Athletic performance isn’t just about physical strength and endurance; much of your athletic performance is influenced by stress, cortisol, and mental well-being. As a functional medicine practitioner and former Division 1 athlete, I’ve seen firsthand how these elements can impact recovery in athletes and gymgoers. In this blog, we will walk through the relationship between stress, cortisol, and mental wellness and how they contribute to poor recovery in athletic endeavors.
The Stress-Cortisol Connection
When you think about stress, it is important to consider it in various contexts, including internal and external stressors. As an athlete, additional stressors include pressure to perform, intense training schedules, or personal stressors outside of sports. These stressors impact the body’s response to stress and play a significant role in recovery.
When we experience stress, the body releases cortisol, often called the “stress hormone.” Cortisol is often seen as bad, but it is essential for regulating energy levels and managing stress. Chronically elevated levels of cortisol create chaos in the body. In athletes, prolonged periods of high cortisol can impair recovery by hindering muscle repair, suppressing the immune system, and promoting inflammation.
The Impact on Recovery
Poor recovery can manifest in several ways for athletes and gym-goers.
- Muscle Fatigue and Soreness: High cortisol levels can delay the repair of muscle tissue damaged during exercise, leading to prolonged muscle soreness and fatigue.
- Increased Risk of Injury: Chronic stress and elevated cortisol levels weaken the connective tissues and decrease joint stability, increasing the risk of injuries such as strains, sprains, and stress fractures.
- Slower Adaptation: Adequate recovery is crucial for the body to adapt to training stimuli and improve performance. Prolonged stress can impede these adaptive processes, resulting in stagnant progress and plateaued performance.
- Mental Burnout: Aside from the physical implications, chronic stress can also take a toll on mental well-being, leading to burnout, decreased motivation, and even symptoms of anxiety and depression.
How to Optimally Recover
Through the scope of a functional medicine practitioner, it is important to emphasize a holistic approach to optimizing recovery in athletes and frequent gym-goers. It is important to look beyond just nutrition and consider other ways to optimize your recovery after a hard workout.
- Stress Management Techniques: Incorporating stress-reducing practices like mindfulness meditation, deep breathing exercises, and progressive muscle relaxation into your routine can be very beneficial to lowering cortisol levels and promoting relaxation and recovery.
- Prioritize Sleep: Sleep quality is essential for recovery and overall well-being. Aim for 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep per night and create a conducive sleep environment by minimizing screen exposure. If you find yourself not responding to melatonin or have trouble falling asleep, you will want to understand the root cause. Schedule a free consultation with us!
- Nutrient-Dense Diet: It is important to fuel your body with whole, nutrient-dense foods that support recovery and reduce inflammation. Focus on lean proteins, colorful fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates that provide essential nutrients your body needs to repair and rebuild. It is important that our gut microbiome is comprised of what we eat. If we eat foods that cause inflammation in the body, it can impair our gut microbiome. When that happens, we are more likely to have increased inflammation throughout the rest of the body and even increased cortisol levels.
- Hydration: Staying hydrated with electrolytes and water throughout the day, especially before, during, and after exercise, can be very helpful in repairing the body. Dehydration can exacerbate the stress response and impair recovery. The integration of minerals in very important; just drinking plain water alone can wash away essential minerals that help to add energy channels to our channel along with many other essential processes in the body.
Putting it all Together
Optimizing recovery is essential for athletes and frequent gym-goers to achieve their performance goals and maintain long-term health and well-being. By addressing the interconnected factors of stress, cortisol levels, and mental wellness through holistic lifestyle interventions, you have the ability to recover effectively and accomplish your goals. Through the functional medicine lens, you allow yourself to prioritize self-care, replace imbalances, and listen to your body’s cues on your journey to optimal performance and recovery. If imbalances are not addressed, achieving optimal performance and recovery is challenging, and increased inflammation is produced, leading to injuries and long recovery times. If you have any questions about rebalancing your body, schedule a free consultation with us to accomplish your performance goals.
