Ep. 88: You Gotta Get Up to Get Down: The Paradox of Relaxation
In this solocast, I’m exploring something I got wrong for a long time: the idea that when we’re carrying too much stress or activation, the answer is simply to get better at relaxing.
Breathing, meditation, visualization, progressive muscle relaxation—I still believe in all of those tools. But what happens when you’re trying to relax on top of years of missed shots, disappointing performances, high-pressure moments, frustration, and stress that your body never really had a chance to move through?
Over time, that stuff can start to accumulate. Our baseline creeps higher, our capacity to regulate gets smaller, and eventually the mental skills that used to work don’t seem quite as effective anymore.
So in this episode, I’m playing with a different idea: instead of immediately trying to calm the nervous system down, what if we sometimes need to invite in activation first?
I break down what I mean by “energetic hygiene,” why stress can get stuck rather than resolved, and a few ways I’ve been experimenting with helping that energy move—including high-intensity intervals, breathing, and cold exposure.
The goal isn’t to become perfectly calm. It’s to create enough space in the system that when it’s time to regulate, recover, or move on to the next play, we actually can.
Learn more about working with me one-on-one and my new coaching course at drkcoaching.com.
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