Today is World Recovery Day. Recovery in common parlance means recovery from drugs, alcohol, or other addictions. But, the recovery of your heart also deserves equal attention, if not more.
By recovery, we mean cardiovascular recovery. Every time you are under physical or emotional stress, the heart takes a direct toll. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) which controls the functioning of heart and other organs prepares you for fight or flight. After the stress event, the body goes back to normalcy or recovery. This system evolved as a survival method and helped the primitive man to survive.
But today, the modern man constantly faces stress throughout the day. An average office-going employee today spends nearly 8 to 10 hours at his or her workstation. During a typical day, there would be meetings with the boss or clients, presentations, discussions, phone calls, etc. One can understand that most of these working hours would be stressful.
Our body is not designed to work under constant stress. It disturbs the normal functioning of our organs, especially the heart. But one cannot avoid work to eliminate stress as well. So, the only way to help the body is to induce recovery through relaxing activities. Activities like deep breathing, mindfulness, meditation, etc. are proven techniques that can be easily practiced during work hours to relax yourselves.
Below are the daytime stress profiles of two of corporate employees who routinely face high stress during work hours. These stress profiles are taken using Repose lifestyle assessment platform. Both have performed five minutes of deep breathing during their work hours. It can be noted that their heart rate and stress immediately reduced, and the body is in the recovery mode. The low heart rate persisted even after the deep breathing.
We hope that you devote at least 5 minutes of your daily time for some good cardiovascular recovery. A little self-care daily can go a long way!
