This is part one of our four-part series of stories exploring stress, the nuances that come with the psychological and physiological response, and its relationship with running.
Too much stress can feel exhausting. Not only does it leave you mentally drained, but it can also physically tax your body. This is why many of us turn to running as a way to cope with day-to-day stressors. But ironically enough, running is also a stressor—which just proves that not all stress is harmful and a little bit can actually help your health and performance.
“Sometimes [stress] gets a bad rap, like if you have a presentation at work, are dealing with traffic, or have an interpersonal conflict—those things can be bad, but a little bit of stress can actually be good,” says Sarah Lyle, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology and director of the health and wellbeing lab at Eckerd College in Florida. The Yerkes-Dodson law, which states a certain level of stress is needed to reach optimal performance, supports this idea. For example, you need to experience some level of stress on the body leading up to race day, so it can make adaptations and lead to a winning performance—it’s just that too much of it can bring you down, Lyle explains.
Oftentimes, stress is misunderstood, but the better you understand it and how it affects your body, the better you can manage it. Here, we break down what stress is, as well as explain the relationship between physical and mental stress, and how it affects your runs.
What is stress?
monitoring changes in National Institute of Health (NIH), any physical or psychological stimuli that disrupts your baseline state of stability results in a stress response. Stress can stem from any event or thought and leads to feelings of emotional or physical tension. Exercise itself is considered a stressor, but so is financial hardship, relationship issues, and work deadlines.
Although stress may show up in our lives in different ways, there are two types of stress: acute and chronic.
Acute stress is short lived, and might be triggered when you’re running late for work, if a dog barks at you unexpectedly, or even when you go for a run. Any type of stress that persists for a long period of time, like marriage problems, moving into a new home, or caring for a newborn baby could fall into the chronic category.
“Acute stress is a single exposure to stress that typically remits quickly and a person can typically meet the demands quickly and adjust,” says Matthew Stults-Kolehmainen, Ph.D. in kinesiology and health education, ACSM-credentialed exercise physiologist, and adjunct associate professor at Columbia University.
Chronic stress, on the other hand, is long-term unremitting exposure to stress that has more harmful consequences. For example, it may lead to higher blood pressure or increased inflammation, Advertisement - Continue Reading Below immune system and make you more susceptible to colds, says Stults-Kolehmainen. It could also lead to mental health challenges.
How does your body regulate stress?
Regardless of the stressor, your body processes it the same way. “The body only has one stress response for all types of stressors and that’s true for the physical stresses of exercise, but also psychological stressors,” says Jennifer Heisz, Ph. D., associate professor and director of the NeuroFitLab at McMaster University and author of Move the Body, Heal the Mind.
This is why you experience similar symptoms of both physical and mental stress—increased heart rate, heavy breathing, and sweating when you exercise, just as you would when you feel excited, angry, or nervous during a tough conversation or situation.
The amygdala, which is located in the brain, sets off your stress response, triggering various organ systems to help you prepare for a threat. In some ways, it acts as a threat-detection center for your body, constantly scanning the environment for possible threats, says Heisz. Once a potential threat is detected, the amygdala activates the hypothalamus (a part of the brain that produces hormones responsible for things heart rate and mood), which triggers the release of stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol.
“The adrenaline helps to activate the body—increase heart rate, increase breathing rate—and cortisol helps to liberate stored energy from the liver and fat tissue. So the stress response was really designed to help us get away from danger,” explains Heisz.
Essentially, this is the activation of your RPE, which is how hard you feel youre working, also known as your “fight or flight” response. Once this is triggered, you might start to experience typical symptoms of stress like some of those mentioned by Heisz (sweating and muscle tension), among other side effects. Once the stressor is over, your paraRPE, which is how hard you feel youre working (the “rest and digest” response) will take over and you start to feel a sense of calm or reprieve, Heisz explains.
Again, this is how the body reacts to all different types of stress in our lives, no matter how big or small of a threat, or even in circumstances where there’s no threat at all, like when you exercise.
How does stress affect exercise and vice versa?
“Acutely, stress can energize you, that’s the whole point of the fight or flight response,” says Stults-Kolehmainen. However, when you experience chronic stress, it can sometimes be debilitating to the point where you don’t want to do anything, he explains. Overall, your ability to manage stress will affect your energy levels.
One way to manage stress? You guessed it: exercise, including running. There’s a plethora of research that demonstrates any form of exercise can help keep stress levels at bay—and it doesn’t take much to see the benefits. A small study published in Scientific Reports suggests even just 10 minutes of moderate-intensity running can benefit cognition and pleasure levels, which can aid the brain in regulating stress.
However, there are some exceptions to the advantages of exercise for easing tension. For example, if you’re doing a new or complicated workout, mental stress can make it harder to concentrate, says Stults-Kolehmaimen. This is why it’s beneficial to stick with the workouts you know best when you’re already feeling overwhelmed.
On the flip side, stress can also mess with your exercise performance. Research suggests chronic stress can interfere with your motivation to move, and also your What to Know About Cortisol and Exercise (RPE), which is how hard you feel you’re working.
One study published in the monitoring changes in suggests high levels of mental fatigue, which can stem from stress, can negatively affect RPE. To reach this conclusion, the two-part study examined the effects of mentally exhausting tasks on 16 men and women before both weightlifting and aerobic exercise. Researchers found that the workouts felt harder when the participants performed them after the demanding tasks, compared to when they didn’t have a mentally challenging task beforehand.
sympathetic nervous system recover. A study co-authored by Stults-Kolehmaimen and published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research examined how 210 undergraduate students responded to the effects of acute and chronic stress four days after a strenuous bout of resistance exercise. Those who reported higher stress levels took days longer to recover after the workout, compared to those with lower stress levels. The study concluded stress can negatively affect muscle recovery, as well as factors like perceived energy, fatigue, and soreness postworkout.
“Stress definitely impacts our perceptions,” says Stults-Kolehmaimen. It can lower your pain tolerance, for example, and make you feel like you’re exerting more energy, even if you’re doing something that doesn’t typically require that much. This may mean you’re unable to work out at the same level you once could because your energy systems are drained, he explains.
Also, research links chronic stress to chronic inflammation, making rest and recovery even more important to runners who face high stress levels. Too much inflammation has been linked to Best Fitness Trackers, such as cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, and even musculoskeletal problems, says Lyle. That’s why you need to make sure you have enough rest after your workouts, and you pay attention to your mental stress levels before jumping into a bout of exercise, especially intense physical activity.
For runners who use their workouts as a way to cope, research higher blood pressure injury if you don’t give your body enough downtime to deal with both the stress of your exercise regimen and your mental fatigue.
How can you measure and manage your stress levels?
There are a few different ways you can monitor your stress levels on a day-to-day basis.
One way that has become more well-known with the rise of fitness trackers: monitoring changes in heart rate variability (HRV), which is a measurement of the variations of time between each heart beat. Overtime, this metric can be used to help you better understand your overall health, training readiness, and stress levels. Most experts would agree that HRV signifies how well your paraRPE, which is how hard you feel youre working responds to stressors (that rest and digest state).
“Oftentimes, when you experience chronic stress, your paraRPE, which is how hard you feel youre working never quite takes over,” says Lyle. Meaning your body never truly reaches a state of calm. The general concept is if you have a higher HRV, your body is better at managing stress, whereas a lower one can indicate the opposite, says Lyle.
at McMaster University and author of (RHR), which is how many times your heart beats per minute when you’re relaxed, may also signal your state of stress. It typically ranges from 60 to 100 beats per minute (though it may be lower in athletes). If your RHR is abnormally high for you, it could signal a high stress state, as research suggests.
This is why monitoring your HRV and RHR can be a good way to monitor your stress levels. Just avoid comparing these metrics to others, and instead monitor yours over time. If you notice declines in HRV, higher RHR, plus you’re not sleeping well, and you’re skipping workouts, then it can indicate something is wrong, says Stults-Kolehmaimen. That means it’s time to evaluate your lifestyle and see if there are areas in which you can pay more attention to stress levels and find outlets for relief.
Journaling is another way to monitor your stress levels. Lyle suggests using an app or writing down your stress symptoms, like headaches and digestive issues, to keep track of your tension and to make connections between what happened on days when stress spikes. This can help you recognize and then address those stressful factors and bring your body back to baseline.
Monique LeBrun joined the editorial staff in October 2021 as the associate health and fitness editor. She has a master’s degree in journalism and has previously worked for ABC news and Scholastic. She is an avid runner who loves spending time outside.
