Movement is the Key to Life: Good and Bad Stress (eustress and distress)

Movement is the key to life. From an evolutionary perspective, our bodies are meant and programmed to move. Our bodies are like machines and we are animals by nature. We have 4 necessities: food, sleep, going to the restroom, and moving around to do all this.

Back in prehistoric times, man had to migrate from place to place, catch or hunt for his food, and fight or flee their predators. This "fight or flight" response is programmed into our bodies from the beginning. We can either fight or flee our predator, what happens? Our bodies release adrenaline (epinephrine and nor-epinephrine) from the adrenal glands which sit atop the kidneys. When this happens there is an increase in blood pressure, heart rate, strength, speed, agility, and focus. People have been known to perform incredible feats of strength under stress where their or someone else's life is in danger. This flight or flight adrenal response is brought on by stress. Our daily stress is no longer like that of our ancestors. Our stress now comes in the form of being yelled at by our boss, teacher or coach, or having things to do for work backed up, or having family problems. There are two different kinds of stress: eustress (good stress: exercise, laughter, carefree things—hobbies, meditation.) Distress (bad stress: boss or someone yelling at us, etc.). To deal with distress on a daily basis, it is important to include eustress in your life, especially in the form of movement, to help us deal with those distresses. Here's why: When we exercise or get our heart rate up by placing a good stress on our bodies, it causes the body to release adrenaline to support what you're doing. We can determine our physical fitness levels by a lot of different methods, but one of the best is seeing how fast your heart rate can come down after it has gone up to a certain % of your max heart rate (the formula for max heart rate is 220-age+-7). The faster the heart rate drops the better conditional that person and their heart is. This is the reason that placing eustress on the body helps our body to be more capable of handling distress because almost the same physiological response happens in the body. THE BODY IS MEANT TO MOVE! MOVEMENT IS THE KEY TO LIFE, LONGEVITY AND VITALITY!