Suche
April is National Stress Awareness Month. As of this writing, the world is in the midst of a global pandemic and much of the United States is under lockdown orders. In other words, most people are undoubtedly aware of their stress levels right now. However, depending on your mindset, stress offers some potential benefits. Much like exercise is a physical stress on the body that makes it stronger, stress also has the potential to make us stronger and able to handle greater amounts of stress. Experts say the key is developing a mindset that stress can be beneficial.
Dealing with this current reality requires effective strategies for adapting to current stress levels and learning to adjust your mindset to achieve positive outcomes for you and your business. The good news is that if you exercise regularly, you already know a lot about how to adapt to and overcome stress.
Lessons from the military
Military special operations teams must work in some of the most stressful situations imaginable. They have developed strategies to overcome this stress and achieve their mission. As an industrial psychologist for the US Army, Dr. Jess Harmon with special operations teams and as a consultant for O2X, an organization that works with tactical athletes around the world. It helps individuals deal with stress that they feel in their work. When asked how to deal with current stress, Harmon points to adaptability as a key factor. Focusing on what you can control rather than what you can't can help you feel better and become more comfortable with the uncomfortable, says Harmon.
Here's an example: Think about a really hard workout you've done recently - it probably felt uncomfortable pushing your body to its limits, but how did you feel at the end? You probably felt relieved that it was over, but you may also have felt more confident that you could survive or even thrive on similar workouts in the future. You can apply this same mindset to everyday challenges by identifying ways to adapt to the situation and viewing it as an opportunity to improve your resilience by becoming stronger and able to handle greater amounts of stress.
An immediate strategy to adapt to the situation is to continue engaging with your customers through an online portal. Recently ACE held one Online panel discussion Identifying strategies for how health and exercise professionals can start an online training business. If you're feeling a little intimidated about offering in-person training through a virtual platform, take a look at this follow-up ACE panel discussion how to conduct an online training session.
Paul McCullough served as a Navy SEAL and is the founder of O2X. When asked how he dealt with stress while serving in the SEAL teams, he said being part of a team was critical to developing the confidence to handle extremely challenging situations. How does it feel when you train in a group? It may be extremely challenging, but when you see others experiencing the same challenge and working through it, you have the strength to do the same. With COVID19, take the following steps: How can you contribute to the team effort to flatten the curve? Wash your hands frequently, protect yourself at home, and wear a mask when running essential errands. These are all tasks that automatically make you part of the team working to eradicate this virus.
Mindset is everything
Dr. Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist at Stanford University who studies the effects of stress on the body. Dr. McGonigal gave a popular TED talk in which she identified key strategies to transform stress into a positive influence in your life. In her lecture she quotes a study found that if you believe stress is bad for you, it will be; However, the study also found that believing that stress can be beneficial changes the way people experience the effects of stress, including how your body responds.
Here's another way to look at the current situation: Think of this time as one long endurance workout. Yes, it's challenging on different levels, but you'll get through it and one day look back at how you survived. If you've finished a marathon, running a 5K isn't a big deal.
Stay connected
A common theme that McCullough shares and that of Dr. What McGonigal supports is that working as a member of a team or connecting with others can help reduce the effects of stress. One result of the shelter-at-home orders is that many group fitness instructors are quickly learning how to teach virtual classes on platforms like Zoom or Facebook Live. If you're feeling stressed and missing the feeling of leading your group training, reach out to your tribe about creating a virtual class. Think about how good you will feel leading a workout on Facebook Live or Zoom knowing that all of your regulars are following you.
By connecting with others through virtual platforms, we can share in the experience, which, as McGonigal and Harmon point out, is crucial to overcoming your feelings.
Stress is often an unavoidable part of modern life and recent events have created an extraordinary situation that very few of us have been able to cope with. A positive attitude is important. If you are responding to COVID19 by constantly worrying about how it will affect you, this could be a challenging time indeed. However, if you use the current situation as an opportunity to learn new skills by teaching courses through an online platform or starting an online personal training business, you will use COVID19 as a tool to strengthen your business.
For more information on dealing with stress, see Dr. McGonigal's TED talk on how to make stress your friend, HERE or listen to a current episode of the All about fitness podcast with Dr. Jess Harmon and former Navy SEAL Paul McCullough HERE.