and emotionally as far as it relates to my progress and especially my perception of my progress. So yes, don’t let it dominate to the point of affecting sleep and cortisol and also don’t stay in the self-fulfilling prophecy of being too negative with yourself.

All that aside and being taken into account, here’s a few more things that spring to mind reading this thread:

Plateaus and slower periods come and go, but for me personally I don’t think I’ve ever been able to tie them to my mood, whether I’m in a good or bad place. When I’m in a good place I’m feeling great, life is peachy and I’m excited to make gains and go train. Some good PRs have been set while I’ve been on top of the world. I have noticed that I tend to struggle a bit more with motivation to go train regularly but overall I will see steady progress over the long term when I’m happy, which is better for long-term progression and growth. Hence, I try to stay happy (and it beats being down all the time lol).

But overall I would say that some of the most striking and prolific periods of my physical progress have been when I’ve been in some very tough places. In the past few years I’ve noticed that the times where I’ve been in some very low places have been the times where I’ve set many PRs and have poured so much into my gym time. The negative emotions have a way of adding an intensity to my training that is unmatched by anything else, and it’s definitely a real thing. In each of these instances as I learn to deal with negative things and as it becomes better in my personal life over time I will have to watch that I don’t get complacent and unmotivated with my training as I get to a better place. Anxiety, feeling down, etc.–when I’m in tough places with things or just with life, I pour a lot into my gym time in terms of intensity.

In addition, for people with psychologically demanding jobs, training is a good way to help balance out the high of being at work with the crash and lows of being at home. In that sense, the negative emotions are also a good reason for continuing to train.

In summary yes, I do see good, steady progress when I’m happy. But I also see some fantastic progress when I’m down too. In that case, I wouldn’t say that negative emotions alone inhibit growth–if they interfere with sleep and cortisol, they probably will after a while to be fair. But if not, I see them as a catalyst that can work well at times to help mental health and drive progress. Obviously, it’s not worth it to always be sad/negative all the time (and there is the steady long term progress to achieve as well). But having a positive viewpoint even on negative emotions helps frame them in a helpful way to hopefully continue to seek progress no matter what.