Hello. Has anyone used passionflower extract of any sort to help with reliving anxiety and inducing relaxation?
I am thinking about using something like passionflower to help going to sleep better and activating parasympathetic nervous system more so that I can recover better between workouts.
I am hoping since this is probably more close to natural and not so artificial chemical as in medications that there won’t be side effects that will affect training
Will use of this substance make me too sluggish for the workout next day? or will the effect disappear by the time I wake up so that it won’t have any negative effect on my workout?
Anyone with experience with it? or any other natural substance to help with relaxation and recovery without negative effect on training?
So you mean natural calm right? I looked it up and it looks like it will help me relax the muscles better. I will have to give that a try. Do you know if it will also help relax the nervous system by activating the parasympathetic nervous system as well?
Do you know anything or have experience with passion flower by any chance as well?
yea magnesium will relax parasympathetic nervous system. That system kicks in when your calm and chilling, so anything that calms you down will activate it. Id think even weed also, which is why you see so many pro (football) athletes smoking it.
Do know much about the flower. THis video has some good info about the nervous system
Yeah I am so bad at activating parasympathetic nervous system. I’m so always on the nerve and can’t shut things down. I need whatever to help me get it. As Essop said, the reason I got hurt and regressed and couldn’t make it last season probably has to do with inability to recover adaquately between meets.
When I was only training, the stress wasn’t as much so I usually don’t have problem getting back to the baseline from the graph of gains (adaptation curve) after the stimulus (training), and sometimes even slightly beyond it for some supercompensation (though probably not as fully upwards as I potentially could’ve from a stimulus, which induces a small improvement) but stress of competition is too much and I never even got back to the baseline because my recovery isn’t good enough. Of course I do my warmups, cooldowns, therapy, contrasts, set aside enough time to sleep, but if my nervous system is not adaquately relaxing during those times, the recovery isn’t going to be ideal, though better than not doing any of those above.
are you taking zma? I take zma plus natural calm. Also, A nice beer will help put you into relaxation mode. I know Ben was a avid Beer guy after training. ALso, warm baths or showers, sex (even if you gotta rub one out) oh and melatonin.
Did you know that any substance is likely not a magic bullet?
If you are looking to recover better and or faster between workouts there are series of things you need to do to make that happen.
Yes, Sleep is one of those things for sure.
What are the things that effect sleep.
Diet, Exercise not over or under, too much sugar or too much caffeine or alcohol consumption as it’s both an upper and downer and it messes with hormones which are the ultimate regulators of your health.
Yeah sex can help and rubbing one out if your personality prevents you from the real deal. Thanks Chris for that.
But try to start looking at the whole picture. The big picture. Yeah Ben drank Beer but he was also running at speeds most will never see and getting therapy 3 times a day and doing contrast baths and acupuncture and you can’t take small antidotal things that some do and pick and choose without actually knowing how the nervous system works.
Contrast baths are my favorite as most of you know and so are pool workouts in between speed sessions. You can accomplish a great deal in the water while also relaxing muscles that get beaten up from so much pounding on the track or in the weight room.
Diet and supplementation are very helpful but taking one or two things is not actually addressing your individual needs per say.
Are you recovering properly from your high intensity days? There is no way for me to know what you are doing in training. Overtraining will classically mess a persons sleep up. In face, not sleeping or rest-less sleeping is or can be a sign of overtraining.
I have found shakes before bed depending on what is in them work well to ensure I am ready to rock and roll on any given day. I have also had great success with ZMA or a Mag and Cal sleep calm product. Once again what works for me might now be your thing.
Post training/race hydration and nutrition.
Low impact/low intensity recovery exercise.
Showers, baths, light mobility sessions
Extra sleep.
Extra naps after lunch on non working days.
Schedule training days to suit your work/study schedule. Hard days on weekend/easier working days. Extra rest at the weekend.
Use resting heart rate or HRV to identify burn out days.
When recovering from racing allow extra time before the next hard training session. If you race very regularly you will find that after a while your loss of training sessions will begin to outweigh the super stimulus of racing.
If you have time and money due to easy and well paid job (lucky you) - then massage, physio, sit around when not training.
Recovery is a composite of all the above - and probably more.
Other protocols are valid but aim to achieve the basics first.
I got the e book master set and think I read it all, definitely including Speed Trap…probably need to revisit some of those concepts.
I know no substance is a magic bullet, but a combination of effort from all possible ways are needed.
I don’t drink alcohol or coffee, and I just need my sleep to happen sooner upon getting in bed, for my sleep to be deeper and more restful, and to last longer without midnight awakening. I believe my recovery is as close to perfect a poor man can get aside from poor quality sleep.
I can’t afford 3 therapies a week, but I get in once 1-3 weeks as needed, which is very often considering my budget, contrast shower every day, sauna 3-4 times a week.
I also do self myofascial release with things like foam rollers and lacrosse balls every day dilligently.
Overtraining can be a factor too, but I can say for sure that even when I am not training, I have same restless symptom with overactive sympathetic nervous system just as often.
Thank you for sharing your experience with the supplement and all
I always have emphasis on hydration and nutrition, though not perfect, doing my best for my schedule and budget.
I am always dilligent with low intensity exercises knowing how weak I tend to be with general fitness. Tempos, pools, abs, med balls, etc.
Been doing contrast shower every day and been doing mobility exercises a lot, especially for the hips while doing sauna.
I set aside a lot of time to sleep, but my problem is that even when my muscles are very relaxed, my nervous system and brain are so sober as if I have a big light bulb on if that makes sense, I hate it and the reason I started this post is I want to be able to turn it off when I need to.
Even with naps, if I’m too mentally awake, I can’t shut it off.
I always do my best to avoid having high intensity days on days when I have a lot of other stressful stuff going on, knowing that I want to mentally be focused on my training that day with best physical preparation possible.
I used ithlete for HRV but haven’t seen much correlation to my performance, and the devise is now malfunctioning and don’t know what I’m going to do about it, with my life having been so overwhelming especially as of late, it will be a lot of hassle to try to have it serviced since they’re over at UK.
I know lot of people told me I need to race myself into shape, but I felt like I don’t get much stimulus from racing, but much beatdown that hinders recovery. I also remember last year I started becoming really slow during season, and I really agree with what you said about loss of training sessions outweighing race stimulus. I generally tend to have more focus, do better and enjoy training better than racing, I only race because I need to verify a legit time.
Unfortunately, my financial situation isn’t very good, I wish I can get better therapy especially.
It’s so frustrating and scares me every night going to bed because I have poor parasympathetic nervous system causing sleep disorder, which I haven’t figured out how to control better.
The pursuit of speed is not an easy one. It has to be your passion and then you need to have a situation that facilitates that passion and that is not easy.
I would not rely or I would be mindful not to rely on technology for my well being or my performance. Easier said that done especially coming from me as I was taught and trained to live without technology and I feel it’s a cool tool but work on the old school stuff like taking your heart rate every morning and tracking it that way. See what you think in that way.
It sounds like you are trying hard. I would for sure re read some of the books that you have and make a list and see what you are doing well and see what you are not doing well.
I am curious and suspicious about a possible issue with your digestion. Have you ever thought of this idea? Dr. Natasha Turner albeit female Canadian natural doctor introduced the idea of broken digestion to me. I think it’s happening more and more with greater populations of people as our food sucks and the pharma world is quick and happy to medicalize anything that happens in life.
I have also mentioned Trudy Scott to is amazing with her nutritional info and will spend hours having specialists discussing why kefir is helpful in our diet.
Is it possible your training might be better or at least you might start feeling better if you could proactively manage aspects in your life like having fear to sleep because you can’t sleep?
I like easy to remember and cheap methods for obvious reasons.
HR :
I am a fan of simple resting heart rate measures. When healthy, fit and well rested my HR is in the range of 40-45bpm. When in periods of hard training I take my pulse rate a couple of hours before training : if in the range of 40-45 ok for hard session, if 45-50 a medium session, if 50+ either easy session or rest. That`s my rule of thumb, of course it means I may need to shuffle training days real time.
Food :
I stick to minimising eating any processed foods or stuff that is heavily packaged. Quick and dirty method.
I eliminated all eating between meals - even healthy snacks. Stick to 3 meals per day only. Aim for at least a 12 hour overnight fast. I feel better from this - I guess it is some sort of variation of insulation sensitivity and intermittent fasting principles.
Supplements:
A note of caution here for myself. I took tumeric/circummin (to reduce inflammation) for some general aches and strains. Not in a high dose. I am almost certain it made me aneamic. So even natural supplements are just another form of chemical that may have side effects…
Yes, there’s a lot of contamination of food in this era for sure, in addition to bad foods in general. I will have to look for kefir when I go get groceries.
With sleep, having been struggling with sleeping pretty much my entire life, it’s hard to not worry about and fear sleeping disorder every night. Especially knowing how important it is to get a qulity sleep that is 8-10 hours, and the fear of negative consequence of not getting it. I have fear because it is so crucial, but that fear further adds to the difficulty going to sleep.
Thanks Chris for that.