Pump the Brakes
Recovery As A Skill
Human beings are the only animals on the planet that purposefully apply stress to ourselves in order to get a predictable and positive benefit in the future. Think about it. The idea of exercise is foreign to every other creature in the world (soon to be completely foreign to humans too from the looks of things). I've never seen a couple of dogs outside with a stopwatch timing sprint repeats as part of their training for the squirrel catching Olympics. You know why? They don't know that if they stress on purpose a little bit in the right way they might just get faster. But humans do. We can consciously adapt and we've spent a lot of time and energy learning ever more clever ways of doing so.
Where we've spent far less energy is on the development of skills that tip the scales in the other direction. I want to be clear what I mean here when I use the word skill. I don't mean technologies that pay lip service to recovery or modalities that service our stress relief. Skill, technically, is the ability to apply an appropriate problem solving response across a wide variety of circumstances. The skill of recovery is far more robust than simple reliance on outsourced technologies to get us into more adaptable states. It's about the ability to develop a deeper relationship over what behaviors we can deploy that put water back in the well, so to speak. Before drawing that bow however, we have to know what target we're aiming at in the first place.
What Does Recovery Mean?
Out in the wide, wide world of health and performance there's a lot of talk about recovery. All manner of social media experts and wearable technology companies are telling us that we need to back off, slow down, and take it easier in order to get the most out of our exercise and training practices. I for one am all about recovery but I think before we go running around collecting tools that "improve recovery" we should be clear about exactly what that means.
Usually, when I ask what people mean when they say recovery I get answers that land in one of two columns. The first column is a list of synonyms. Repair, refuel, rebuild, rejuvenate, and regenerate all come to mind. (That's a lot of re- stuff). The second is a list of examples of things that are supposed to help you recover. Massage, meditation, sleep, foam rolling, yoga, and the like. Basically the Yin side of the house. While these things all have a relationship to recovery they don't exactly define recovery, do they?
Let's take it out of the context of health and performance for a moment. If I leave my sunglasses at my friend's house and I go recover them, what do I do? I go get them and then bring them back. To recover something is to bring it back. In this case, our physiology back to homeostasis. Homeostasis is the baseline bandwidth of our physiology usually measured through the activity of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). The ANS is then divided into two complimentary aspects; the Sympathetic, which can be thought of as the gas pedal, and the Parasympathetic, which can is like the brakes. Learning to skillfully use both is a key component of becoming more conscious participants in our recovery from stress of any kind.
All Gas No Brakes
Can you imagine driving without brakes? Anytime you wanted to stop you'd either have to hit another object or pray that you'd coast to a stop at just the right time and place. It's similar with our physiology. We definitely come to natural stopping points when we rest or sleep but having ways to pump the brakes and enter into states of rest at will is a skillset worth investing in.
More skilled drivers come to easier stops when necessary causing a bit less wear and tear on the vehicle over time. Not to mention drivers who really know how to use the gas and the brakes well can use the gas, brakes, and steering in concert to get higher levels of performance from even the most run of the mill vehicles. It's the same with learning to tune into and manipulate our deep Autonomic physiology.
Learning to sleep isn't something you'd think we'd need to do but as it turns out it is. According to the CDC one third of adults report that they do not get enough sleep. This issue is especially rampant in tactical and medical professions like fire fighting, law enforcement, and emergency room staff. It is true that the very nature of these professions is antithetic to regular, health sleep. So what can be done if you just can't sleep? That's a great question and we'll come back to that in a minute - I promise.
For most of us it's not that we're out all night getting into high adventure so what gives? Why do people, many of whom have access to all the creature comforts that should be conducive to quality sleep, have so much trouble doing something as simple as resting. In my experience it's because we stink at downshifting. Far too often we allow ourselves to be at the mercy of the habits that no longer serve us whether that's through shear happenstance or that we are running an outmoded program that no longer serves our needs.
When I work with professionals in the tactical community this is abundantly clear. Often unconsciously they develop habits that "train" them to operate at levels of degraded rest and recovery. This training is sometimes warranted but often sticks to them like an old barnacle and the residual effect is that even though they may no longer be in the situation that requires less rest, they have trained themselves to actually rest less.
Those of us not in tactical professions may not be in the same types of situations be we also entrain behaviors that interfere with our ability to transition well from gas to brakes, one result of which can be less restorative sleep. So then regardless of the exact why we can't tune down what can we do? How can we turn the volume down whether we are trying to learn to sleep again or we just don't want the jerk who cut us off in traffic and nearly killed us to keep ahold of our nervous system long after the situation is over?
The answer is pretty simple actually. We get skilled at moving the needle on the core function. We get skilled at pumping the brakes.
Chill Skills
For most of human life on this planet we were completely at the mercy of environmental cues for letting us know when it was time to hit the gas and when it was time to pump the brakes. We've become exponentially better at manipulating our environment but alas our ancient physiology doesn't know what's up. We have stimulating inputs that bombard our nervous system with the constancy of oxygen and then we wonder why we don't feel so well.
First things first, let's just touch the basic things we can do to improve our environment and our behavior so that our Parasympathetic (brakes) has a fighting chance. Respect your bedtime. Mom and Dad were right. Eat dinner early, turn the lights down, and get your hind parts in the sack at a reasonable and regular time. It also helps to be aware of what hidden gems are pushing the gas pedal down while you're trying roll to a nice stop. My recent guilty pleasure is Legend of Zelda. I'm not a gamer by any stretch but my daughter got me a switch and this insanely addictive game for Christmas. I had to set up put down times relative to sleep because I'd get so fired up playing the stupid thing. Know thyself...
Not at all secondary to that are the internal skills of consciously manipulating the behavior of the nervous system so that you can coax yourself into the desired state of rest when you want to. It doesn't necessarily have to be related to sleep but it's certainly a place where I've used these skills with predictable success.
Here's a few examples of Autonomic chill skills that you can take with you anywhere to learn to better pump the brakes (including getting to or back to sleep).
Breathing Exercises. It doesn't need to be fancy at all. A protocol I've seen lots of people use with success is as follows. Inhale for 3 seconds. Hold for 2 seconds. Exhale for 5 seconds. That's one breath every ten seconds. Use it for anywhere from 5:00 - 10:00. Is this the only one? Not by a long shot. More can be found all over the internet and also from me HERE.
Yoga Nidra. Don't let the fancy name fool you. It just means yoga "sleep". This research backed approach (also referred to as Non-Sleep Deep Rest) puts you in a hypnogogic state (like hypnosis). You use a prerecorded script to hover in that weird zone between being awake and asleep. While this is not a replacement for sleep it can be helpful in tuning into resting states for the brain. There's one you can try free HERE.
Biofeedback Training. Biofeedback uses an external monitoring device like a heart rate monitor as a feedback tool for calibrating our response to thoughts and physical behaviors. Biofeedback allows to develop a direct connection the gas and the brakes so we can move the needle when we want to. Many of us have access to wearables that monitor heart rate if not use your pulse. Try slow breathing while you observe your own heart rate as a way to connect with the relaxation effect.
Manual Override
These internal skills can be accessed nearly any time you want. It's best to use them not only as a response to acute stress or when we need recovery right now but to more skillfully engage with natural and normal times of rest like sleep.
Another thing. This skill is broadly applicable to all stress. Your Autonomic Nervous System doesn't care why you're cooked, just that you are. If you want to recover better from strenuous exercise being skilled in this arena helps. If you're toast from flying across the country, it helps there too. Ask yourself this question:
When do I want to pump the brakes?
There is no one secret technique that cures all the ails of stress and hones us into perfect vessels of adaptation. Sorry, biology doesn't work that way. Different things work for different people at different times. Run some personal experiments to see what fits you best and then put the other tools in your backpack or another day.
It's probably not necessary to use manual override all the time. Especially if the rest of your lifestyle is well organized. But having the option to take the reins and nudge our physiology can be a powerful tool for performance longevity.
Happy driving.
Thanks for reading,
Rob