Tilting the scale in your favor — your habits determine your health, and your performance.
As an athlete, you have to actively protect your body and put the odds in your favor. Stress is one of the largest contributors to both poor performance and injury. I define stress simply as anything, good or bad, that requires your body to adapt and make changes to deal with it. Some stress is beneficial, and some is harmful — the goal is to minimize the negative stress in your life while embracing the positive kind. Whether it’s one intense moment or small amounts piling up over weeks and months, accumulated negative stress creates real physical complications.
Your nervous system runs on two opposing modes. The Run/Fight response redirects blood to your muscles, dilates your pupils, sharpens your brain’s focus, and loosens your ligaments — everything your body needs to escape danger. The Rest/Digest/Repair response does the opposite: it sends blood back to your digestive tract, clears metabolic waste out of your muscles, and lets your body actually restore itself once the danger has passed. These two systems evolved together to help humans survive real threats.
The trouble is that modern stressors — a hard test, a tough conversation about grades, not enough sleep, too much screen time after dark — trigger the exact same Run/Fight response your ancestors felt when running from a predator. If your body stays stuck in Run/Fight mode, it never gets the chance to properly rest, digest, and repair.
Download this sample weekly schedule to see what putting these habits into practice can look like day to day.
Download Sample Schedule For Healthy Athletes (PDF) →
The manual that started it all — by Dr. Richard L. Robles, DC.
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