Lately with all the focus being placed on getting the R6 into race ready condition, there has been a lack of focus on the health aspect of this website which I would like to address. The truth is that in preparing for being a Novice racer with WMRRA this year there has been a great deal of stress in finding out issues related to the bike, what still needs to be done and the financial aspect that continues to grow as more items require my attention. But is all stress necessarily bad stress? No, in fact, stress is important in order to lead a happy and healthy life. Studies have shown that small bouts of stress are actually beneficial and good for us. Our bodies produce adrenaline when we feel threatened which makes our brain function clearer and improves our metal and physical performance. In addition, our immune systems also benefit by moving your white blood cells to wherever they are needed in the body to combat infection, repair tissue and increase your body’s natural defenses. So let’s talk about stress…

As a society, we tend to view stress as negative, but it actually should be more about the degree of stress and how we respond to it. For example, when you are about ready to speak to an audience, that stress and rush of adrenaline you experience can actually help you, it can actually optimize your brain function, temporarily increasing your memory and focus. Short term stress unleashes an army of hormones which helps to clean out any potentially harmful pathogens, but there is a fine line between that periodic type of stress versus the the chronic type of stress such as a rocky relationship or financial issues. If those hormones linger for too long or are released in very large doses then the body’s immune defenses suffer, leading to inflammation and disorders like cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.

The key to stress being helpful or ultimately harmful is how you handle the recovery period right after the stressful event. If you let something minor like being stuck in traffic affect you all day (a chronic anxiety), even though you are no longer in it, you are more apt to experience the negative effects of stress on you mentally and physically. It is important to take the necessary steps to bring your heart rate and blood pressure back into balance as quickly as possible. We can’t avoid stress (wouldn’t that be amazing if we could), but we can control the way we react to it, we actually have more control over our well-being than we care to admit. So smile, even if you have to force it, it will actually make you feel better and bounce back quicker. Heck, it may make you look somewhat weird and make you laugh at the mere sight of yourself. How can you feel pissed when you smile, it is way too hard. Say we have a fight with our significant other, when we get stressed the estrogen in our brains releases cortisol for 24 hours making the memory of the spat more pronounced and harder to get out of our minds. The quicker you tend to make up after a quarrel, the sooner you eliminate the threat and the damaging effects it has on your body. Yes, make-up sex, causes a surge of oxytocin which you experience during the big “O” which in turns creates a closer bond between the two of you while lowering adrenaline and cortisol levels, need I say more? Stuck in traffic and stressed? Look at it as a chance to jam to your music and enjoy the extra time getting to your destination, shift your focus to something positive, make a phone call to a friend and catch up (on your bluetooth, of course). Recovery and a quick one at that is what will determine if the stress you experience will either help you or hurt you, so take that deep breath and let it go, things always work out the way they are supposed to. Besides being too stressed also leads to depression and in the words of my youngest son, “Ain’t no body got time for that” and I couldn’t agree more. Ride on ladies and flash those pearly whites!