First post, so bare with me please. A bit of background - I am still not training as much as I want to simply due to being in and out of medical treatments every few months (which take me out for a few weeks each time) for a while but it should be ending soon enough. However, I do try to keep a certain minimum even during this time.
I eat well, I hydrate well, I keep to an overall healthy lifestyle. I have a Whoop band to help me better manage my day to day habits and their impact on my body.
As to the help that I need. I have found that whenever I do any type of training, no matter how minimal, my body’s stress level stay elevated all day after. So even if I do resistance bands for 10-15 minutes, my body stays stressed all day. I know this is related to the training as on days I do nothing, my stress levels are low.
I really need help finding the solution to this. Thanks.
Edit:
42 years old, not lean but not fat - weight/ height ratio seems off as I am heavy for my height but it’s because I’m very stocky (very wide for my height).
There are no training goals right now since I am just doing the minimum so I can maintain a base level of health until I am done with medical treatments.
The training ranges from resistance bands exercises to some weight training and cardio.
My food intake is veggies, protein and starchy veggies for my carbs most of the time. Once in a while (about once a week) I’ll go for some pasta, pizza, etc.
I’ve added the info in the post since I assume more people will ask.
About the stress levels, whoop reads stress levels as a combination of HR/ HRV in that moment.
My resting heart rate is between 53-58 and my HRV is between 83-93 so overall I’ve got a pretty good heart. But something happens when I exercise and it keeps it out of whack all day.
Training is a stress to the body, so it’s not inherently bad that your biological markers are somewhat disrupted. Is it something you need to specifically avoid?
I used to suffer from anxiety but I’d gotten used to it. I do feel the difference which is why I’d started with whoop to see if there was something physical or “just” in my mind.
The treatment is a set of surgeries to try to fix something related to my blood vessels (hence why I keep an eye on everything related like a hawk) but from a discussion with the doctor, that would not be a good enough reason (except when I’m in recovery from surgery) for such a change.
Anxiety is, mostly, due to an over-excitation of your nervous system. Basically, your neurons fire too fast and you feel like you are losing control. In large part, this is due to excessive adrenaline levels. The 3 main neurotransmitters that “speed up your brain” are adrenaline, dopamine and glutamate. People with anxiety issues typically have a high background level of glutamate (making them more emotional, being hard on themselves, easily having mood swings, social anxiety, etc.) and are highly responsive to adrenaline.
Under stressful situations (and exercise is a stressor) cortisol is released. And one of the effects of cortisol is increasing the conversion of noradrenaline into adrenaline in the brain. Essentially, cortisol increases adrenaline.
Whoop uses HRV (heart rate) to estimate stress levels. This does have some limitations in that just because your heart rate is elevated, it doesn’t mean that your body is under negative stress. Exercise WILL elevate heart rate due to the release of cortisol/adrenaline. And, in some people this elevation can stay for longer. This is mostly dependent on two things: a) the type of COMT enzyme and b) self-reaction to the information.
4, Type of COMT enzyme: The COMT (catechol-o-methyltransferase) is the enzyme that breaks down catecholamines (including adrenaline). Some people have fast COMT (they break down adrenaline easily and rapidly) and others have the low variant (it takes more time to break down adrenaline). If you have a slow COMT enzyme, your heart rate (and other signs of high adrenaline like a racing mind, increase in muscle tone/tightness, impatience, etc.) will stay elevated for longer once the stressor (in this case, exercise session) is gone. This can give an HRV reading of being overly stressed, even if it’s not the case.
Self-reaction to the information: That’s something I noticed from all these tech devices giving us clues (that’s all they are) about your physiological state: it affects your own perception of how you feel. A typical example is waking up feeling awesome, recovered, strong, etc. But the WHOOP (or other similar devices) tells you otherwise and all of a sudden you start to subconsciously look for confirmation that you are not properly recovered and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That wouldn’t an issue if those devices were always accurate. But they are not as they only look at one (or few) variable/indicators. I’ll give you an example. I was training a girl who had the world record on squat (265kg at 67kg bodyweight). During the prep we did a MONSTER training day (going up to a 2RM on squat, then 5 x 2 @ 90%, going up to a 2RM on bench, then 5 x 2 @ 90%, going up to a 2RM on deadlift then 5 x 2 @ 90%, then farmer’s walk). The next day she told me that she felt mentally dead and physically like she’d been ran over by a truck… but her Whoop said that she was at 92% recovered!!!
So the question is: you mention that your stress is elevated after a workout. What are your symptoms? Are you just going by what the Whoop tells you?
It is my belief that in people with a history of anxiety, these devices might do more harm than good, by itself causing a stress response (kinda like the white coach factor with doctors and blood pressure/heart rate tests).
Also, a lot of people with an anxiety issues, create their own stress by being afraid of becoming anxious: they think about it too much and worry than anything they do might trigger an anxiety attack… that, by itself, causes stress.
To clarify: I got Whoop because I felt certain things were wrong, and knowing that beign obsessive about it would add to the anxiety, I only look at it twice a day. First time an hour after waking up to see my stress levels at night since those are bang on but not early enough for it to influence how I feel about the day. And once at the end of the day so as to plan my night time routine better.
This way, I use it as confirmation for certain things and not to tell me “how am I supposed to feel”. By using it this way to reign in certain habits, I have actually drastically reduced my anxiety.
As to the rest, thank you for the detailed information. It gives me good info so I can see other ways to reduce it.
By the way, a tip for your son is to learn and embody the AA mantra. It helped me A LOT!
Using whoop now to help get these last few points “perfect” is because the majority of the work has already been done. The AA mantra really has been a god send for me and I recommend it to anyone with any bit of anxiety.
No nicotine, no pre-workout and one cup of coffee. I have tested removing that one coffee but it had no effect whatsoever. Of course, more than one cup is also a no.