Prep Baseball Report Minnesota is excited to team up with- The Mindstrong Project. Our goal in this endeavor is to continue to provide the most up-to-date pertinent information and resources to the baseball community in the state of Minnesota.

Periodically, The Mindstrong Project will be providing content for the Prep Baseball Report Minnesota website; as they continue to work to build human performance through education while building an awareness of how the mind and body work together to sustain a consistent confident approach to game performance.

In this month's installment; The MindStrong Project talks about RESILIENCE......

Hey everybody,

Since last month’s article a lot has changed. Seasons have been suspended, postponed, and cancelled altogether. I want to be sure that last month’s article didn’t offend anybody. I know that baseball is, indeed, many people’s livelihood – and thank goodness for those people. They’re probably some of my favorite people. They’ve dedicated their whole life to my favorite game.  However, I think the last couple of weeks have all made us keenly aware that there is a bigger picture in play here. Baseball can be ripped away from us in an instant. This simple fact, which has now become oh-so-real to all of us, should propel us to have a purpose beyond the game. A purpose that sustains us when everything else is taken from us. Something that empowers. Something that promotes growth, resilience, and meaning.

This month I was planning on discussing resilience in the context of baseball.  Given the circumstances, I’m going to shift and talk about resilience in the context of our health, aka our immune system and our body as an organism.  At the end it should come full circle and implications should be clear across all levels of life, baseball, and performance in general. 

 

Laws of Nature 

I want you to take a second to look at maybe the most underappreciated beauty of our world.  It is the fact that our world literally writes the blueprint for how to live.  It’s called the laws of nature.  Somewhere along the way, as a society, we’ve sort of lost touch with these laws.  Rather than natural remedies and ways of living, we have opted for the pill or the band-aid repair in the name of a quick fix, comfort, ease, and fast-paced lifestyle.  Hear me out.  It’s important to remember, like many laws, these laws aren’t here to punish us.  In many ways they lead us towards virtue, humility, and optimal performance.  We can try to beat these laws, but one way or another they will persist.  We may escape them in the short term, but they’ve stood the test of time. 

I always tell athletes and teams I work with, “Find nature before nature finds you.”  What do I mean by that?  If we don’t actively make nature a part of our lives, nature will find us on the back end in the form of illness, disease, cancer, anxiety, depression, obesity, emotional disorder, etc.  These laws suggest a sort of balance that is needed in life.  This balance exists in each and every area of our lives.  If we get too much or too little of virtually anything, negative consequences are likely to ensue.  So let’s take a look…

Too much sun = sun burn

Too little sun = lack of vitamin D, B12 (sadness/seasonal depression)

Too much water = bloated, heavy, cellular drowning

Too little water = dehydration, poor cellular function

Too much food = obesity/heart disease/you name it

Too little food = starvation

Too much oxygen = too much energy expenditure, stress

Too little oxygen = suffocation/not enough fuel

Too much physical activity = injury

Too little physical activity = use it or lose it/lack of growth & physical health, weakness/obesity

Too much social interaction = burnout

Too little social interaction = sadness/loneliness

Too much alcohol/drugs = hangover/withdrawal/dependence/lung cancer/cirrhosis/etc.

Too little alcohol/drugs = OK, maybe this one is up for debate

Too much sleep = lethargic/poor physical and cognitive function

Too little sleep = fatigue/poor function/inflammation/brain health at risk

Too much heat = heat stroke

Too little heat = hypothermia

Too much focus = exhausted resources/burnout

Too little focus = lack of direction/lack of growth

Too much pleasure = addiction

Too little pleasure = dull, unfulfilling life

Too much emotion = poor decision making

Too little emotion = lack of personal connection/fulfillment

Too much investment (Caring) = overreaching/lack of perspective

Too little investment = apathy/not best interest at heart

Too much stress = inflammation

Too little stress = lack of growth

 

OK, that’s enough.  There are hundreds of more examples we could do that relate to diet, biology, exercise, screen time, nature, and society.  One thing to remember:  We each have different genetics and experiences that have predisposed us to a certain tolerance for each of these laws of nature.  Put more simply, we are all affected by each of these laws differently.  Alas, we still cannot escape them.  Next, let’s dive into the mechanism that sort of signals we’re misaligned with these laws. 

 

Inflammation

Let’s not kid ourselves.  Inflammation is a necessary mechanism.  It is a good thing.  Inflammation is our body’s biological response to damage/danger within the body (immune system).  In order for our muscles to repair stronger after a lift, we need inflammation.  In order for that cut on your arm to heal, white blood cells need to rush to the site and repair the cut.  Thus the affected area becomes swollen and maybe even hot.  This is inflammation.  For our body to fight off infection and disease, white blood cells work together to defeat it.

In fact, this is why we get a fever.  The white blood cells signal that the body is under attack, the body starts to work extra hard (meaning higher output of energy: heat), and heats up so that blood flow can increase and the body can fight off the disease.  This is why a hot shower, a short sauna, or a light physical activity such as a short walk can be helpful when we have a fever.  The external increase in heat essentially gives our body a “break” from having to work so hard to produce heat, and therefore can conserve energy.  

OK, so what’s the problem with inflammation?  Well, chronic inflammation has now been tabbed as the number one contributor of basically every possible autoimmune disease, as well as cancer, Alzheimer’s, and many other conditions.  As with the laws of nature, there is a balance of how much inflammation is beneficial.  At some point, too much of the body attacking itself is harmful.  Makes sense. 

Most prevalent example: We shove processed food into our body and expect our body to know how to digest it.  Nope!  Our body doesn’t recognize it and thinks the food is an intruder, the stomach becomes inflamed, and now we have damage in the part of our body that produces and competes for the resource tryptophan – the main building block in serotonin, which is a chemical in the brain associated with happiness, well-being, and sleep.  Now we feel lethargic/sad/anxious/agitated/etc.  This is just one simple example with far-reaching implications.

When we aren’t adept at finding the balance in the laws of nature, we suffer.  Furthermore, when we aren’t adept at adapting to stress in a healthy way, inflammation finds us.  It’s a law of nature.  Inflammation is the body’s way of saying something is wrong or needs repair.  Stress is a direct result of inflammation.  If we become too inflammatory… our sleep, nutrition, physical durability, cognitive function, happiness and/or overall well-being will suffer.   This is the law of all the laws of nature.  It governs all the examples mentioned above.  Each of those examples funnel back to this primary concept. 

How easy is it to be a high performer in that scenario?  How easy is it to accomplish our goals and dreams when our body is attacking itself?  Remember, our body’s main goal is survival.  It’ll choose to focus on that rather than your motivation to lose weight, throw harder, or crush any goal you’ve dreamt up.

 

Bigger Picture

This pandemic, this quarantine, and this societal standstill is spurring change.  Hopefully we are realizing that the pendulum of humanity has swung too far in one direction.  The point is that we live in a pro-inflammatory society.  We have the sickest society we’ve ever seen.  I saw a tweet the other day that put it perfectly… we have a society where lack of health (heart disease, cancer, etc.) kills more people than violence does.  I wish that it was a tweet about how violence numbers have gone down, but it’s not.  It’s an indictment of how our health has plummeted.  What’s really unfortunate is that most of these culprits are silent killers.  We don’t notice a difference in our day to day life because it happens at a cellular level.  Then, one day, it’s too late.  All of sudden we’re heavier, we’re slower, we’re weaker, we’re injured, we get a bad diagnosis, etc.

I encourage everybody to rethink the concept of energy.  Your daily energy.  Instead of thinking about energy as some magical thing (some days it’s there and some days it’s not), think of it in terms of science.  Think of it in terms of your 8^th grade chemistry class. 

C₆H₁₂O₆ + O₂ = CO₂ + H₂O.

Remember balancing these equations?  This very equation is real.  This is happening in your body at all times.  This is cellular respiration.  Many other equations just like this are happening constantly in our body at all times.  All of these equations are a direct consequence of our interactions with our environment.  Our body’s ability to function relies on these equations.  When these equations don’t happen in the right volume, negative consequences occur.  Chronic inflammation occurs.  Immune function is compromised, and then we’ve lost our ability to optimally perform, fight infection, and think effectively.

I don’t ask that you remember these equations or what they even mean.  What I do ask is that we all grasp that our choices and our health are a direct consequence of one another to a large degree.  Not just conceptually, but through the very biology of our body. 

Now that I’ve demoralized everyone, it’s time for some good news.  We can increase our tolerance to stress.  We can decrease inflammation.  We can adapt to the busy lifestyle.  The answers are probably more simple than we make them: Spend more time in nature, eat a balanced diet that makes your body feel energized and strong, foster loving and fulfilling connections, expose yourself to environmental stress in a healthy way, sleep well, and breathe optimally. 

At The Mindstrong Project, these are the values we live by.  We try our best to listen to the laws of nature.  We aren’t perfect, but that would not be balance.  If you take the time to listen, nature will tell you how to live. 

I’m not suggesting that these laws of nature are a one-size-fits-all recipe.  I believe there is beauty in the fact that it’s not.  While most of the core principles are relatively stable, genetics and past experiences have molded our own personal recipe.  We all have a unique responsibility to find out what that recipe is for ourselves.  Because when we find it, life is exhilarating.  Life is full of energy, growth, fulfillment, and meaning.  It is where our ability to create amazing things and actually utilize our talents and our gifts to the fullest potential lies. 

Our breathing practices, mobile sauna & ice bath have numerous health benefits including decreasing inflammation, but they are also powerful tools in reconnecting with the laws of nature, silence, and ourselves.  If you feel inclined, we are here to help make health and wellness priority #1. 

As a final caveat, I struggle to find a scenario where too much of virtues such as love, hope, faith, and humility exist.  These things transcend the laws of nature because they go beyond the physical.  In fact, I contend that they aid in the decrease of inflammation due to the positive effects they have on our brain health.  During this uncertain time, let’s do our part to reconnect with nature and the optimal performer in all of us.  Allow the laws of nature to swing the pendulum back. 

“Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.” – Bernard Williams

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” – Hellen Keller

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan

 

The Mindstrong Project helps athletes, teams, and organizations in leveling up performance in multiple avenues.  We coach mindset training, breath work, and sauna/ice training.  Message us to learn more about our work, speak with your team or individual athlete, or participate in any of our events:

 

Email: [email protected]

Austin Hanson: (218) 770-4907

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