Kill Your Comfort Zone

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You're soft. Admit it, you are! And so am I…

We all are.

In 2015 we have every comfort, privilege and benefit that one could ever imagine. We have GPS, Google, Uber, Smart phones, Smart cars, cars that park themselves, butt warmers in said cars, instant everything, organic everything and skinny venti no foam no whip iced mocha lattes. Our Spartan forefathers would be amused.

Yet despite our access to these luxuries, fear not….all is not lost. Our primitive programming is certainly alive and well and calling for stimulation, we just need to tap into it. Consider Joe Desena, founder of Spartan Race. Desena is a huge advocate of pushing our limits as human beings and tapping to into the needs that we have as primal creatures. He (along with other creators of similar obstacle races) has built a million-dollar business around the idea that despite all of the present-day comforts that we enjoy, there is a need for us to step away from those comforts in order to grow, achieve and fulfill the basic craving we have to feel challenged and alive. Joe does multiple things every single day to pull himself out of any type of comfort that he might enjoy, and pushes himself to get better. By doing this, he drives his Spartan Race community in the same direction (take a listen to his podcast – great interviews with interesting people).

Consider CrossFit! One of the main reasons that it is so effective and impactful is because whenever you walk through the front door of your CrossFit gym, you are guaranteed to become uncomfortable. Repetitive discomfort is a great prescription for improvement.

As Nietzsche said, "Praise be what hardens us"

So let's all move out to the woods, hunt some caribou, give up toilet paper, light a fire and get caveman up in this piece?!?!? No, not exactly. Modern technology is amazing, and there's no reason that we shouldn't benefit from it.

But that doesn't mean that we allow ourselves to get too comfortable. And certainly, many of us are doing something about this right now!  We are showing up to CrossFit a few times per week, we have done a Spartan Race or Ruckus or a Tough Mudder, and that's great! All I am saying is let's build upon that.

By doing CrossFit we challenge ourselves every time we show up, which is awesome. But we can certainly do more, and periodically at the Kells we will be issuing "comfort" challenges to our community toward that end. They will be fun (most of the time), they will get difficult, and they will definitely make you stretch your comfort zone and test your resilience.

SO....with that, our first Kells Comfort Challenge can be summed up in two words:

Cold Showers.

We are offering a five day cold shower challenge to all Kells members. If you participate, it means that you will not be taking anything but a cold shower for five straight days (beginning Monday, March 30th). You must last all five days, and no hot (or even LUKEWARM) showers. Whoever is left after five days, we will pick a name out of a hat, and the winner will receive either a brand new pair of Reebok Nano 4.0 Crossfit shoes, or the new Nike Metcon 1, your choice. The only requirement is that all participants post on the CFK daily WOD/Blog to log their activity (i.e. the fact that you took your cold shower that day). And yes…this will be honor system – of course we trust you! Plus it’s not scalable to have VanHaur test the water temperature for everyone’s shower….he has a day job!

Sooooo....why cold showers??

Glad you asked. There are many benefits to this challenge, so let's break the two biggest ones down.

#1 This is an excellent mental toughness exercise. 

Is this difficult? You bet it is… It sucks! And you will have a million excuses going through your head about how stupid an exercise this is when that water first hits you. You will rationalize that a pair of sneakers is not a good reason to justify torturing yourself for a few long minutes. But this is not about shoes… It's about intentionally putting yourself in a difficult, uncomfortable situation and pushing through it. After the first day, on days 2, 3, 4 and 5, you will dread the experience. And that's the point.... pushing past that feeling and doing it anyway. This is a great example of how you can test, develop and hone mental toughness.

#2 The physiologic benefits of cold showers are substantial, including:

* Improved circulation. Good blood circulation is vital for overall cardiovascular health, and cold water causes your blood to move to your organs to keep them warm. Cold shower proponents argue that stimulating the circulatory system in this way keeps them healthier and younger looking than their hot water-loving counterparts.

* Relief from depression. Many historic greats suffered bouts of depression.  Henry David Thoreau is one such man, but perhaps Thoreau’s baths in chilly Walden Pond helped keep his black dog at bay. Research at the Department of Radiation Oncology at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine indicates that short cold showers may stimulate the brain’s “blue spot”- the brain’s primary source of noradrenaline — a chemical that could help mitigate depression.

* Keeps skin and hair healthy. Hot water dries out skin and hair. If you want to avoid an irritating itch and ashy elbows, turn down the temperature of your showers.

* Strengthens immunity. According to a study done in 1993 by the Thrombosis Research Institute in England, individuals who took daily cold showers saw an increase in the number of virus fighting white blood cells compared to individuals who took hot showers.

* Increases energy and well-being. A cold shower gets your heart pumping, and the rush of blood through your body helps shake off the lethargy of the previous night’s sleep. The spike in energy can last several hours.

Make no mistake, this will be a shock to the system (especially if you have never done this before). Probably the most important thing to remember:  breath control. This is cold water, and your nervous system is programmed to react a certain way to the stimulus. When exposed to the water, your breathing will be increased and shallow. Your job is to override that reflex, slow your breathing down, and take deeper breaths.

Most importantly, this exercise is about a commitment to doing something. Your inner dialogue will tell you how dumb of an idea this is, and "who cares what they're doing down at the gym", or "screw this…I'm warming up".   Examine the excuses that you tell yourself before getting in the shower about why this is not a good idea. Examine that inner dialogue that is trying to talk you out of doing something to which you have made a commitment. Does that pattern mirror anything else? Is it similar to you talking yourself into or out of any other situations in life (a job change, a relationship, a habit , etc.)? On the flipside, this is an opportunity to commit to something, and to follow through. Never underestimate the value of that.

Finally, if this particular challenge is not for you, don't worry. We will be doing more of these in the near future. Additionally, you can do your own challenge! Perhaps you can do your own version of the cold water challenge by just turning on the cold for 10 or 20 or 30 seconds at the end of your regular shower. Or you could do something completely different: Meet three new people every day for five days. Turn off the TV at 8 o'clock at night every night for a week. Start the first progression of a challenging movement at the gym that you've been avoiding. Reach out to somebody that you do not know in your field of expertise (or one that you would like to get into) and introduce yourself. Ask them a question, and develop a dialogue.

The possibilities are endless here….but what we are trying to do is turn comfort on its ear. Kill routine.

So there it is, Kells peeps…the Cold Shower Challenge. We hope you jump in on this, as we are sure about the positive results that will follow.  Message me or confirm with us at the gym by March 29th that you are IN! You will be happy that you did.

-Mike

Check out this reference video/article, or just Google the benefits of cold showers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb0h8ZKvJW4

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/01/18/the-james-bond-shower-a-shot-of-cold-water-for-health-and-vitality/

Kells Blogpost: America’s #1 Health Problem (and what you can do to avoid it)

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Here at the Kells we will constantly be delving into, dissecting and trying to improve upon the three universal pillars of health: Diet, exercise and sleep. These three areas are the foundation on which healthy living is built, and regardless of what kind of fitness you are into, you should care very much about where these three pieces fall within your spectrum of wellness.

Now, while these pillars may not be new concepts to anyone reading this, the little secret here is this: THE most important of the three (by far) is the one that gets consistently ignored on a nightly basis by more than 100 million Americans.

Sleep.

I know….change the channel, right? It’s sexy to talk about fitness regimens like CrossFit. And it seems that people get swept-up in a new “miracle” dieting fad every few years. But SLEEP? BORING. I get it…but ignore these facts at your own risk.

Sleep is actually even a dirty word in some circles, isn’t it? Gordon Gekko never slept (or ate lunch). Governator Ahhhhnold Swarchenegger tells us that if we want to get ahead in life, we need to hurry up and “sleep faster”. We have years of social programming embedded in our collective psyche telling us that we have to sleep less to achieve more. And nothing could be further from the truth.

According to sleep expert Dr. Kirk Parsley (see link below), chronic sleep deprivation increases the risk for almost every single major disease state, including cancer, heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure and depression. The biggest problem, though? NONE of us believe that we, as individuals, are affected by this.

In all likelihood whoever is reading this right now believes that they are not impacted by a lack of sleep. We all think we feel fine…and that might be true! IF you are getting 7-9 hours of sleep every single night. If you are not (like the vast majority of Americans), then you probably have some work to do.

“But I’m busy!! I need to unwind at night! I have a crazy schedule!”

Some of the most hard driving, successful, busy individuals in the world get 8-9 hours of sleep per night, because they know that it is critical to do so. The difference between them and the person who gets 6 hours per night? The perception of sleep. In the information age, sleep is treated as a luxury rather than a necessity. We now have the tools in place to work 18-20 hour days, so we go for it. Gotta get that big promotion. Gotta climb the corporate ladder!

Nope.

We are not machines. Our cells have clocks embedded in them that refuse to conform to our desire to get less sleep. Further, our primal “hardware” is not even equipped to handle our society as it currently exists (the elements/stimulation that we are now exposed to on a daily basis). Our “Tribe Size” is too big (thanks to Facebook, Twitter, etc), and we biologically can’t handle it.  

But we still stay up just a little later anyway. We check the news feed. We unwind from the day with a little Duck Dynasty. And it’s hurting us.

 

The Science Behind Sleep

 

Despite the fact that most of us would like to flip a switch and be asleep, we know that it is not that easy. Sleep is a process…there is no active mechanism to turn it off and on. It is simply the absence of adrenal function. And when our normal circadian rhythm is in-synch, we see a healthy release of cortisol, which is a steroid hormone that our body releases to suppress the immune system (we want this) and aid in the metabolism of fat, protein and carbs.

Understand, though, that there are different levels of sleep that we attain throughout the night, and the money-maker for us is deep sleep. Deep sleep takes place at various intervals of the night (picture a mountain range chart…and the deep sleep “valleys” take place earlier upon initial sleep, with the duration gets shorter as the night goes on). It is best at about 2 hours in. Here, we see a huge benefit in the generation of testosterone, growth hormone (a phenomenal fat burner) and immune system benefit. In fact, the benefits of deep sleep are many, including better: body composition, memory, cognitive speed, healing, strength, endurance, decreased inflammation, hormone release and mental simulation (executive function/decision making).

….so yeah, it’s kind of important.

And by the way, The #1 predictor of how much will power you have (or put another way, how to best optimize your own will power) is how much you sleep. Let’s repeat that one…

The #1 predictor of how much will power you have (or put another way, how to best optimize your own will power) is how much you sleep.

Guys, I hope you’re grasping how important this stuff is. If you're joining us at the Kells, and if Crossfit is part of your fitness regimen, then your intent is probably to get “better” on many fronts. To get healthier. And if this is the case, then you are overlooking something extremely critical to your goals if you are not getting enough sleep.

If you tell me that you're serious about a healthy lifestyle, about improving all aspects of your life, or even just about getting a little better from a wellness perspective...but you are not serious about your sleep? Then I would have to respectfully disagree with how serious you are. We cannot realistically expect to repeatedly PR our deadlift, or to get those elusive double unders as fast as we want them, or kill it at the office, or have our bodies do what we want them to do and perform the way we want them to perform if we can't execute on one of the most basic yet extremely critical components of a healthy lifestyle. You have to get 7-9 hours of sleep per night….period. And this is not a soap box – ALL OF US struggle with this. But it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do something about it.

 

NOW WHAT?

 

So how to begin? Like any lifestyle change, especially one that is difficult to achieve, we do it slowly. We commit to it. You most likely are not going to start getting an extra two hours of sleep tonight and sustain it…that's not realistic. Start with just a basic awareness of the importance of sleep. Don't just take my word for it, take a look at the links I've attached below and do your own research.

Next? Start with going to bed 30 minutes earlier every night for 2 to 3 weeks. And if that gets you across that seven hour threshold, great. And maybe try to get a little bit more over the course of the next few weeks and months. And if you’re still not at seven hours? Add 30 more until you get there.

Start slow, make your goals achievable, and stick to it. This is the first step to sustainable change.

-Mike

 

Next time we’ll take a look at the evil cousin to “not enough sleep”……Sugar.

Helpful links on sleep:

http://theconversation.com/peak-athletic-performance-is-dependent-on-sleep-cycle-36769

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s9C_8-OoxI

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/sdd/why