KEY FACT: CHILLING OUT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO TO IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH

Intelligent exercise and nutritious eating are only part of the equation when it comes to overall wellbeing. In fact the physical effects of stress override all other signals in your body, so controlling stress and being chilled should be your number one priority in staying healthy. 

Stress of any kind produces the hormone cortisol, which would have been very useful to our wild ancestors as it prepares the body for a “fight or flight” reaction.  Your immediately non-critical systems close down (digestion, reproductive, immune) and fuel from anywhere, including your muscles, is turned into sugar in the blood for immediate energy – fantastic if you need to run away from a lion or fight a fierce enemy! However if you have constant pressure on you and are not able to exercise, cortisol will dictate the health of your digestion, sexual system, immune system,  how lean you are and ultimately your biological age.

Therefore, controlling cortisol is more important than training or eating well!!!

At Wildfitness our priority is therefore that you are in a relaxing environment with the balm of nature to take you away from your usual stressors, promoting calm and peace. This is also why the results people achieve on our Wildfitness holidays are so much more than simply the sum of the training and eating.

Some of the most important things to consider when controlling stress and becoming chilled are:

Over-training – Training too much is a form of stress. We monitor carefully whether you are over-training on your holiday course so that you don’t move into burn out, and we make sure you have plenty of opportunity to recover from the training we do. 

Sleep  - If you are not sleeping well, your daily cortisol fluctuations need to be considered.  Sometimes people have problems sleeping for the first few days in unfamiliar surroundings.  For those who continue to have problems it could be due to over-training, low blood sugar or weak digestion. If you talk to us about your symptoms we can help find the right solution for you.

Breathing well – Breathing is the major influence on your body’s physiological state of stress (the out breath promotes the parasympathetic i.e. rest / digest system, the in breath promotes the sympathetic system ie fight / flight).  Not only can we get a great objective measure of how stressed your body is, but on our holidays we can use our capnometer to train you to breath in a way that reduces stress and therefore cortisol.  The capnometer measures your CO2 output and has coaching tools to show you the ratios of in to out breaths and rate of breathing that chills you out the most.  After 10 minutes of this breathing you feel like you are floating in the clouds!  A great skill!

Being tribal – Bonding in a small group as we used to live in tribal groups is a very potent balm for emotional stress and good for deep peace.

Having fun – If you are having fun then you can’t be producing cortisol!  Simple!

Attitude – Maintaining focus and using your passion, purpose or drive to do this.  Maintaining awareness while you train and eat is the ultimate route to wild living.