Healthy High Achiever Blog

Now doesn’t that sound narcissistic!

A couple of years ago, I would have had that point of view. I would have never said anything like that… that was for those "spiritual" people who aren’t focused on success.

I was a high achiever…

Little did I know that I didn’t love myself, much at all; which really meant, I wasn’t self accepting. No wonder I didn’t feel whole.

In retrospect, no wonder I felt shame. No wonder I avoided so many things. No wonder, I wasn’t in touch with my feelings, had difficulty with intimacy, and was driven to seek love and respect on the outside and in ways that drove me further into the downward trend. Not just energetically, but emotionally and spiritually too. No wonder I was addicted to performance, and obsessed with exercise. I was spiritually bankrupt.

Do you love yourself?

I am asking you this today for a reason. Because progress around managing your personal energy, diet, fitness, working out, performing, looking and feeling better, goal achievement etc, will always be a struggle if you are being driven by shame, those scenes of the crime that reinforced it and continue to do so. 

Shame can bind your thoughts, feeling, needs and drives (Ref: John Bradshaw) and distort your thinking in countless ways. It makes everything a struggle.

It’s not surprising how much of the diet and fitness industry covertly knows this, and leads you with shame-based vocabulary, concepts and approaches to "wellness", health and fitness. Its all about keeping you stuck, "sticking" to stuff. It reinforces perfectionism and sets you up to fail and repeat the cycle. That’s good for that business, but usually not for you.

I was never a proponent of that shame-based approach. I knew intuitively what it was designed to do and I wanted no part of it. But I must admit, my own sense of self was so fragile, that I could rarely deal with the underlying issues myself, much less with clients. It was all about the external stuff.

You can only identify and work through that which you have identified and worked through yourself so to speak.

Reflecting on it, I can see why it was so much harder for me to coach, than it was for me to train. It was easy for me to deliver a message and direct others, but difficult to lead people through self discovery, which underlies every aspect of your lifestyle.

How can you lead people through self discovery, when you haven’t discovered yourself to a point that gives you that confidence. For  years now, I have been working on this. It has been challenging and liberating and today I can say, I know what it means to say, "I love myself". It has new meaning because it represents a new level of awareness.

"I love myself" isn’t some feel-good sort of affirmation. It can be that if you want it to be and avoid doing the work, but if you learn more of what it really means it can influence your present moment and your life.

I would like to share some of that meaning with you, right now.

It means to accept all parts of yourself. (Yes, even that haunting voice talking in your head as you read this).

You have many selves, those you identify with and those that you have split off, out of shame and pain. If you don’t learn to accept them, and work with them in your life, peace of mind is a forgone thought and energy depletion, poor lifestyle, and it’s physical manifestation are virtually guaranteed.

As you try to avoid the negative consequences of that state of being, you will be driven a little crazy by a band of energy thieves who are chasing you down. Healthy High Achievers, are not driven this way. These are not the drives we want if we’re going to achieve our goals successfully.

Let me know your thoughts… this conversation is paramount.

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned healthy high achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

As you know, Performance Lifestyle was born in the Athletic community, and not surprisingly. Athletes unlike crazed parents, business people and students have a more accurate understanding of what it means to perform well. It is about productivity and winning, but first and foremost it’s about making sure you can perform "well", and that’s a matter of lifestyle.

Well, as I was reading a conference summary for cutting edge sports nutrition information, from the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine and the results from over 5,000 exercise scientists, sports dietitians, physicians and coaches who gathered in Indianapolis in May to share their latest research; I always look for ideas that will help Healthy High Achievers who are not sports athletes perform, look and feel better.

There was one insight in particular that really stood out… it was about the elite athletes’ ability to recover (soccer players in this case).

Here is one of the sports nutrition highlights. 

How long do elite soccer players need to recover from a game? In one study, they needed five days for sprinting ability to return to pre-game level. That’s four days longer than most athletes allow…

Think about this for a second. These are elite athletes we’re talking about here and they need 4 days to recover?

Now take the average business person who is working 10 -12 hours per day or more who is trying to train intensely or consistently every day and consider why they my run into obstacles and stall periodically.

In other words, most people set their expectations too high, don’t have the lifestyle to support their training success and don’t factor in everything else going on in their life that is drawing down on the same energy and time, need to recover. This needless to say, affects the results you experience.

Healthy High Achievers know how to gauge their activity levels… it’s all part of the science of Personal Energy Management.

Here are some of the other findings from the conference as written by Nancy Clarke.

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned healthy, high achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Look, Feel and Perform Better!

"Healthy High Achievers" are people who achieve their goals in life, business and sport, without trading health for success. Rather, with their personal wellness, energy, health and fitness powering the way.

Healthy "High Achievers" aren’t necessarily people whose goals are big. They can be and often times are, but you can have a paper route and still be a high achiever. A high achiever is someone who does things fully engaged, expects and achieves above average outcomes, and thinks bigger than others about the impact of their intention in the world. They bring character and passion to the service of others and it shows.

"Healthy" High Achievers are a rare breed. They are the top 3% of the population simply because they see things differently than most people. They see their lifestyle as the key to their success first and foremost, not success as the key to their lifestyle.

They’re core definition of lifestyle is grounded in personal wellness, health, energy management, fitness and goal achievement concepts, not money or material wealth alone.

They like to earn money, and be financially successful as this is important to a successful lifestyle, they just don’t like to trade their health for it. So they make sure the way they structure their lives, live their lifestyles and achieve their goals is in alignment… working for them, not against them.

Healthy High Achievers, stay out of the downward energy trend - overwhelm, exhaustion and the overweight condition. That trend hinders their quality of life, ability to achieve and experience the outcomes they want in life… for themselves, their families and the people they relate with.

"Healthy High Achievement" is a way of life, and learned in what we call Performance Lifestyle training. It starts with the training and essentially never ends as there is no end to "living" up to your full potential.

Healthy High Achievers, once they learn the performance lifestyle principles and practices, continue to learn and apply. New situations, require new lifestyle strategies. And since mastery is both an art and science they learn from every experience free of guilt and tension, for the most part.

Healthy High Achievers are excited about learning how to live better. They learn all health and wellness concepts in the context of personal performance and success because this is normal, natural and what they are focused on.

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned healthy, high achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Look, Feel and Perform Better!

You know, I get this question all the time and it’s not unusual because a Performance Lifestyle is a new concept. New concepts require explanation.

So today I am going to give you the "plain "explanation.

Simply put…

A Performance Lifestyle goes beyond health and fitness (sleep, eating and exercise) to also include personal wellness, energy management and goal achievement concepts to round out a successful model for living.

All concepts are taught in the "context" of performance and success, which are what people are focused on. Health and sustainable success go hand in hand, they are one and thus, should be taught and learned that way.

The main reason people don’t focus on their health, is because they are naturally not focused on their health. Weight loss and Health are not natural goals.

Goals are those things we achieve in life, business and sport. Having to regain your health… and lose weight,  are distractions from your natural inclination.

If we are to take action consistently, and sustainably and achieve our real goals, we had better take a lifestyle approach that maintains personal wellness, high levels of energy, is fueled by quality food, reinforced by strength and endurance, and is effectively focused.

None of these concepts is optional if we want to be effective and happy in life. Quality of life at the core, is the ability to enjoy the activities in life with little to no limitation, able to function at a high level.

That is why we call this Performance Lifestyle. It bridges the gap between health and success.

When you have these respective areas of your life working for you, your lifestyle works for you, and propels you forward in a
position of strength.

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned healthy, high achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Look, Feel and Perform Better!

Feeling Overwhelmed, Exhaustion and Being Overweight Go Hand in Hand

Why are so many people tired, stressed and overweight? It seems the majority of people have a motivation problem; overeating and lack of exercise are implicated as the causes of the overweight condition.

You could say we are overweight because we eat too much and live sedentary lives and that both are causes of obesity and you would be right, at least in part, acknowledging the obvious.

But what is not so obvious, are all the hidden causes of obesity and overweight that are by far more influential in the rise of the obesity epidemic, that reinforce our food and fitness habits to begin with and many motivated people fall prey.

These are matters of lifestyle. How we manage time, spend and recuperate our energy, including but not limited to, the quality of the food we eat and our activity levels every day as we achieve our goals are things that factor into this equation.

Physical inactivity plays a major role in gaining weight, but the reason we are physically inactive most of the time, is exhaustion. How often have you said “I want to exercise” but you find yourself simply too tired throughout the day to get anything done. We’re overwhelmed and tired, lacking time, space and energy to do what we need for healthy bodies. Inactivity is a result, an effect, but not the original cause.

What about the claim that overeating is to blame? We are overeating, yet the primary reason, long before discussing a market saturated with addictive fatty foods, is that most people faced with relentless demands on their time and energy, are worn down and looking for a quick pick me up.

In that besieged state, not only do they eat more for the stimulation they crave and more of the addictive fatty foods that are extraordinarily convenient, but the combination of excessive stress and nutrient-poor food virtually guarantees they will overeat. Overeating is a result, an effect, but not the original cause.

Overwhelmed and exhaustion is the greatest threat to our wellbeing and our weight. They go hand in hand. Look at your life for a moment and think of the ways you feel overwhelmed or exhausted. How often do you feel this way? What makes you feel this way?

Where are you putting your focus - cause or effect?

Are you combating the negative effects of your lifestyle by eating less and exercising more? Or, are you addressing the lifestyle that is promoting over eating and inactivity…?

You can only deal with the primary causes of weight gain at the level of lifestyle. Everything else is an attempt at manipulating your current condition for a short term gain and the results of this approach are well documented.

Do you ever wonder why diets and fad exercise programs don’t work for you? Do you wonder why you start off good for a week or so but then the big plan fails and you feel even worse than you did before?

The high protein/low carbohydrate fad was the classic example of manipulation. Millions of overweight people, addicted to super stimulating junk foods, stopped eating refined carbohydrate and started eating no-carb animal protein to manipulate the storage of carbohydrate in their body to lose weight.

This so-called “solution”, while beneficial in the sense that less junk food was being consumed, replaced an already unhealthy way of life with another (consuming large amounts of high fat, nutrient poor animal protein) to lose weight. In the end, this does not lead to a healthier person. You are replacing one bad habit with another and this doesn’t really get you anywhere further into the downward trend.

Where in this grand misdirected project was there any talk of the lifestyle that was giving rise to the consumption of junk food to begin with? Or talk about food quality? The discussion was about weight loss and was non-existent. Meanwhile millions of people struggled, got sick, including Atkins himself (who died) and gave up. This is discouraging to anyone who hopes they can break free of this downward trend. But there is hope out there- once you discover the real problem.

The Real Problem

What is the real problem? Most of us are not managing our energy well. We are overwhelmed, caught up and overcommitted and this excessive energy expenditure promotes the downward trend – exhaustion, over consumption, physical inactivity and being overweight.

The addictive, stimulating food and drinks all around then purport to give us more energy and they don’t. Over stimulation by its very nature is exhausting. These nutrient-poor foods then drive us to over consume in an effort to get our nutrient needs met and it doesn’t happen. Our now overwhelmed and exhausted bodies are no condition to be active. And the answer is eating less and exercising more? You could not assemble a better trap for staying stuck.

Countless weight loss programs are sold as lifestyles and what’s really being said is, “lose weight for life” and of course it just doesn’t happen. Human beings are not robots, we want the natural experience of life and living on a weight loss program is not natural. It’s not that these weight loss solutions don’t or won’t work; it is that they don’t work alone, forever or in some cases, at all.

And so the cycle continues…

Few solutions address the real problem; your lifestyle – why you are tired and overeating, and physically inactive to begin with and the downward trend stays in play. It is this trend, complicated by all the solutions that do not solve the problem that give consistent rise to obesity statistics, even though we spend billions of dollars per year on weight loss.

This graphic above illustrates the downward trend on a population basis and it makes the point that the weight loss industry is not working. Eating less of foods that don’t serve you and exercising a fatigued body even more does not work. You will not see success and any illusion of success will be short-lived.

How you look, feel and perform ongoing are the direct result of your lifestyle, not the result of “eat-less” diets or “exercise-more” workout programs created for the express purpose of losing weight. There are many different factors that go into this lifestyle and contribute to the “downward trend”.

Looking, feeling and performing better is about avoiding becoming overwhelmed, exhausted and overweight. The only way to do that successfully is to manage your energy, including the quality of the food you eat and your activity levels in the process of achieving your goals. That’s means live athletically!

When it comes to your weight, it comes down to your lifestyle and until your lifestyle reinforces your both your health and success, you will find yourself in an extended stay on the downward trend, wondering how to turn it around with the latest weight loss program. 

John Allen Mollenhauer, known as John Allen or “JAM”, is the lifestyle coaching columnist for MyWeightLoss.com. He is a premier lifestyle trainer and coach, and is the founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, www.MyTrainer.com and www.PerformanceLifestyle.com, where thousands of people are learning how to achieve their goals in better, healthier more practical ways – like Pros!

Do you have a Performance Lifestyle? If not, it’s probably about time you get one!

Copyright © 2008 Custom Media Communications, Inc, Performance Lifestyle Solutions All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

I was on the phone today, as I am on most Monday’s at 12:00 Noon with Michael Port of The Think Big Revolution. I love this guy (he is also a friend) so much, that I take one of my 168 hours each week for his televent. My hours come at a premium… the content is that good.

Today, he emphasized a definition of the keyword Power that I share - as you know I promote a concept called Fit for Power, so I am not foreign to this term.

Power - is the capacity to do what you want

For years I searched for the most powerful definitions of this term and ultimately I came back to this idea of "capacity". It’s a big enough and an encompassing enough of an idea to reflect the net result of how we are thinking and living.

How important is it that you have the ability to do and act? Almost a ridiculous question isn’t it?

Everything we do and if we’re going to it "well" in the process of achieving our goals, requires that we have power, so are you thinking and living powerfully?

The question is: Are you thinking (conceptualizing, giving meaning, responding, associating, etc) and living (recovering, eating, training, moving, acting etc) powerfully?

Or, are you thinking and living in a way that is depleting your energy?

Ponder this…

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned healthy, high achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Look, Feel and Perform Better!

See Free Fitness Videos.

Read Part Iand Part II.

This past month delivered quite a unique discovery. In this, the third part in the series called Train, Not Drain, the revelation, was about High Intensity Training, when it makes sense and when it doesn’t.

Simply put, high intensity training does not make sense when your body is under excessive stress, experiencing overwhelm, exhaustion or fatigue. If you implement high intensity training during times like this, you risk destructive catabolic effects, not the constructive anabolic effects you are seeking.

High Intensity Training as a concept is amazing and has such compelling benefits.

Here’s what Arthur Jones founder of Nautilus, one of the first lines of training equipment ever created for gyms.

Everything of any value related to exercise can be stated in less than a thousand words, can, in fact, be fairly well covered in only a few words, as follows: Train hard, Train briefly, Train infrequently, and always remember that your final results will primarily be a consequence of genetics" -Arthur Jones

…Train Hard, Train Briefly and Train Infrequently.

Now this of course is not the average person’s philosophy. The average person is taught to train 5-6 days per week and this is fine, especially when animals in nature would be relatively active 7 days a week with recuperation periods when needed. 

But here’s the point.

High Intensity Training as a fitness protocol is different than short bursts of high intensity in the natural world.

For example, just this past month, I found myself doing a Tabata Protocol - 4 minutes of high intensity training, with a 10 second rest interval in between each 20 second repetition of a particular exercise.

On top of that, I was doing multiple rounds of this protocol, across many different exercises, sometimes as high at 4-6 rounds totaling nearly 30 minutes!

This was feeling great for the first week, only 3-4 times per week, then I noticed my ability to recover was declining and my attitude was changing and my ability to perform was sinking. True to form, I briefly pushed myself through only to see even worse results. As classic high achiever mistake.

What? Yes, I was experience a catabolic effect, not an anabolic effect from all my hard work.

What else was going on at the same time? I was finishing a book and that was an emotional draining process, and launching www.MyTrainer.com, on top of the rest of life. There were even more factors and the net result is, I was getting worn down fast!

I was in "the downward trend" as we call it in the Performance Lifestyle community.

I had too much going on and my body could not recover fast enough. Too much HIT - High Intensity Training, was over stressing my body and that’s the bottom line.

Read again what Dr Chad Oler had to say about this -Part I

I was reminded of a big lesson from all this… reinforcing what I learned from Joe Friel years ago… get the result doing as little as possible - more is not better.

You also have to factor in what’s going on in your life, and your lifestyle, before you commit to a training protocol and to determine the level, frequency, intensity and duration you are going to commit to.

I would have done just fine with High Intensity Training during this stressful period, but not at the level I was doing. Less frequency and duration would have changed things.

So, I have had to take a few weeks off and now, I’m back at it only with a much different approach.

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned healthy, high achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Look, Feel and Perform Better!

One of the things I take very seriously, is understanding what things mean. In other words, what the words and phrases we use actually mean. Wellness is one of those terms that eludes most of us, because it’s far more expansive than health or fitness and when it comes to achievement, once you lose wellness the achievement is far from satisfying or sustainable.

There is a big difference between performing well, and being able to perform "well".

Wellness, is the integration of many different elements (social, emotional, mental, spiritual and physical), that expand ones potential to live (quality of life) and work effectively and to make a significant contribution to society. - Ref: Charles B Corbin Concepts of Fitness and Wellness.

Wellness reflects how one feels (a sense of well being) about life as well as ones ability to function (perform) effectively.

I bet you were expecting me to talk about the physical right off the bat, right? Well, our physical bodies are important without question, but the physical comes up more when we talk about health, energy management and fitness.

The foundation of personal wellness is social (interpersonal), mental and emotional and spiritual… it has more to do with how you think and the benefits supportive community  you are also contributing to, than it does working out or eating the right foods.

And anyone who thinks they are going to to be physically well, lacking psychological strength and emotional fitness is kidding themselves. It’s really hard to do much when you are not feeling well.

Think about your experience. Do you experience much success taking care of your self, let alone business when you don’t feel well? Likely not…

Yes, feeling well is the opposite of illness, but that’s only one definition and a limited one at that. In a deeper sense it’s about those aspects of our lives that are not that noticeable, notably our relations with other people, finances, where we live, etc.

In a Performance Lifestyle, one of the mainstay tactics of Healthy High Achievers is their ability to take a step (s) back to gain perspective and deal with structural life problems or issues that are causing challenges further up the chain; for example; in your lifestyle which will ultimately affect your ability to achieve your goals and sustain success.

Wellness is our personal foundation. Conceptually is represents the present state of things in our lives. Are you addressing the present state of things in your life?

Are you feeling overwhelmed? If you are, that’s the sign to take a step back begin taking action accordingly.

Wellness is not some "feel" good term it is at once the foundation and the result of our health and success and our ability to perform.

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals. As a a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro; how to look, feel and perform better by optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. Achieve your goals in life, business and sport and take your life to the next level!

In Train not Drain part 1, you learned what happens when you subject a body under major stress to the stress of high intensity training.

I want to emphasize the point that I love high intensity training and espouse all of it’s benefits; that’s why I used terms like "warranted hype".

There are so many benefits to high intensity training there are too many to list; not the least of which is this - 4 minutes of high intensity interval training is equal to about 1 hour of regular low intensity aerobic training. And it is great for conditioning and fat loss, because of a principle called EPOC. More on that later, but for now just know that it’s the workout that keeps on working for you.

For busy people that’s a big deal.

Here are some examples: I was at a local gym when I did these, but the truth is, you can do a high intensity workout anywhere, at home or outside.

  The principle of the 4 minute workout was discovered by a Japanese researcher named Tabata. Doing more than 4 minutes can have additional benefits, but not if your body is in a depleted state, overstressed.

We don’t need a research study to figure out what happens when you subject a depleted body to high intensity training. It can have a destructive "catabolic" effect. In other words your body will break down, not build up.

If you ever wonder why your body is not responding to your training its usually because your body is in a depleted state, overwhelmed and exhausted, for some, fatigued.

The Performance Lifestyle formula solves this dilemma in a successful way. When it comes to training, here are some key tips to keep in mind…

1) If you are not seeing an anabolic "building" effect, from your training, it doesn’t mean you can’t engage in high intensity training.

Just remember you only need 4-8 minutes of high intensity training. Then it is all about "recovery". Subject yourself to too much training and you are working against yourself.

2) If you are feeling strong, for sure, engage in high intensity training, just remember more is not always better. What matters is what you can recover from successfully. That’s how you gauge a successful plan.

3) Reduce uncomplimentary stress, if you want to begin training more.

4) If dealing with a great deal of stress, switch gears to a less intense form of exercise to get your energy back in balance or greatly reduce the duration of your training.

The thing to keep in mind, especially today, is recovery. It’s the key to success.

More to come on this fascinating subject to come.

JAM

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals. As a a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro; how to look, feel and perform better optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. Achieve your goals in life, business and sport and take your life to the next level!

Learn more at www.PerformanceLifestyleSolutions.com

If there was anything unusually unique to the character of the Healthy High Achiever it’s this… they don’t deplete themselves, not in the way they live or in the way they train.

Today when it comes to training and all the warranted hype around High Intensity Training. I recently learned something from Dr Chad Oler of the Natural Path Health Center.

This guy is one of kind, and always has a revelation to share.

Anyway, this month in his newsletter he confirmed a suspicion I had about high intensity training in the face of major stress, and it’s potential effects on the body.

Here is what he had to say…

It is generally accepted that if you need to lose weight, are stressed out or want to put on muscle mass, you need to hit the gym and hit it hard! While this approach will work for some people, most people’s eating habits and lifestyle choices will cause high intensity workout sessions to have a detrimental influence on their health. That’s because of the effect these sessions have on a person’s nervous system.

Without getting too embedded in the physiology, the nervous system has two main parts: the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The CNS represents the largest part of the nervous system and includes the brain and spinal cord. The PNS consists of all the other nervous structures that do not lie in the CNS. The large majority of what are commonly called nerves are considered to be in the PNS.

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is that part of the PNS that acts as a control system, maintaining balance in the body. The ANS controls and regulates all life-sustaining functions you don’t have to think about; it’s your ANS that keeps you alive when you are asleep or when you get knocked unconscious. The ANS is divided into two parts: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). It is these two branches of the immune system that we are interested in, so a brief description is in order.

The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is often called the ‘fight or flight’ nervous system because the SNS prepares the body to fight or run from danger. When the SNS becomes the dominant branch of the nervous system, blood is shunted away from the internal organs and into the muscles and the periphery of the body (the arms, legs, etc.) to facilitate action. Since there is an increased utilization of nutrients and hormones, as well as greater tissue destruction when the SNS is engaged, it produces a catabolic (break down) effect on the body. The SNS is dominant when you are exercising, working or doing something that requires increased delivery of blood to the muscles; this includes stress.

In contrast, the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is responsible for digestion and elimination and serves to regulate restoration, rebuilding and repair of the body, making it more anabolic (building/repairing). The PNS also stimulates immune function at night while you are sleeping.

It is important to realize that when the SNS is dominant, the functions of the PNS are proportionately shut down. Over time, over-stimulation of one system over the other can lead to clear-cut signs of imbalance:

SNS Dominance
PNS Dominance

Poor digestion/↓ salvation
Strong or excessive digestion

Constipation
Hyperactive bowel; colicky

Anxiety
Incontinence

↑ Respiratory/heart rate
Drop in blood pressure upon rising

Poor sleep quality; restless
Poor sleep quality; hibernation

Night sweats
↓ Perspiration

Orgasm/sexual inhibition
Genital stimulation/increased libido

Waking un-rested
↓ Respiratory rate

Nervousness e.g., restless/agitated
Nervousness; depression; somnolence

Jittery
↑ Mucus secretions

↑ Muscle tension
Hands warm and dry

↑ Inflammatory conditions
↑ Gag reflex

↑ Susceptibility to infection
↑ WBC count

When you are thinking about what kinds of exercise would be beneficial, first begin by looking at each of the indicators above; the more symptoms a person has under one system, the greater the relative imbalance between the branches of the ANS. Although even one indicator, when chronic, can indicate an imbalance of significance, it is generally reliable to assume that the greater number of chronic indicators you find, the greater the problem and the more critical it becomes to modify diet, exercise and lifestyle factors to encourage balance.

Balancing the ANS with Exercise

A general rule of thumb is that if you can’t perform an exercise comfortably on a full stomach, the exercise is stimulating your SNS. With that in mind, you can easily envision how the great majority of exercises serve to further stress the SNS; keep in mind that SNS stimulation keeps the body in a catabolic (breakdown) state. If you are stuck in a SNS dominance in response to the stressors in your life, exercises that stimulate the SNS will only serve to perpetuate an already dysfunctional situation. Many people experience this as poor sleep, illness, anxiety, poor digestion and/or increased muscle tension.

If you are in a SNS dominant state, focus on chi balancing exercises to help rebalance your nervous system; these include gentle yoga, Tai Chi, Qi-gong or simply walking.

As your system rebalances, you will be able to tolerate more and more SNS stimulation through exercise. Start with one or two compound exercises (full body, pushing/pulling), keeping the training sessions under 30 minutes and supplementing with stretches that specifically restore muscle balance to improve overall nervous system balance. When you see sleep quality, energy levels, mood and response to exercise improving in concert with a reduction of chronic SNS dominance indicators (from the table above) you can carefully add more challenging exercises and increasing exercise duration and intensity.

We must let go of the ‘no pain, no gain’ philosophy. Instead think in terms of ‘train, don’t drain!’, and listen to your body tell you what it needs to function optimally.