The Recovery Article - Part I
Why Recovery (or “Renewal”) Is More Essential Than You May Realize
Recovery is the most undervalued and most important aspect of health. That’s because our bodies are really recovering all the time in the form of keeping us alive, immune, and healthy. We take it for granted, yet recovery is the miraculous underpinning of our lives. My entire health and wellness practice is devoted to enhancing and prolonging the healing power that is at the heart of recovery.
I’ve encountered three areas of recovery in my later life:
1. Exercise-induced recovery
2. Recovery from illness or injury
3. Recovery from inner or emotional causes
I have found that each type of recovery needs to be treated in its own way to achieve the best results. As a result, this article is longer than usual, so I’ve split it into two parts.
Exercise-Induced Recovery
The first type of recovery is what most people commonly mean by the word recovery. This involves recovery from physical exercise. In recent years, this has become a big topic and big business.
When you do something that is effortful, like any form of exercise, you slightly damage the part of your body that does the work. If that activity is walking or any aerobic activity, it involves all the muscles you use plus your entire circulatory system and your heart and lungs, especially if you do the aerobic activity for more than an hour or two.
If the activity is strength related, recovery is more focused on the muscles involved, which were under a heavier load than normal. Because of the amount of movement and exercise I do, slightly sore, recovering muscles, as well as occasional fatigue are a familiar part of my life.
Many people in the health industry, as well as food and sports equipment companies, claim they can shorten the time it takes to recover from exercise. Given that recovery time generally increases as we get older, I have tried a few of these techniques and products. They haven’t worked for me. But looking for shortcuts led me to an even bigger realization. Nature has been healing us and renewing us for millennia. It is the very process that made us human: the effort we expend leads to more strength and enhanced capabilities. It is the very essence of the mystery and wonder of our existence.
What do I do to enhance my recovery from exertion? Nothing. This is because I already live in a way that enhances my health and immune system, which is where recovery comes from. Other than a morning HRV (heart rate variability) reading I listen to my body. If it tells me to rest, I rest. Not sitting-on-the-sofa resting but spending a few minutes doing a low level of gentle movement or even sitting on the floor.
I know from experience that gentle movement, breathing, and meditation, as well as my regular nutrition regimen (detailed in my book) – plus that wonderful, not-so-secret ingredient TIME – are my best friends for alleviating soreness and fatigue. (And good sleep is so important it will get its own article soon.)
To recover from exertion, one of my favorite activities is doing some restorative yoga poses after a gym session. I also occasionally use a roller and a lacrosse ball to target overly sore muscles as advocated by Dr. Kelly Starrett in Becoming a Supple Leopard and in his other great books.
Since I am practicing my version of recovery all the time, restoring my body (and soul) from specific effort such as a rigorous gym workout or life-induced trauma, be it physical or emotional, I am already doing what I need to recover. This is one of the wonderful benefits of living a fully functional and health-driven life!
Recovery in all its aspects is the space where I live, where I experience and enjoy life, where I write, and where I make connections, both personal and social. It is where I spend most of my time, both awake and sleeping. Nature is a 24/7 recovery machine.
The feeling I get after a workout is pretty special. It’s a wonderful combination of endorphins, fatigue, and achievement. But it’s also a signal to my body to begin the healing and recovery process. “My work is done, over to you.” The vast magic that occurs inside me starting at that point is the secret to a long, healthy life. I let myself experience this healing, even if that means tolerating temporarily stiff joints or sore muscles in the recovery process.
I prefer to call this process renewal instead of recovery because when we heal, especially from more intense effort, we heal stronger than before. The healing process makes me stronger – it gives me more endurance, stamina, and resilience – even if it’s only a little bit each time. Thankfully I have a great ally in this work: my body’s power to heal.
After you exercise, your immune system goes into a higher gear to repair all the areas of your body that need it. What’s more, if you do this exercise often, your body will get the message that it needs to make all those damaged parts stronger than before to do them better in the future. That means you gain more muscle fibers or more blood cells or a stronger heart, cleaner artery walls, and more efficient and cleaner lungs. And it also means that the delivery systems to your cells as well as to your immune, digestive, and endocrine systems are also given a tune-up to better provide support to the recovery process.
Keep in mind that your immune system is the heart of the healing process. My aim is to keep my immune system robust no matter what activity I choose to do. My health is so much more than recovering from sore muscles. My entire body, all its organs and other parts of me, plus my emotional soul, need constant healing and strengthening as well.
Good to Go
Author Christie Aschwanden wrote a wonderful and eye-opening book, Good to Go: How to Eat, Sleep and Rest Like a Champion. In it she examines many of the so-called “enhanced” recovery methods out there, from gravity boots to sports drinks to ice baths to electric stimulation. This includes marketing claims, endorsements, the experiences of professional and recreational athletes, the science behind the various recovery methods, and her own use of them.
While she doesn’t say outright that it’s mostly BS, she throws enough cold water on the entire world of “enhanced” recovery methods to reinforce my own experience. A former professional athlete, Aschwanden’s personal recipe is to listen to her body, rest, eat a balanced diet of fresh food, get plenty of sleep, be mindful, and drink water when thirsty. That’s it!
Given my reverence for my body’s miraculous power to heal, it didn’t take much to convince me that her stick-with-the-basics philosophy outperforms the latest-and-greatest “enhanced” recovery methods. And yet some athletes and others out there swear by their unique recovery routines and cutting-edge products. Whatever works for you is fine. If you are leading an active life that requires you to pay attention to recovery, then you are learning about this critical aspect of health and are way ahead of the game.
(Note: In Part II of this article, you will learn tips to deal with the two other types of later-life recovery I have identified: recovery from injury and chronic conditions as well as recovery options to heal inner emotional dynamics.)
