As the saying goes, “Don’t sweat it.”
What terrible advice.
The stress hormone, secreted by the adrenal gland – which is the speed in your fight or flight response, but also causes anxiety and fat storage – can only be purged by one of a few methods: urination, defecation, exhalation, and sweat.
Sure, you can detox and purge, drink a ton of water and pee all day, out breathe heavily until you pass out. However, one of the best ways to rid yourself of stress is to sweat it out.
I was reminded of this today, after a fairly crappy day at work, which left me feeling sorry for myself, stressed, dissatisfied, and generally unhappy. After taking a break, I taught my kids class and had much success with the drills and training. Afterward, my master had me lead the mixed class with the same drills. Needless to say, we sweat…we sweat a lot.
Kicking the bag at the dohjahng to the point where my insteps blistered (I had lent my shin/foot guards to one of the others) actually felt quite good (but was also an obvious sign of not my spending enough time doing conditioning pad work).
Today’s practice was a nice reminder of the following:
Stressed?
Here are your options:
- Get pissed off
- Get crappy
- Breathe
- Sweat it out
Someone tells you, “Don’t sweat it”?
No,
…absolutely, sweat it.
In Between Degrees 