Come New Year, Come New Resolutions! With 2021 around the corner, most of us would have already begun either conjuring up new resolutions to defeat the old ones or would be dusting the old ones of 2020 to give them a new sparkle. From the epic resolution-fails of all time- “I’ll be early to bed” to “I’ll take just four cups of coffee at the office a day”, resolutions have sneaked their way into every corner of our lives. And fitness has never been an exception. In fact, “Exercise more” and “Lose weight” are among the top 10 resolutions of every year across the world!
Found Yourself Dropping Out Of Gym By The First Month? It isn’t an unusual sight to see the gymnasiums and workout places packed with people during the first week of every year. Almost everyone takes resolutions to stay fit and do more exercises in the forthcoming year. Unfortunately, these don’t last long and most quit even before the first month ends. A survey done by HealthifyMe revealed that 82% of those who take fitness resolutions fail by the end of the first week. A closer observation of these dropouts reveals that unguided workouts and an imbalance between the stress and recovery of the body are the major culprits. Finding ourselves more enthusiastic at new beginnings tempt us to exert our bodies to the fullest. And it is one of the gravest mistakes of beginners. For instance, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and 90-minute workouts may look promising to burn more calories in a short period, but we are blind to the fact that it burns the body to fatigue.
How do hard exercises and long workouts affect the body and mind? Fatigue causes an increase in cortisol, a stress hormone in the body. If not normalized, it eventually disrupts the body’s insulin sensitivity. Cardiovascular risks are also not uncommon. Also, there is a high chance for the muscles to be injured irreparably when subjected to high stress often. Squeezing in an hour of workout to the already jam-packed schedule doesn’t help your stress either. These negative results drain us out emotionally too. When these happen, you find yourself in the exact opposite state of what you had intended through workouts. You feel weak and weary instead of strong and afresh.
Here’s how to overcome these: RECOVERY. Proper and quality recovery is essential to your body as much as you need air and water. During recovery, your body re-boosts and replenishes itself after a day of stress and work. The human body requires a balanced stress-recovery pattern for sustainable wellness. Recovery doesn’t mean you rest your physical body but also your emotional stress for your body and mind to reclaim energy and get equipped for another day of exertion.
How do we ensure that our body gets quality recovery? Just as we ensure quality in everything we use or consume, it is necessary to make sure that our body gets quality recovery. Stress and recovery being highly subjective parameters, personalization is vital. And I found Repose to be a very handy tool to assess my stress recovery balance. The repose platform uses a chest-based wearable to quantify stress and recovery based on HRV (heart rate variability) parameters. The research-backed results provide the intensity levels of emotional and physical stress levels quantifying to high, medium, low, and no stress zones for a better understanding of the stress distribution patterns. Based on these stress intensities, Repose also estimates the amount of recovery required to balance your stress levels besides giving the actual recovery you have gained. Since most of the recovery happens during sleep, the Repose platform also does sleep staging and understands the quality of sleep rather than relying on the number of hours that you have slept. With this reliable information and actionable insights at hand, you can customize your workouts in tune with your body’s stress and state of recovery to achieve your fitness goals.
Sample stress quantification by Repose
Isn’t it a real advantage to track your stress and recovery no matter where you are! This way you can improve fitness and prevent fatal burnouts. Do NOT let yourself be driven blindly by any typical fitness plans, but take conscious and guided steps towards well-being. With such a go-to personalized guide as Repose, I’m sure you won’t fail your fitness resolution of 2021! Wishing you the best in tuning your lifestyle for positive well-being in the forthcoming year!
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