We'll navigate the realms of distress and eustress, uncovering how the right kind of challenge—like cold water therapy—can fortify our mental and physical resilience. This isn't just about enduring the cold; it's about embracing it to ignite a surge of vitality and align with our deepest values for holistic well-being.
Turning the tide on everyday pressures, we'll map out the year ahead with strategies to convert stress into a catalyst for growth, whether you're leveling up your fitness regimen or scaling new heights in business. I'm grateful for every listener tuning in, your reviews, and the vibrant discussions you inspire. Together, let's push the envelope, not merely managing stress but mastering it, transforming our daily experiences into stepping stones for a life rich with purpose and passion. No guests this episode, just you, me, and the transformative power of our shared experiences.
We'll navigate the realms of distress and eustress, uncovering how the right kind of challenge—like cold water therapy—can fortify our mental and physical resilience. This isn't just about enduring the cold; it's about embracing it to ignite a surge of vitality and align with our deepest values for holistic well-being.
Turning the tide on everyday pressures, we'll map out the year ahead with strategies to convert stress into a catalyst for growth, whether you're leveling up your fitness regimen or scaling new heights in business. I'm grateful for every listener tuning in, your reviews, and the vibrant discussions you inspire. Together, let's push the envelope, not merely managing stress but mastering it, transforming our daily experiences into stepping stones for a life rich with purpose and passion. No guests this episode, just you, me, and the transformative power of our shared experiences.
How can you use stress to your advantage? So in this episode, what I want to talk to you about is stress and understanding stress, and I want to talk specifically about cold water therapy and how that can really help you in terms of, first, alleviating stress, but also being able to use that to your advantages as a tool. Yesterday I went for a cold water swim with a friend of mine in Ludin Beach in Donegal, and yesterday was pretty cold, it was freezing actually but it was beautiful. It was really, really beautiful. The sun was just kind of dup and down. It was beginning to set. As we went for a swim, people were walking on the beach. It was like a summer's day, only it was around 3 degrees 2 degrees, 3 degrees so it was absolutely stunning. It was absolutely beautiful. And here's the truth a couple of hours before I was thinking I don't know if I want to go, I was starting to get comfortable. I was kind of chilled out, I was relaxing.
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It was a Sunday and all the wee thoughts and all the reasons why I didn't have to go started to pop up. And, truth be told, I haven't really been doing cold water therapy as consistent as I was the last time that I did. It was a crawfish burn with a rising tide. With Kier May, I did a talk for Kier that morning and we went for a dip first and it was fantastic. But I haven't done a cold water swim since then. Now I used to be in at least 2-3 times a week in the sea and really, really enjoyed the benefits of it, but it was a practice that I kind of just slacked on over the last few months. So yesterday was a really good reminder for me of how powerful that tool is in terms of actually giving you that feeling of aliveness, giving you that feeling of balance, being grounded in nature first and foremost, and helping you understand and balance out stress in a good way.
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So when we look at stress, sometimes it's something that we want to shy away from, we think that we shouldn't have it, we think that we want to avoid it or we need to avoid it, and we can for sure, because what I'm going to explain is there's two different forms of stress. One is distress and the other form of stress is you stress. So distress, as we know, over a period of time, chronically, is going to be bad for us. So what are factors that lead to that? Well, factors that lead to us being stressed and instead of this stress, or a mind and a body, over time that will be in a state of disease. So it's basically a mind and body that's not at ease.
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Things that lead to that are us not being ourselves, as in we don't live in our highest values, we live in lower values. We don't feel inspired or we don't feel like we're on purpose. We're lacking, maybe, meaning in what we do. We're not being authentic to ourselves. Maybe we don't feel inspired in our work or our job or career. Other things that lead to distress is obviously low quality pernutrition, not hydrating properly, lack of sleep, lack of exercise. Our environment, etc. Can also play a major part in that. Who we surround ourselves with, who we listen to, what we listen to, how we breathe, can also be a stress to the body. Are we chronic mouth breathing? Do we breathe through the nose? So there are a lot of different things that we can look at that cause stress or distress.
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Now we also have another form of stress which is completely different, and that is eustress. So eustress is wellness permitting. So eustress is when we're doing something that we actually really want to do, when we're living in our highest values, when we feel inspired, when we feel most focused, when we feel more authentic, when we're more balanced within ourselves, when we're in, maybe, a positive work and productive environment. Other things that are wellness permitting and lead to eustress is meditation, nature and grounding, which is what I got yesterday all in one go from getting into cold water therapy or, sorry, getting into cold sea. So you're getting nature, you're getting grounded, you're already going on the meditative state because you're not thinking about anything else, you're just constantly seriously just thinking about controlling your breath and controlling your shelf and the water and the cold. So all of those things can lead to eustress, which is promoting wellness. So for me, I want to talk today about cold water therapy specifically and why or maybe not why but For you to look at something that you could maybe implement different this year.
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If you've maybe never tried it before, maybe have tried it before, maybe do use it as a consistent practice. If not, what I would say is give it a go this year, just to see how it makes you feel. Give it a go this year to maybe do something different, because if you're listening to this podcast and there's a 99.9% chance that you're interested in growth, that you want to improve, that you want to improve partially in your performance, you want to improve in your business performance. If you want to improve in your business performance or if you want to improve in life in general, then you have to look at how you can improve yourself and how you can actually be better by performing better, by looking after yourself better, both physically, mentally, emotionally. When we do things like quote water therapy or we do things that challenge us, then we get growth from it.
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We can use stress to our advantage. So getting into the cold water isn't comfortable by any means. It's not comfortable at all. It's a stress to the body, but it's a hermetic stress, and hermetic stress basically means it's stress for a short duration, it's a short period of time. So there's loads of different benefits to cold exposure. Loads of different benefits in terms of how it benefits the body.
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I'm going to go through a couple with you here. Number one, first and foremost, is fear. When you start to overcome those fears, when you start to look at those things that you're fearful of, you're being challenged by, and you start to actually face them head on, then that's facing like if you're getting into an ice bath, you're getting into the cold sea. It's not comfortable, it's not easy and it can be really challenging and fearful for a lot of people. Some people have to come over maybe a fear of anxiety or they don't know what they expect, how it's going to feel, etc. So by doing those things, we can learn to control the mind, we can learn to overcome those fears and we can learn to overcome those challenges. Also, what it does is it teaches you to become more conscious with your breath. So when you become more conscious with your breath, then you can learn to overcome stress. You can learn to overcome those feelings of anxiety or worry, because you're now learning to tap into and be more conscious with your breathing.
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And when you get into cold water whether that is a shower, whether that is an ice bath, whether that's in the sea or a lake, whatever it might be one of the tools that you can use most effectively to help you balance and enjoy that experience is your breath. So when we control our breath properly, we can balance out our nervous system and we can control the stress response. Toujours ocur shower, shout out, be positive, or maybe you can be a great teacher. So thanks a lot. Good, if you're already now linking these to your work, your career, your business. So overcoming certain fears, facing them head on and moving towards them. Now you're using the power of your breath, whether you are in a stressful situation, whether you're being challenged, whether you maybe have feelings of anxiety, etc. Well, if I become more conscious of how I'm breathing and I can actually control my breath, then I can control that stress response.
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So all the benefits from cold water exposure is your circulation, how it improves your blood flow, etc. Because it improves more of a vascular tone. You get vasoconstriction and vasoc dilation from being in cold water, so it's improving your circulation. Also, how it improves the mind. So improved mental focus, improved mental health overall, because we get a prolonged release of dopamine after cold water, which makes us feel good, we feel happier, we feel more content and we get that for I think studies have shown for at least 2 to 3, maybe 4 hours after cold water. So you're still getting that release of dopamine that's making you feel good. And then obviously it can also improve immunity, improve your immune system, strengthen your immune system, etc.
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Because you're challenging yourself, you're challenging your body, you're putting your body in an uncomfortable situation. You're putting your body and your mind in an uncomfortable situation. But if you can put your body and your mind in an uncomfortable situation, that's very, very challenging, like sitting in cold water, and you do that a few times a week and how does that transfer in the other day? How does that transfer in all the other obstacles you've made face, all the other hurdles you've made face, all the other challenges that you're going to face in your life, in your business, etc. How does that transfer into that Massively? It transfers massively because you can now use the exact same tools. You can now use the exact same tools. You're putting yourself into those positions so you're building those calluses.
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So if you go to the gym and you've just been started at the gym, what'll happen a lot of the time is when you begin to lift weights or barbells or dumbbells, you'll see that a lot of times you can get calluses in your hands so the skin might tear. And the skin might tear away at the start because it's just not used to it, and what happens is the skin starts to adapt and the skin grows back thicker and stronger and grows back thicker and stronger and you build those calluses in your hands and just like you build those calluses in your hands, you can build those calluses in your mind. You can develop more resilience, you can develop more strength, you can learn how to balance stress, you can learn how to use stress to your advantage, can proceed towards where you want to be or handle all the situations that you might face in a more constructive way. So if we use and understand stress isn't something that you need to avoid, it's something that you can lean into in a more beneficial way and it's a tool that you can use to help improve your mind, your body physically, emotionally and it's a tool that, if you use it wisely, also can benefit you massively in your life in general, but especially in business, because all of those things are directly transferable in their everyday life and in their business also, because when you get challenged and when you get stressed and when you get worried, you have the tools there. You have the tools to be able to use to bring yourself back under control again, the overcome affairs, to be conscious of your breath, to improve your mind and also your immunity.
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When you're stressed over a long period of time and you're not handling those things well, that weakens your immune system. But if you're challenging yourself on a consistent basis by using hormatic stressors like cold water therapy or exercise or yoga or whatever it might be they're all beneficial in this way then it improves you as a whole. And if you're under arrest in person performance this year, if you're under arrest and really stepping up this year and being more of yourself, then don't shy away from those challenges. Don't shy away from them. Lean into them. Lean into them and see how you can grow. Lean into those challenges and see where it gets you, because maximum growth occurs at the border of support and challenge. All support makes you weak. All challenge can make you weak. We need both. We need both to grow.
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So when we look at it from this point of view, you can use those things to really catapult you even further this year. You can use those things to help you improve yourself psychologically, physiologically and emotionally. So yesterday, when I came back from that cold dump, it felt fantastic, it felt good and it made me realize that a lot of the times we sit and we let all those we thoughts creep in. We let all those we thoughts and the reasons why we don't need to do things and we validate them for ourselves and we let them creep in. But so often they'll creep in and they'll take over and you'll not get off that sofa or you'll not go to the gym, or you'll not take the cold swim or you'll not do the cold shower. Because you listen to that voice instead. You listen to that story instead.
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So, to quote Jim Rowan, he said success is easy, but it's also hard, because the easy things they do are also easy not to do. So it's easy to get up out of your bed a half an hour earlier every single morning. It's also easy to pull the quilt over your head. It's easy to go a walk or hit the gym. It's also easy not to do it. It's easy to send a text or an email or reach out to a prospect. It's also easy not to do it. So the things that are easy to do are also easy not to do, and a lot of the times that's the difference between someone that gets there where they want to be or doesn't.
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Okay, guys, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I hope you can lean into your challenges and you can use stress to your advantage. This year, this podcast, hopefully, has given you a different perspective on stress. They understand stress a bit better, looking at your stress, looking at the stress, but also just to use those different types of stressors in your daily life to your advantage. They understand yourself better. They use different tools that you can implement into your habits and implement into your fitness regime, implement into your business. They can give you an advantage in 2024. As always, guys, if you're enjoying this podcast, I would appreciate it. If you can give me a review, you can leave a comment, you can share it with your friends in social media, etc. It really helps me know that I'm offering good advice and that it's helping you here less than in, but it also helps me to help grow the podcast also. Okay, guys, speak soon. Bye.