Simply ignoring the stress in your life can cause it to snowball and take a physical toll.
Here’s how to deal with your stress when it starts to build up.
This post originally appeared onJames Clear’s blog.
It was my first year of graduate school and my professor was standing at the front of the room.
He was telling our class about a mistake he made years before.
They were in the middle of a massive national campaign and preparing for a major brand launch.
My professor was leading the operation.
The week before the big launch day, his body gave out on him.
He had to be rushed to the hospital.
Major organs had started to fail from thechronic stress.
Your Bucket of Health and Energy
Imagine that your health and energy are a bucket of water.
In your day-to-day life, there are things that fill your bucket up.
These are inputs like sleep, nutrition, meditation, stretching, laughter, and other forms of recovery.
There are also forces that drain the water from your bucket.
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The forces that drain your bucket aren’t all negative, of course.
But even positive outputs are stilloutputsand they drain your energy accordingly.
These outputs are cumulative.
Even a little leak can result in significant water loss over time.
The Theory of Cumulative Stress
The physical stress of my workout routine can also illustrate this idea.
I usually lift heavy three days per week.
For a long time, I thought I should be able to handle four days per week.
Why could I handle it for four or five weeks, but not longer than that?
Eventually I realized the issue:stress is cumulative.Three days per week wasa pace I could sustain.
When I added that fourth day in, the additional stress started to build and accumulate.
At some point, the burden became too big and I would get exhausted or injured.
The stress of extra workouts or additional mileage.
The stress of building a business or finishing an important project.
The stress of parenting your young children or dealing with a bad boss or caring for your aging parents.
It all adds up.
Keeping Your Bucket Full
If you want to keep your bucket full, you have two options.
Refill your bucket on a regular basis.
Let the stressors in your life accumulate and drain your bucket.
Once you hit empty, your body will force you to rest through injury and illness.
Just like it did with my professor.
Obviously, you don’t want to go this route.
Recovery is Not Negotiable
I’m in the middle of a very heavy squat program right now.
I’ve built a solid foundation of strength.
But even with that foundation, the weights on this program are heavy and the intensity is high.
Because of this, I’m taking special care to allow myself additional recovery.
I’m allowed to sleep longer than usual.
If I need to eat more, so be it.
Because recovery is not negotiable.
you might either make time to rest and rejuvenate now or make time to be sick and injured later.
Keep your bucket full.
Or, download his 38-page guide onTransforming Your Habits.
Photo byVal Thoermer(Shutterstock).
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