How is Mental & Physical Health Linked to High Performance?
With mental health as an ongoing hot topic I thought it would be interesting to look at the bigger picture by demonstrating in simple terms how mental and physical health are intrinsically linked. To do this we will cover some of the physiological responses to stress, their negative impacts and what to do about them. As an Ex- Parachute Regiment Physical Training Instructor I will temporarily and metaphorically don my maroon beret for this case study.
Let’s explore this now.
Mental Health
The model below is based on a matrix by Professor Tim Knoster, who discovered the correlation between the components of strategy and human fallout, which ultimately determine the level of success or failure in any endeavour. I’ve modified it considerably for a business context, however this is a valid model for any individual, team or organisation in pursuit of a specific outcome. This can be anything from delivering a career defining presentation to a large enterprise pivoting in the market. In the context of this article we are only interested in the column labelled Capabilities & Skills.
We can see the model demonstrates Confidence and Anxiety, while opposites, are both emotional signals that bring to our attention the presence or absence of a skill or skills required to successfully complete an objective. I’m not going to go into detail on anxiety as this article is looking as the focus of this article is the correlation between mental and physical health. If you want to learn what anxiety is, how its created and how to leverage it as a force for good then please do read: High Performance: Confidence vs Anxiety.
Physical Health
Below is a model based on the work of Dr David Nieman, professor of Biology at Appalachian State University in the College of Arts and Sciences' Department and Director of the Human Performance Lab. He demonstrates a direct correlation between immune system effectiveness and physical activity. Sedentary people have a moderate risk of infection and disease. Moderately active people have the lowest risk of infection and people verging on overtraining have an extremely high risk of infection and disease.
Below are 4 common examples of the negative physiological responses to stress when left unmanaged. In the context of this article we are specifically interested in sympathetic nervous system activation, also know as fight or flight:
Immune system: Your fight or flight system is responsible for shutting down all non-essential systems to maximise all your resources for fighting or running. Your immune system is included in non-essential systems, which would historically only be shut down until the present danger had been evaded. Unfortunately in todays society we can easily spend prolonged periods in this state and doing so opens you up to considerable risk of disease and illness.
Atherosclerosis: Your fight or flight system releases fat tissue in to your blood stream as an energy source in preparation to fight or run. If you don’t burn this off then over time it clogs up your arteries.
Heart Disease: Your heart can only “breath” between heartbeats, which is why a low resting heart rate is good, accessing lots of oxygen to keep it healthy. A high resting heart rate reduces the time for your heart to "breath", slowly suffocating over time causing infarction-sites, which are tiny pieces of dead heart tissue. When enough infarction-sites form your heart stops.
Hypertension: More commonly known as high blood pressure. When blood pressure is measured two numbers result, e.g. 140/80 at rest is considered normal. The first, called Systolic, is a measure of the pressure exerted by the heart when contracting and the second, Diastolic, is a measure of heart relaxation between beats. The higher the numbers the more stressed your heart is during and after heart beats.
So whats the answer"?
“Physical activity creates a stronger heart, lowering your resting heart rate and lowering blood pressure, i.e. your heart pumps more blood less often with less effort. Physical activity also has a distractive effect to aid mental recovery from arduous cognitive tasks reducing anxiety and depression” (Hughes 1984).
On a personal note, anxiety is something I am prone to severe bouts of as part of managing BiPolar Disorder, so these topics are very close to me in order to level out my up’s and downs and achieve some degree of balance. If this is a struggle you recognise then please do read: High Performance: Mental Health & BiPolar.
Performance
Below is my adaptation of Massimini, Csíkszentmihályi & Carli Model 1987, in a business context linking emotional responses to strategy and operations, demonstrating that Anxiety is a manifestation of attempting to overcome a challenge when lacking the required support, which Knosters model above defines as lack of access to knowledge, owned or outsourced.
These four states correlate with specific behaviours that can be measured in any individual, team or organisation.
Anxiety: Missed deadlines, avoidance of interaction, likely negatively impacting employee sickness absence.
Apathy: Absence of enthusiasm or presence of indifference, likely negatively impacting employee retention.
Comfort: Lack of activity and accountability, likely negatively impacting employee productivity.
Flow: Pro-active, self-directed, emphasis on personal responsibility, likely positively impacting all above.
We can see that anxiety correlates with Sickness Absence, which demonstrates harm to the individual in terms of mental and physical health, the team they are part of in terms of compensating for workload and the business interms of lost productivity and associated ROI for that role.
The good news is all these issues have simple solutions. Since I have already outlined what anxiety is and provided a link to High Performance: Confidence vs Anxiety to learn how to convert anxiety from your enemy to your ally I consider this subject wrapped up for now. So, from here on we will focus more on suggestions around physical health, which tie in with mental health. This should be no surprise as it involves daily physical activity, so here are links to some of the tools I use:
iYoga App Offers different routines depending on how much time you have and level of ability. It also coaches you through your routine of choice visually and verbally.
Crossfit WOD Generator App: Generates custom Crossfit styled workouts, programmable for the equipment you have available to you. I have a selection of Dumbbells, Kettlebells, Slings, Bands, Med Balls, etc, offering variety to keep things interesting.
Crossfit Glasgow: My own gym, a Crossfit gym based in Glasgow, has adapted well to the current situation. Membership gives you access to daily home workouts that you can do on your own or if you prefer some human interaction you can book into coached classes delivered over zoom.
Headspace Meditation & Sleep App: A great app to calm a busy mind at any time of day or night, if you need five minutes during the day or some help to get off to sleep then give this a go.
Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones: What can I say, its all in the title. I have personally used these for years, both in-ear and over-ear versions. I even wear them in noisy environments without them plugged in to create a silent space. Very comfortable to wear for long periods.
Apple Watch: This is one of my more recent acquisitions. It’s sole use it for biometric and physical activity alerts and trackers this helps me stay on top of being active daily and feeds in to my calorie tracker to ensure I eat enough, as sometimes I can forget to do (Relates to my previously mentioned BiPolar pendulum).
Stress Monitor App: This has been invaluable to help me manage my BiPolar pendulum. It specifically measures small changes in the autonomic system called Heart Rate Variability, i.e. When my fight of flight system is sneakily trying to take over in the back ground I receive an alert so I know to immediate step off the gas and restore balance. Very very clever.
I want to stress (pun intended) I am in no way affiliated with these products. They are simply part of my voyage of discovery through trial and error and sharing what has worked for me.
Conclusion
Taking the time to understand the intrinsic links between mental and physical health along with negative and positive triggers gives us something to leverage to take action. The motto of the Parachute School at RAF Brize Norton is “Knowledge Dispels Fear”, a phrase that has stayed with me to this day, and feeds nicely back into the first model of this article. The more stressors we can identify and mitigate with a successful strategy the more likely we are to spend time in the Flow quadrant and live a long healthy life. This next paragraph was mentioned earlier, however it’s significance makes it worth repeating to reinforce it:
“Physical activity creates a stronger heart, lowering your resting heart rate and lowering blood pressure, i.e. your heart pumps more blood less often with less effort. Physical activity also has a distractive effect to aid mental recovery from arduous cognitive tasks reducing anxiety and depression” (Hughes 1984).
If you recognise some of these issues in yourself then what might your immediate course of action be?
Determine when you tip in and out of these 4 different states.
Identify the skills required to correct your course.
Set some next steps to up your game accordingly.
If you want to learn how to balance your mental and physical health over work and play, then please do schedule a call with me by putting a 60mins in my diary at a time that suits you. We can discuss your situation and options over an eCoffee.
Best Wishes
Kenny
