FATHERLY STRESS #3

Here is the FD framework of the stressor vs human stress response model that this fatherly progression has been working through…

To expand on the idea of “Event + Response = Outcome”, let’s look a bit deeper into what happens between the Event part and the Response part – at a high level. The brain’s main job is to control systems of the body – to keep us alive, and keep us connected. All of our thoughts, our feelings, anything we see and hear and sense and feel – this is all information, or data, that helps with the control and management of the systems of the body. The body then has to make sense of this data and appraise it – all in order to manage resources within the body that are needed to support the response at any given moment.

In terms of “stress” – this can be summed up as Resources vs Stressors. Just like a financial budget, which needs balancing and where we make deposits and withdrawals – we can think of our personal resources at any time as part of our “Body Budget”. All the systems in the body are resources, and the brain is trying to balance the budget against the incoming “data” or changes. Every action has a resource cost associated with it. When you make withdrawals, something needs to replenish this (foundationally this is eating, sleeping, breathing). The good news is what when the “account” is low, there are ways to increase the resources or balance of the body budget account and provide more margin of safety. This is what moves us toward resilience – or the ability to quickly spring back to a pre-event status.

Brains are simply just trying to make sense of the input presented (data from the body and data from the world), and they make sense of this by running it against past experiences, what we know, our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and all the mental and physical states and resources of the moment.

All “stress” is relative from person to person and nervous system to nervous system – it’s always a unique experience. What is constant for all humans is that EACH time there is an outcome, the brain relies on, and uses, that experience/information for next time. This is the power of “if it’s firing, it’s wiring” in action. This is also why child development can quite literally be boiled down to the building of a brain (hopefully a capable one).

Below are some new things to consider for the toolkit.

NOTICE

On building awareness of our bodies, stressors, and stresses – one of the leaders in this field is Dr. Jub Brewer. Dr. Brewer has been researching habits and addictions his entire career. He also has a unique perspective, as a neuroscientist, on how everything we do might be an “addiction” in some form [YouTube, 32min 3sec]. He specifically looks at how triggers, behaviors, and rewards turn less desirable behaviors into forms of worry and anxiety which can lead to less desirable habits – in order to seek shelter from the discomfort of anxiety and stress.

Since the Fatherly Stressors progression is about, well, stress… Dr. Brewer, through his research, has developed one of the few successful science backed approaches to anxiety reduction and for breaking bad habits (from sugar cravings to smoking to checking social media when you hit a hard spot in work… and everything in between). It starts with awareness building through a technique he calls RAIN, which stands for…

Recognize what is happening.
Accept/Allow that it’s happening.
Investigate what is going on in your body.
Note what is going on (the sensations).

Whenever you note a change in your state, a rise in emotion, a craving – recognize it, accept it for what it is, investigate why it might be happening, and note the internal sensations associated with it. Over time this kind of awareness building process helps the brain rewire itself away from undesirable responses. If this topic is of interest, read more about RAIN here [article, 5min]. The advanced RAIN will be covered in the next in this series.

MANAGE

Hopefully the last few months have allowed some time to focus on breathing mechanics and developing more efficient breathing patterns. These are foundations to having more control of the human stress response – backed mounds of scientific evidence. Breath control is stress control.

One thing to add to this is the idea of timing. WHEN we use breathe control matters. This applies in many situations, but timing is critical when it comes to RECOVERY. Recovery or regeneration is 1) how energy gets put back into the tank/budget after there has been a stressor, especially in the physical exertion domain – and 2) it’s how we give the body more information today in order to handle things better tomorrow – it helps the brain form better models for resource management.

Specifically with physical exertion – slow, exhaled emphasized breathing IMMEDIATELY after exertion ends will initiate recovery by lowering the heart rate, and balancing aspects of the nervous system. Josh Duntz of Stasis Performance says it much better in this 2min 57sec Instagram story.

The Mental Game

To uplevel management in the moment, we can look to the key differentiator in elite athletics – – – > mental performance (since they have trained their body resources). The cool bit is that elite athletes are humans too (mostly) and these approaches are applicable to all humans in upping the mental game.

If you have about 12 minutes and want a peek into the world of elite mental performance – this 10 part mini-series [YouTube] might interest you. It is an introduction to common mental strategies that can be built up for use in any situation, not just sport. Everyday life is a performance of sorts – especially when it comes to navigating the ups and downs of raising kids.

In the end, there are many ways for people to be more in control of their own mind and body. Yoga, stoicism, meditation, movement or martial arts, specific diets, eastern practices, spiritual paths, daily routines – these are all simply individual strategies/journeys that attempt to balance body budgets – and everyone must find their own approach. At the root, though, the foundations of biology apply to all… period.

BUILD

The quickest (not necessarily easiest) path to more resources is through the body – having margin or control.

As noted previously, the biggest bang for the buck comes from learning to value getting better sleep when you can, within the constraints of life with kids. The next is in shifting body management tools like breathing efficiency into day to day life. These are both forms of biological recovery. Spending some effort in those two areas can help with getting through the 8 month sleep regression, teething, and separation anxiety. Knowing the ways the brain and body works can help you, as well as them.

Finally, furthering the capabilities of the mind, from beliefs to values, must also include a discussion of feelings and emotions. This is a topic on it’s own, but in terms of building a more resilient system, it is useful to know that we have much more control than we often think we do. Modern science now has deep evidence for this, outside of disease and serious disorder. For your consideration is one of the leaders in this field, one of the world’s most cited scientists, Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett, and her Ted Talk on how the brain creates emotions [YouTube, 18min 23sec].

All of this is meant to help bolster our gear bags as we climb parenting mountain – for the time when we are pushed to the edge of intuition. We all take different paths, and pack different things, but having a buffer on the reserves will always help when we bump into those edges of being an adult.

FD20 introduced the concept of homeostasis – a critical component to understanding stress response. Homeostasis can be thought of as the state of equilibrium in the body where it functions in a stable and expected range. Stressors challenge, change, or shift our homeostasis – they poke the system. Thinking of this in terms of the Body Budget, like a financial budget – this is akin to a withdrawal. We can repay it back quickly, repay it slowly, go into default, or build a bigger balance. If we do this well, we build new abilities to tackle new challenges.

To understand how this works at a deeper level we have to look into how withdrawals from the budget are handled. The thing that helps homeostasis “spring back” is called allostasis. We can think of this as the bank manager handling all of the operations of homeostasis, planning and forecasting, checking inventory, watching external events – all at the control of the brain – keeping things in as best a range of operations as possible.

The pressure or load (size of the stressors or repeated stressors) that gets put on allostasis and it’s planning role – the more challenging it becomes to maintain homeostasis. This load could be small like running low on cash at the bank for a few days before the re-supply truck comes, or some shady employees mucking around. It could also be something more significant, like a bank robber, a hacker, or a global economic crisis. If the load gets too high, the entire thing can fail.

This load is called the allostatic load, and is like a rubber band. It has a rate of spring back and a range of springback, but when it is under load for too long, or overloaded, this system loses the ability to spring back – allostasis falters and homeostasis suffers.

These are just analogies to explain a very complex topic in science. In the end, allostatic load represents “the wear and tear on the body” which accumulates as an individual is exposed to repeated or chronic stress. Allostatic load is a cumulative marker of biological load. Too much load, for too long, it builds up and leads to a deterioration in the systems of the mind (psychological) and the body (physiological). High allostatic load is connected to many of the diseases seen in modern life.

While the load is impacted largely by things like perceived stress, it’s also shaped by environmental stressors, major life events, and early child experiences – specifically adverse childhood experiences – which shape how the brain wires up allostasis and can impact all future operations of the body and mind.

The challenging thing about allostatic load is that measuring it requires a blood draw for specific markers. It’s not practical to measure regularly.

This is why many people, especially elite athletes, turn to another relative body marker of load called heart rate variability, or HRV. Every time your heart beats it’s completely unique and has some variation to it. The variation in time between each heartbeat is known as heart rate variability. To learn more, Harvard Medical has a good blog post on the topic.

What piles of scientific research have shown is that a trend of higher HRV measurements (you can take these in the morning in 60 seconds) is a marker of better health while a trend of lower HRV measurements is a marker of poorer health. HRV has recently been tied to measuring the balance of the nervous system, if it is in more of a fight/flight mode (higher load on the body) or more of a rest and digest state.

I’m not recommending that one need to go and measure these things, but for general and relative markers of stress and biological load, these can be things to do from time to time. For the data driven or performance driven dad, HRV is fairly easy to measure these days. Products such as the Oura ring or the Whoop band measure this well. The iWatch can also do this – or you can get a gold standard measurement with a Polar ECG band and a mobile phone app like EliteHRV.

Overall, the goal here has been to shed some light on the way our brains and biology tend to operate. Knowing this kind of foundational information can often empower change, but at the very least, it can give valuable insight into how we might be able to build more resilient children who can live to their potential and find their passion and clarity in life.

This section has tidbits from around the web that are typically on Dads minds.

Book: Psychology of Performance

While this book is geared toward sport, if you choose to give it a listen, the principles apply to most aspects of life, especially if we consider life being one performance after another. This book is by Dr Eddie O’Connor, and I particularly like his acronym “WIN” which stands for “What’s Important Now”. It’s a solid mental model.

Postpartum Depression in Men

Studies indicate that somewhere between 10% to 25% of new dads go through some form of depressive episode in the first year of having kids. It’s more common yet discussed less, and happens later in the year. If feeling more irritable or anxious – Postpartum Men is one of the better online resources, as a place to start. Feeling overwhelmed happens. There is no harm in asking for help from a health professional.