Stress and Bubble Wrap

I was sitting on the couch a few days ago, icing three separate injured body parts when I decided to catch up on the lastest issue of Runner's World.  (Despite the fact that I am not a runner, I still have aspirations.  And I feel more like an athlete for reading such magazines.)  The title "Stress Recess" caught my eye, because stress is a concept with which I'm unfortunately on a "curl up and cuddle with" basis.  Despite years of sort of off and on trying, I've never gotten a handle on it, and it's wreaked havoc in my body in a number of fairly serious ways.  (I wrote about it here a while ago.)
I know cortisol plays a huge role in weight loss.  I know that despite the good in can serve in a fight-or-flight time, that it can also have some seriously nasty effects.

I knew that over training can produce cortisol, and I knew that cortisol is catabolic, meaning it can cause the breakdown of protein in muscles.

But even though I knew all of this, what I read in the article caught me off guard:

 "For the most part, running is touted as a mental tonic.  Research has shown that [it] helps keep granule neurons in the brain from firing, making you better able to deal with anger, anxiety or grief, the negative emotions referred to, collectively as stress. But there's a flip side.  Research also indicates taht running during an especially rough life patch can make you more susceptible to stress and even injury...Excess cortisol can have harmful effects on bone density and can make you tense up.  Run stiff and you're more likely to strain a muscle or tweak a joint... Serious stress over a long period of time can distract a person to the point that he doesn't notice or pay enough attention to what is happeing to his body."

A few months ago I had a nasty low-back injury that required massaging and chiropractic help and two weeks away from the gym-- and it was in a period of very high stress. And now all these seemingly unrelated injuries (though I'm learning that things are rarely as unrelated as they appear) that are forcing me to rest when I'd really like to go as hard as I can are also in a crazy-high stress period.  I'm guessing if these things happen to runners under high stress, they happen to wanna-be bodybuilders under high stress too.  And if it can happen to athletes, I'm betting it can happen to anybody in such a stressed-out state.

A few weeks ago, a friend was telling me what things were like for her after her husband died. She knew that I had a lot going on and she gave me a word of parting advice: "Be careful."  When I looked at her oddly, she continued, "Be careful with your body. I would walk down the street and just fall, and I was constantly running into things.  Things are off, and what's going on in your mind will affect your body."

Instead of marketing all sorts of useless things to stressed out people, someone should get really smart-- and offer discounts on mass quantities of Bubble Wrap. It will keep people from hurting themselves when they inadvertently walk into walls or fall on their face.  And double bonus, when it's safe to take off the Bubble Wrap-- think of all the fun to be had! You're welcome.

Rehab

You know how you're in a situation and all the sudden a song starts playing on repeat in your head? I was trying not to cry while holding an...uhem... 3lb dumbbell. I guess my brain was trying to distract me, and my mental ipod started playing Amy Winehouse's "Rehab".

"They said I should go to Rehab, and I said No! No! No!  They tried to make me go to rehab and I won't go, go, go!"

My brain chose that song certainly because that is how my body was feeling.  I've somehow injured both my back and my shoulder, and yesterday was my first day back at the gym in a week.  He-who-trains was trying to teach me some dynamic stretches that would help, and we kept having that "How bad does it hurt, on a scale of one to ten?" conversation.  Only my version of the pain scale is more like one to "If you don't stop, I might actually kick you in the shins as hard as I can."   He wisely stayed out of kicking range.

He was very clear with me though.  If I wanted to be back to doing things, then first I was going to have to do the hard work of rehabbing the injuries.  I was going to have to do some really deep stretches that hurt like... well a whole slew of very unladylike words.  In other words, I was going to have to put myself in pain in order to bring about healing. And I was going to have to do it over and over.

My first thought was "No, never mind. I'm good.  Really.  I can do a lot without moving either my back or my shoulder.  Like sharpening pencils.  I could be a professional pencil sharpener."  My second thought was maybe "Why on God's green earth would anyone do this to themselves?" But then I realized limping along, paralyzed from pain, is no bargain either. And maybe that's not just a body lesson, but a spirit lesson too.

So today is looking to be an exciting day filled with ice bags and heating pads and foul-word inducing stretches.  It's a day where, even if I can't yet "embrace the pain", then I at least won't run from it. In the words of another great song, "If you're goin' through hell keep on going/ Don't slow down if you're scared don't show it/You might get out before the devil even knows you're there."

Because on the other side of the hellish and painful, is healing and wholeness.

So here's my slightly revised version of the song-- that I'm gonna keep singing (albeit through gritted teeth.)

"Gonna go to rehab, and I said Oh! Oh! Oh!" 

Rest. Ice. Repeat.

I seem to be accumulating a staff of people who take care of my body.  I have a masseuse to regularly rub my piriformus (which isn't as much fun as you'd imagine. Google it. #awkward) I have a chiropractor who zaps me with these little things so I don't feel (or walk) like I'm a thirty-two year old trapped in a ninety-five year old body.  (Also, just really not as much fun as it sounds.) And I have a trainer, whose functions right now are limited to telling me what to eat and acting as a bouncer if I get near any thing heavier than five pounds. Oh and you know, to tell me... "Ummm...yeah.  There's no nice way to say this.  You're a train wreck."

So clearly things are going well in the body department. I'm pretty sure it shouldn't require a team of people to make sure I can walk.

I guess I haven't been doing a stellar job on my own. I have an injury in my back, and I've got some really tight hip flexors, but my team of people all agree on one thing (and only one, mind you. I don't want to get bored):  I have too much stress, and its affecting my body adversely. I'm working on it.  I am. My church folks are kindly lecturing me about it. But what I'm learning right now is that sometimes you can't handle it all on your own.  Sometimes, you need outside people to hold you up and put you back together and to help you quit making the same mistakes.

I'm having to take it easy... and that's not easy.  I'm having to practice what I preach, literally.  Grrrr.  I preach grace, and now I'm having to practice it with my body. I believe, in theory, anyway, in sabbath keeping.  But my body is going to make sure that's more than a theoretical belief.  I love the Jewish notion of Shalom, which is a big term encompassing things like wholeness, balance, and wellness. So now, I have the opportunity to focus on bringing my body and spirit back into shalom.  I'm writing.  And letting people help my body free itself of toxins, and bring itself back to health. I'm focusing on nutrition, and eating whole, real foods that have the nutrients I need. I'm stretching gently, and reminding myself to breathe well. I'm reviving creative energy.

Rest. Ice. Repeat.
Breathe. Heal. Repeat.
Grow. Repair.  Repeat.

I'm gonna try really hard to believe that I won't feel like this after taking some time off ;-) (Totally worth the watch...even for the fifteen sec advertisement at the beginning.)

Losing and Finding

Sorry for the blogging hiatus! Lent makes pastors lose their minds with crazyness-- and this pudgy parson was no exception!  But here I am-- mentally back intact, slightly less pudgy (umm 1.5 inches lost in my thighs, nearly 3 lost in my hips...thank you, Weight Watchers--and running my...butt...off!) and ready, once again, to do this thing.

On March 17-- I lost. I had been training for a 5k with the hopes of finally running the whole thing.  I was ready, mentally and physically.  I had my faithful cheering squad positioned at the finish line, where I was going to be seen smiling from ear to ear as my face said, "Yeah. I did that.  Now what?"  Only it didn't go that way.  I'd been nursing a nasty case of shin splints for several weeks, and on the day of the race, they decided to be particularly mean. A mile into the race, I sent my husband the text "1 mile down, and I'm about to cry from pain." I tried to jog really gently, but my legs were done.  To have continued would have meant sure injury.  So I walked.  I managed to sprint the last quarter mile, but my spirit was crushed and angry.   And just because my body was really spiteful, crawling into bed that night, I seem to have pulled an overly tight hamstring.  I limped through church--and had to explain to my well meaning but curious parishioners that I hurt myself running. I had to stomach the not so well hidden "Running? Really? With how big you are?"looks.   I lost that day. I lost a notion that races have to go as planned to be successful.  I lost a need to prove something to myself, even at the cost of injury.  I lost the belief that I could make my body my slave (that's scriptural!).  But I didn't just lose that day.  I found.

I found a desire to try again, a deep seated belief that I needed to work with and listen to my body.  I found truth in the idea that every step counts, and that to have finished the race at all made it successful.  As soon as the hamstring healed, I walked a few days.  I began slowly running.  I started training for a 10k.  And I've picked out another 5k (and a half marathon...in december...but that's another story.  A girl always needs a dream!)

The pudgy parson might have "lost" the race.  Or maybe the pudgy parson found what it is to be a real athlete.   Either way, she's happy that she's a little less pudgy-- because that was the goal to begin with!