Using Strength Training To Get Comfortable With Discomfort
The research is clear. Exercise can boost your mental well-being and alleviate symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. I think strength training is especially good for this.
Of course, exercise is not a cure for mental health problems. It won’t magically make your anxiety or depression disappear. You have to be intentional and deliberate about how you do your workouts, commit to doing the mental work as well as the physical work, and be patient and persistent as your brain and body slowly get fitter and stronger.
There are some specific techniques you can use to target strength training for your mental health. I want to share one of those powerful techniques with you in this article.
It’s about using strength training to get more comfortable with discomfort.
The Mental Response To Discomfort
There’s a big part of anxiety and stress that stems from fear. When you’re afraid of something, it activates your sympathetic nervous system, which responds to threats or stressors. Your reactions to a threat are generally “fight”, “flight”, or “freeze”.
Many people default to “flight”. When there’s an anxiety-provoking situation, you might try to avoid it. If you can’t, you might try to minimize the discomfort.
Maybe you have a drink in an uncomfortable social setting, or pre-emptively try to decrease the “weight” of a difficult situation. You might tell yourself not to get your hopes up for something you really do want, so you can avoid potentially bad feelings.
But if you want to get the most out of life, you need to tackle it head on. You can’t always avoid things; you need to stay and fight. Growth happens when you step outside your comfort zone, when you experience adversity and struggle and come out the other side.
The Physical Response To Discomfort
Some people with anxiety and depression are extra sensitive to physically uncomfortable feelings.
If this is you, you might feel the physical stress responses very strongly. You might be in an anxiety-inducing situation and feel like your heart is racing, when it’s actually only elevated a little.
You’re not making things up, it really does feel like you’re having a big physical response. Your brain then interprets those sensations as a threat, and things start to spiral out of control.
***Please Note - if you are experiencing strong physical sensations like increased heart rate, changes in breathing, tightness in your chest or muscles, and you’re concerned about them, please go to your doctor and get checked out.
In other cases, you might let your aversion to even mild physical discomfort prevent you from doing the things that will help you achieve your goals.
I’ve had clients who struggle to meet their daily movement goals because they don’t want to take the stairs at work or go for a walk on their lunch break for fear that they’ll get a little sweaty. Meanwhile, other people have no problem overcoming those feelings and being active during the day even if they’ll feel a little less-than-fresh afterwards.
I don’t mean to suggest that this is an excuse. There’s a real obstacle here, but it’s possible to overcome it.
Getting Fitter Helps Control The Physical Stress Response
If you’re someone who reacts strongly to the physical stress responses, there is something you can do. You can train your body to get better at handling them. You can also train your mind to get more comfortable with discomfort.
When you exercise, you get the exact same physical responses as if you’re experiencing any other kind of stress. The difference is that in an exercise setting, you know why your heart rate and breathing are elevated. You know that you can make those sensations go away at any time by simply stopping your exercise.
Over time, your body gets better at neutralizing the physical reactions to stress. Your heart and lungs get fitter and more efficient, so your heart rate doesn’t skyrocket in response to physical or mental stress anymore.
Along with increasing the fitness of your cardiovascular system, exercise also changes the stress system itself.
The system in your brain and body that kicks off the stress response is called the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis. That system releases the stress hormone cortisol and promotes inflammation.
The HPA axis tends to be overactive in people with anxiety. Exercise helps control that system, releasing a hormone called atrial natriuretic peptide which calms it down.
Exercise Is A Practice Session For Getting Comfortable With Discomfort
As your body gets fitter, your mind also adapts. You get used to things being a little unpleasant, a little uncomfortable, but in a safe and controlled way. You get to prove to yourself that you can handle it.
Getting comfortable with discomfort is an incredibly important skill, maybe one of the most powerful for combatting anxiety and stress.
You can learn that your discomfort, your feelings, your thoughts, and your current state are all temporary. You can also learn that you feel much better by not running away from those uncomfortable feelings, and instead just sitting with them and letting them pass.
The point is not to make uncomfortable feelings go away. It’s to get better at dealing with them when they come. It’s normal to feel uncomfortable sometimes, but you don’t have to let that discomfort control your life.
Techniques For Creating Controlled Discomfort In Strength Training
Lifting weights creates some uncomfortable sensations. Your muscles feel tired and start to burn, your heart rate goes up, you get sweaty…
If you’re intentional about it, you can leverage those uncomfortable sensations and use them as a deliberate way to practice getting more comfortable with discomfort.
There are two strength training techniques in particular that I often use with clients for this purpose. Luckily, they also happen to be techniques for optimizing muscle building, so you get two benefits for the price of one!
Time Under Tension
Time under tension is a technique that involves slowing down your movement during each exercise. It has been shown to help with muscle growth. In fact, recent research suggests that slowing down your movements so that each rep lasts between 2-8 seconds is important for optimizing the muscle-building signals from a lifting session.
Before I get into how to use time under tension, you need to understand something about the mechanics of a strength training exercise.
You can divide a strength exercise into two parts. There’s the “lifting” part of the movement, and the “lowering” part of the movement.
During the “lifting” part, you’re overcoming resistance. That part of the exercise is also called the “concentric” or “positive” part of the exercise. It’s usually the harder part of the exercise.
Next comes the “lowering” part, when you return to the starting position. This is usually the easier part – you’re using your muscles to control the weights as gravity pulls them down. This part of the movement is also called the “eccentric” or “negative” part of the exercise.
Let’s think about a dumbbell chest press. You start the exercise with the dumbbells on either side of your chest. The lifting (concentric) part of the exercise is when you push the dumbbells up and away from you.
The lowering (eccentric) part of the exercise is when you return the dumbbells to the bottom position next to your chest.
Here’s a seated row. The lifting (concentric) part of the exercise is when you pull the handle towards you, using your back muscles to pull the weights up against gravity. The lowering (eccentric) part is when you extend your arms and lower the weights back to the bottom.
Using the time under tension technique means slowing down your movement, especially on the lowering part of the exercise. This keeps your muscles tensing for longer. In other words, they spend more time under tension.
A good goal is to make the lifting (concentric) part of the exercise last 1-2 seconds and the lowering (eccentric) part last 3-4 seconds.
When you try this, you’ll notice right away that it’s more difficult to move very slowly. The weights you usually use might be too heavy for time under tension, so you may need to use slightly lighter weights.
Drop Sets
Another technique for purposely practicing the skill of dealing with discomfort is called a drop set.
This is similar to the time under tension technique in that it extends your set, allowing you to keep your muscles working for longer. As with time under tension, drop sets are often used by experienced weightlifters to optimize muscle growth.
In a drop set, you perform your normal set with a challenging weight, then immediately decrease the weight and perform another set of the same exercise, then decrease the weight again and do another set.
For example, you might do 8 seated rows using 60 lbs, where you end the set feeling like you could maybe have done just 1 more rep with good form. Then you would lower the weight to 55 lbs and immediately do another 8 seated rows. Then you would lower the weight to 50 lbs and do another 8 reps.
I usually do two drops (so three total back-to-back sets) using this technique, but you could do more.
It also takes some trial and error to figure out the appropriate weight to drop. If you don’t decrease the weight enough, you won’t be able to finish the next set. If you decrease it too much, the next set will feel too easy.
How To Get Comfortable With Discomfort Using These Techniques
Start by choosing an exercise that you’re quite comfortable with and try either time under tension or drop sets in your last set of that exercise. As you get more experienced, you could do your chosen technique for the last set of each exercise in a workout.
For example, you might do two normal sets of squats, then on the last set do either a time under tension set or a drop set.
These are difficult techniques and they do create additional muscle damage. You might experience some muscle soreness, especially the first few times you do it. I recommend using them sparingly, and only once you’re sure you’re using good form in your exercises.
You’ll notice that moving very slowly or doing multiple drop sets like this is uncomfortable. That’s the point. You’ll feel your muscles burn as more fatigue sets in, and you’re going to want to speed up or end your set.
I’m going to challenge you not to do that. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to make things easier for yourself.
Remind yourself that although this will feel uncomfortable, you are not unsafe. You are in control of your body and the weights.
Feel the discomfort. Sit with it, accept it. It’s good for you, and I promise it will be over in just a few seconds when your set is finished.
Getting Comfortable With Discomfort In Real Life
Next time you feel uncomfortable, take a second and think: am I safe? If not, remove yourself from that situation.
If you are safe, challenge yourself to sit with that discomfort, lean into it, and push through. Do the thing anyway.
Remember that it’s normal, healthy, and even useful to feel a little uncomfortable now and then. You pushed through discomfort during your workouts and came out a little stronger, and you can do the same thing in any other situation.
You are strong and you can do hard things.
If You Need Help
To get started on your strength training journey, download my FREE Strength Training 101 eBook. You'll learn how to structure an effective workout, which exercises to do, and how to make progress over time.
For a more guided option, check out my Strength Training For Anxiety Program. This 12-week workout program is delivered through the Everfit app, which has detailed instructions and videos so you know exactly how to do each exercise. It also includes bonus video lessons and resources to help you create a new self-identity.
For one-on-one support and a fully personalized program, contact me. I design every personal training session to help my clients get physically and mentally strong!