Rewrite 11/04
The primary skill behind every act is how much intensity to bring to the task. Before lifting a 100 lb weight, you would prepare yourself by getting sort of amped up, which you would handle much differently if you were to lift a paper clip. It wouldn’t matter if it was a weight or a washing machine in terms of the intensity needed to move it. It would even be similar if you had to get ready for a soccer game, at which point you have to be ready react and run. All of these things things require a skill of excitability of intensity more fundamental than the specific sport or task.
If you were to study for a test or for anything at all, you would have to focus. Whether the subject is math or history, the decision to focus is the same. Put another way, if you had the ability to focus in one area, your ability would transcend to other areas. Focus is the primary skill, not the particular thing you are focusing on.
Endurance is another primary skill epitomized by a distance runner. Endurance is a a specific intensity for repetitive tasks of the whole body for a long time. The repetitive nature is such that the brain goes into autopilot. The ability to do things automatically, as opposed to deliberately, transcends the sport of running. Similar, but not quite as perfect skill can be acquired on a bike, swimming, or walking.
A monk could be completely awake without any external stimulation except gravity. A person could be at church, at the beach, standing in line at the store, or even walking or driving and still be in this mode. We just call this intensity posture. You see the challenge of obtaining this intensity when stimulation is removed and people get very fidgety. Again, the primary skill is the ability to generate that specific intensity, which could take place in a thousand forms.
No matter your gender, profession, religious beliefs, or genetics, or age, mastering these intensities is mandatory for health, learning, and performance. There is a strong tendency to emphasize the opposing approach of micromanaging ones physiology which ironically is the typical source of our problems.
Imagine playing a video game in which a stick and a couple buttons make the character move. With practice you can get better at the video game just like you can develop the skills of the different intensities mentioned above. But one day someone who is not very good at the game decides that it is not the user controlling the stick that matters, but instead all the wiring in the computer actually is the source of his and others poor performance. So he takes apart the computer and starts naming wires, etc. He now becomes obsessed with the inner workings of the computer instead of the user.
The first thing to keep in mind is that, for example, the user only has to do one thing, like pushing up on the stick, which is relatively simply, in order to get billions of things behind the computer moving. At the moment you do one thing, like focusing or running or sitting still, etc, the one relative simple act is like pushing a button that is linked to trillions of chemical reactions you don’t have to know about. One could argue that real intelligence in this analogy would be to learn how to control the joystick and let the automated chemistry be automated. Others feel intelligent for delving into the automated chemistry. The main problem is, for one that one can only understand the automated chemistry after they have mastered understanding of the basic buttons, because each of those buttons on the joystick are summaries of the five different buttons. The actual buttons or intensities are the context for all the biochemistry that goes on behind the scenes.
We could pick almost any modern medical practice and use it as an example of a folly with the same theme. Let’s take a simple example the prescription of oxygen for treatment. The ‘scientist’ sees low oxygen levels in the blood, and makes for them a logical conclusion, which is to administer oxygen. The typical modern scientist always take things out of context for the simple reason they don’t believe in context, because they have rejected the entire subject of looking at the big picture, which is more the subject of theology. The reality is that
Inner Workings Versus Buttons
Medical professionals tend towards interest in body’s inner workings which we could broadly define as physiology. For the most part, we would argue, they are looking at the effects of something else. This is important to understand because you can understand after reading the following few pages that you cannot get your body working right by manipulating these inner-workings, although the entire world seems convinced otherwise.
Necessity Organizing Knowledge Based On Functional Groups; meaning Actual Button can be experienced and said button is can be inhibited/exploded (cerebellum), dimmed (midbrain?), experienced (r cortex), symbolized (l cortex), sequentially fired (sports), delved into (higher cortex), put to background (lower cortex/stem), etc. As opposed to fictitious buttons: Example immune system, alphabet, etc Anything one cannot experience cannot be a controlloble button. Intellectuals organize things nicely based on their own convenience, best example would be teaching alphabet, etc.
We could say that what you do determines your physiology, but that is so vague it would be of no value to you. Instead, what we have done is grouped your entire physiology in a certain way, not the traditional way. The traditional way might be to break the body into systems, like digestive, musculoskeletal, immune, etc. Looking at these systems is convenient for organizing text books but here is the problem. We are not at all organized in that way. There is no button that you can deliberately push to turn that controls any one of those systems in isolation. There is actually one simple lever that you can push that causes all these systems to correspondingly gear up. The lever has to do with something we refer to intensity.
Intensities: Part I : How intensities (basic decision), leads to complex behind scenes (on its own)
Suppose someones’ car gets stuck in a hole, and you go to push it out. You wouldn’t go into in casually, but instead you would get worked up. The skill and decision that occurred had to do with getting into that more intense mode. Your intellectual decision to help push the car had very little impact on your physiology. Instead, you getting worked up is primarily what determined your physiology at that moment.
The lever that you don’t even realize you control is the primary lever that determines your whole life. At the moment the lever was pushed and you got ramped up, every aspect of your physiology falls in line. this illustrates the difference between an actual button (push car) and all the things that happen behind the scenes with or without knowledge, normally without relevance to user) Your innate immune system is activated, your brain gets more alert, blood moves away from your liver and intestines, sugar moves into your blood. These are just a few things going on, but trillions and trillions of things are going on. All you did was that you got worked up and pushed the car out. Those other things happened without any knowledge your part.
Here is what you did not do. You did not decide to activate your innate immune system, pour sugar into your blood, move blood away from your intestines, etc. Yet how many physicians, when things are going wrong, would give you a pill to try and control these different parts one by one? It is not hard to see why that approach has such a dismal failure.
We have grouped physiology into five distinct intensities. Endurance is one intensity and would be best exemplified by distance running. Another intensity is excitement, which could be exemplified by working in a busy restaurant or playing soccer. Your current training schedule could be summarized by how much time you spend in each of the five intensities. Your physiology reflects your training schedule precisely. Training is simply getting into a certain intensity on purpose in order to strengthen it.
Context this illustrates the fact that any info cannot be understood out of context, and in all cases knowledge is limited to a certain context, but it is physiologically impossible for us to completely understand, or even know if we do completely understand, anything. For example, we can say one person has higher blood pressure, but can we say that it is bad that their blood pressure is higher (bad example).
The word context comes from what is around (con) the actual thread (textile). If you were to zoom in on some painting, you might accurately see red, and at the same time have no idea what it is you are looking at. Stop and think about it for a second. A person is absolutely convinced that what they are seeing is red. They are absolutely right, and constantly being affirmed. At the same time they have no idea what they are looking at. This seems to be a perfect representation of modern science. It definitely represents the education in the various health fields.
A child recognizes a car before being exposed to transmissions and alternators. Imagine if you were to learn all about the particular wires in a car, as well as all the many parts, not fully capable of seeing a car. It would actually be a tremendous achievement to perfectly summarize all the parts into one thing, being car. The word car is simply a summary of all the parts.
All of us, but especially those of us educated in science, have been drilled on the tiniest parts. We don’t realize how irrelevant, distorted, and out of context all the information we read about is. Since this section is about the five different physiologies, I will use context to discuss the aerobic (O2) system which dominates the lower three physiologies on the chart.
If you were to go for a walk up a slight incline, you will soon notice that you start to breathe deeper and your heart starts beating faster. We can deduce that whatever cells are making you walk are needing nutrition, and based on that more oxygen has to come in. Instead of naming all the pieces involved the cells burning the fuel for energy, we will just name the entire system the normal nutritional delivery system which delivers all the normal nutrition.
One of the nutrients within this system is NADH, which we mention because has become trendy. There was a youtube video explaining how NADH works, and the different foods you could eat to boost your NADH levels. At the end of the video the person said exercise also boosts NADH levels.
I have no interest in trying to impress you, I just want you to see understand concept very clearly. Your body has a system of many parts involved in getting energy from oxygen. One of the ultimate tests of this entire system would be how well you do on a long run or some endurance fitness activity. Imagine a person taking NADH, magnesium, oxygen, eating all sorts of vegetables, etc, but not actually exercising. Would that be your approach when training for a marathon? Don’t think first about all the individual parts. you would never be able to strengthen your oxygen system by taking the latest piece. The entire system, which is like a chain, is strengthened when the system is trained. When you read about gradient, you will see that bringing food to cells that aren’t interested does not make them stronger anyways, but actually trains them to reset the food more easily.
Gradient
Normal Nutritional Delivery System (applies to Posture and Endurance training)
Virtually every principle of physiology and training revolve around this theme of gradient. It is very simple. To teach my kids I just brought them to the beach and had them jog slowly next to me. I just asked them if they noticed that they are breathing faster than they were before we started. They also noticed that their heart was beating faster.
The first event is that the muscles had to do more than they were doing before, so they started burning energy. Muscles themselves are now low on fuel. The cell has many ways to know it is low on food, and each them draw more of the depleted nutrient into the cell from the blood which now becomes depleted. It is this gradient that then draws more food into the blood from storage sites like the liver, fat cells, the intestines, and the lungs.
This is how what we call the normal nutritional system works. Food delivery increases based on need after a lag time. Not only is the nutrition delivered based on need, but the deficit create by the training initiates the increased capacity of that nutrient. For example, if you strain your oxygen system, meaning your oxygen levels are low, you will over the next days or weeks increase the production of red blood cells. This normal nutritional system is used for the oxygen physiologies of, posture, and endurance.
Emergency Nutrition Delivery System (applies to Excitement and Focus)
The advantage of providing food to the cells based on how much they actually use, which characterizes normal nutritional delivery system, is that is is much easier to get the right amount of fuel to the cells. The problem is that the lag time required for such a mechanism makes precise and explosive performances impossible. In the second of the two systems, nutrition is provided to the cells ahead of time. The gradient is still in the same direction, meaning the amount of fuel is higher in the blood than in the cells, but in this case the gradient is created by pouring fuel into the blood as opposed to taking fuel away from the cells.
The Five Intensities
We function in a range of physiologies. Sleep is one end of a continuum. Sprinting up a hill or swimming in cold water are examples of the other end. There are three distinct physiological states in between.
in order to fight off infection these four physiology‘s are before two need it. In order to fight off cancer fees for tools are needed. In order To come up with an idea for a successful business days for tools. All learning choirs the same
Interaction of the different themes:
If you were a car taking a trip you would need different gears. Some gear for the freeway in another cure for hills. These for physiology is our E4. It’s not hard to imagine I happenIf one of the gears didn’t work. The car with only 50 year would be fine once they’re up to speed on the freeway I would end up straining that fifth gear been trying to accelerate our hill. Their car only processed first or second gear for an app on the freeway.That is why a good way to look at these for physiology’s is the think of them as different intensities. Take each no the thousand different diseases show how they are a breakdown or an in ability two can’t get into one of the gears or the lack of capacity.
each of these gears are already being trained every day. Some people are comfortable in one or two of the gears and extremely weak in another. Purpose of your training is to strengthen the variety of gear Which is very easy to understand hell.When
With the current interest and crazy venting viral infection there are a number of supplements that seem to help in the prevention and recovery from infection. A large number of these supplements are actually involved in the process burning fuel so instead of first thinking about the supplements first think about your actual fitness. Imagine training or imagine wanting to do a marathon. Everybody knows and that you would have to start running. What happens is that the cells use all of those supplements all of the nutrients including oxygen and when the cells use them it creates a gradient so that during the recovery and Bodyworks hard to increase the production of those nutrients. The body also starts to crave those nutrients which are in your food. If the food I’m not available it will show up and they need to be available I don’t put the cart before the horse. completely which is me and Robert metabolism.
So suppose you get sick and you have a fever and your heart rate is elevated. Your body is now in for a longer fight maybe for a few days which is the a pitta me of a aerobic event. You’ve already trained for this event when you change your fitness. A good way to understand these gears is done look at that line that divides them from in less intense gear. Sup so I suppose you’re driving down the road in fifth gear and you have some near accident so you had to accelerate. A good car would be able to accelerate but if all you cared about was gas mileage you might sacrifice power each gear has its specific qualities. This part should go in the intro if you’re going to do an evaluation and for her to see other function thinking more in terms of their health it seems that you’d want to work to see if they have these for tools which are the four tomorrow
as the intensity increases, all tasks closer to short term importance. Ask lower long-term planning and long-term maintenance takes precedent imagine a person living in crisis to crisis. It’s like when your house is a mess and you start shoving things in the closet because somebody’s coming over for dinner. That’s OK but it is nice to have a whole day to take the time organize it. In the long term it would work better that way. The same way thank you if the stimulant drop below a certain point, parked of the brain would not have enough stimulant to enable enough sugar to come in and you would no longer be able to keep your nerve cells charged. So whenever your blood sugar drops certain point sort of panic which is really sort of, for Estilo The question is how well you are able to stay awake without the stimulant. This is one of the intensities that has to be trained. It is relatively easy to train in the ultimate goal should be to achieve what a monkey can do which is to sit still hold the body up for hours with very little food and still be wide awake. Ironically, this type of training there is specifically trains those elements of the aerobic system that don’t require stimulation. When you’re completely relaxed in the week your system is using oxygen but it Hass to get oxygen with out elevation of blood pressure or heart rate. This is important because this is similar to the physiology that you need to sleep. You could be a champion runner and still die in your sleep because if your system has the extreme form of the aerobic gear and a humongous heart volume, what’s going to happen when it needs very little blood clotWhat will happen when your face heart rate already provides too much circulation again you can see each of these physiology’s function.
running a bit hell is challenging also challenging yes withdrawing stimulation. Whenever there’s some stress, on your daytime hormones are enabling your brain to take up more sugar, your brain is protected. When you sleep, and level of stimulant drops which is one of the reasons you are sleep cycles. If the stimulant dropped below a certain point,
problem is that if you watch a personal trainer car can’t tell from the outside. People sky they are gears. You could take a trip across the country still stay in third gear the whole time. Perfect that is the common thing. People are habitually choosing the more intense high-performance high awareness and just resting a lot in order to cover efficient.
In order to properly train the gears it helps to understand purpose for the gears. With the current awareness the benefits of certain supplements that help prevent and help one overcome infectionIt is interesting to note how many of these supplements are fuel for current oxygen metabolism. Aerobic fitness is one of the 40 years. How’s
Instead of picking one of the parts like the liver, or one of the systems like the digestive system, we will start by looking at the sum total of all of the parts. Another word for the sum total of all the parts is the whole. Whenever you train, you don’t get to decide of you are training your immune system or your digestive system. Every cell, organ, and system acts in a predictable way based on how you train. Again, most people ignore how they train and then expect someone to be able to effectively micromanage the cell, organ, or system health which you will see is counterproductive.
Think of training at first simply in terms of intensity. Yes, every degree of intensity exists, but for now just consider high intensity, awake, and asleep as the three types of training. An example of high intensity would, for most people be playing soccer, lifting something heavy, or even working in a busy restaurant. Simply being awake means you are holding your body up, doing easy chores or something repetitive in which you don’t have to be creative, or going for a walk. Once you are asleep you don’t have to hold your body up or pay attention to the environment much at all. Sure, we could distinguish two types of high intensity and two types of awake but it isn’t really necessary to do that yet.
Suppose you like CrossFit and are good at it. What that means is that your high intensity system is strong. The high intensity system is really a sort of survival physiology. It means you will be good at dealing with a crisis. It means you immune system will be able to be quick to act to deal with an injury or infection. It means your cells will develop the capacity to eat a lot of sugar to perform. It means your easily able to push blood to your brain and away from your liver. We could go through each organ, each cell, and each system and say the same thing. When you train your high intensity system, you are training all these things. No pill, no vitamin, nothing you do would enable your high intensity system to function except for you actually doing something at high intensity.
The high intensity physiology has to occur in bursts, but most of the day you are at lower intensity we are just calling awake. When you are driving, walking, doing work that is more routine your physiology has certain predictable characteristics. Your brain is thinking more long-term and starts to wander. You are able to digest your food. Your brain is using much less sugar. Your oxygen metabolism is being utilized. Your emergency immune system is less ready. Again, every part of your body is being trained to function for a full 12 hour day and is working much more efficiently than it would be working at high intensity.
Sleep the only time that the brain is able to pay back the debt that always accumulates when awake. When you are asleep, projects that take longer like the exporting of toxins and long-term immune function. Sugar uptake in the brain is reduced to the minimal amount in order to maximize recovery. Again, each organ and system functions in this physiology of sleep that can be trainied and has to be trained in the same way running has to be trained.
Reactivity
All of us interact with our surroundings at different levels of reactivity in the same way a car engine functions in a range from idle to full throttle. The degree of reactivity should be proportional to the degree of importance or threat in the environment. A waitress or soccer player’s eyes and ears are figuratively speaking wide open and ready to react to all the customers or other players. Activities like walking and driving are more predictable and our physiology shifts into a less perceptive gear in which we don’t have to perform or deal with immediately with the environment. During deep sleep we don’t notice anything, let alone react to anything around us, which would illustrate our lowest level of reactivity.
The most basic skill/decision we make before performing any task is the amount of intensity to bring to the task. Adults know to be more subdued and calm at a funeral, and can flip a switch and become more excitable during a super bowl party. The act of focusing when reading a book is a skill more fundamental and universal than the actual content of what one is reading. If unable to focus, nothing detailed can be understood. If able to focus, any detail can be learned. A person studying chemistry will have an almost identical physiology to someone studying latin. The focus physiology is the same thing as the focus skill, which is not far away from a focus decision (We call this physiology ‘tedious’. The football player waiting for the ball to snap before exploding has trained himself to anticipate/explode. This physiology can be encouraged by jumping in cold water or doing anything exciting. Again, there is a fine line between this ‘excited’ physiology and excited skill and even the excited decision many adults can draw upon so easily they don’t even think of it as a skill. A distance runner develops the ability to deeply tune out the environment and run on autopilot which is the third of four daytime physiologies or skills or intensities or modes or level of reactivity. The last level of reactivity we just call ‘posture’ best exemplified by walking for a prolonged period of time in a place void of obstacles. The reason we call it posture is that all that is required is that the body is help up against gravity, but there is nothing in the environment important enough to pay close attention to. Think about how many people you know who cannot sit still without some sort of distraction. This posture physiology is another skill/intensity. It should already be obvious that each of these skills can be trained and showing people how to train them is the entire purpose of this site. The other purpose of this site is to explain in every necessary detail why micromanaging ones physiology is the way of fools.
We emphasized that these intensities are trainable skills that can be learned in order to clearly distinguish them from all the behind the scenes parts that are not under naturally under our direct control. These are the things modern ‘science’ seems obsessed with which has become a laughable attempt to play God. We believe that your best option is to learn to live the way you were designed to live, and in doing so you will accidentally enable all your parts to function the way they were designed to function. Many people have bought into the religion modern science promotes and that can be illustrated by a stressed out inactive college student staring at a computer screen for hours studying chemistry in order to help make people healthy. That person is actually creating all the pathologies he or she hopes to learn to correct, while some ordinary builder who is more active accidentally ends up healthy without knowing why. When the scientist gets sick he will blame his genes.
Every system, every organ, every cell, every atom, every part known and unknown, behaves differently in different situations. For example, the immune system has parts most necessary in a emergency, like rapid response to a wound. But how does the immune system know when to be on guard? It know to be on guard because you are on guard. It is on guard proportional to your intensity or reactivity. By training your excitability you are training your immune to be excitable for better or for worse. Your immune system also has dimensions to it most effectively in dealing with more long-term issues. When is that immune system encouraged? When there is no immediate threat. How does it know that? When you think there is no immediate threat which would mean deep sleep. The same could be said for the digestive system and every other system. As ones level of alertness increases, so does the ease at which the brain absorbs sugar. As the level of alertness drops, the proportion of oxygen going into the brain increases. The level of alertness can be trained, and in doing so the metabolism is controlled indirectly.
The Rhythm of Metabolism
The basic parts of metabolism can initially be understood by relating to a lawn-mower engine. The engine works which requires energy, and the energy is supplied in the form of gasoline. During the waking hours, the engine is working and gas is burned but this can only go on for about 12 hours for two reasons. The available energy within your brain is gradually diminished, and the remnants of burning the fuel build up. As soon as you get home and sit on the couch, your engine is no longer using up as much energy and soon after less fuel flows into the cells. This allows the cells to catch up and recharge their batteries at night and at the same time either complete the burning of the remnants and return excess fuel to the gas tank which in the body includes the liver. The next day when you get up the cells now have their batteries charged and at the same time have enough room to fit the inevitable waste produced during the day.
When we look at people with a variety of different colors of metabolic dysfunction, there appears to be only a few different patterns. We can describe, predict, and treat almost every pattern simply by dealing with a few variables. One essential concept that has to function properly is the stimulant. A stimulant is simply anything that increases the amount of sugar to the brain. Anytime you feel the need to perform, that is a stimulant. Caffeine is a stimulant. Sugar is a stimulant. The stimulant is necessary for a person to function during the daytime just as fuel is necessary for the lawnmower to work. On the other hand, the stimulant has to be withdrawn in order for the recovery to occur. The most common metabolic issues are related simply to lack of alternating the stimulant. If you are unable to unwind and fast at night it is guaranteed you will have problems. If you don’t have anything important to do during the daytime for a prolonged period of time it is impossible for your metabolism to function.
The stimulant is really our interpretation regarding our need to perform, and has the effect of pouring fuel into our engines. If the engine is not actually doing anything, there will be an excess of fuel that has to go somewhere. Normally the fuel flows backwards at night during recovery, and when anticipation is high while activity is low, the excess of fuel will start flowing away from the cells during the daytime which will make you feel tired. If activity is steady during the daytime, the engine is burning the fuel as it is pouring in which is necessary to have energy and have the proper day/night rhythm. This excess is the source of deconditioning as described in its own article. But the lack of physical fitness is a real problem because it make the system less forgiving when there are temporary excesses. Physical fitness represents the body’s ability to do physical work, and lack of physical fitness is the second and related source of metabolic problems.
A simple indicator of metabolism would you hiking for half an hour. If it is easy and you can sleep at night in order to recover by the next day at least there aren’t any red flags. But what if your capacity is so low that walking for 15 minutes wipes you out and you don’t recover for several days? It is very difficult under those circumstances to have good metabolism. What if you are unable to withdraw the stimulant at night? Again, if you read the article about deconditioning is describes the mechanism that prevents the withdrawal of the stimulant. It is based on the fact that some level of sugar is necessary to constantly flow into the brain, and withdrawing of the stimulant has to be trained gradually in the same way fitness has to be gained gradually.
The Four Intensities
The problem with always being at full throttle is simple. It is physiologically impossible. The cells in your body have a base metabolic rate in which they are able to rid themselves of waste at the same rate they create waste as they burn food for fuel. This is not complicated in you just think of a fire in the barbecue. The wood turns to smoke or ash, and either would build up. The cells burn wood and release air or ash, both of which can’t build up too much. Whenever you are having to perform, the cells are creating more waste than they are getting rid of. Whenever you are not performing, the cells are getting rid of waste faster than they are producing it.
The intensities are named posture, endurance, focus, and excited. Each of those intensities represent very specific physiological states almost like different gears on the car. Posture just means you are awake and holding your body up, which allows you to feel mildly awake for 10 hours or so. During this physiology, we hardly notice our surroundings and maximally process information stored in our long-term memory. It uses primarily an oxygen metabolism without the aid of increased heart rate. In contrast, excited means you maximally are aware of the whole environment, maximize the sugar metabolism, pay no attention to long term memory, and can only sustain this button or gear for seconds or minutes intermittently throughout the day. Each of these buttons or intensities has a page dedicated to it.
Scheduling your day properly, which is the same thing as scheduling your training schedule, determines your health and energy levels. It can be explained on one page, but realistically will take any of us at least six months fo fully implement. It is not that it is extremely complicated, but it gets right to the heart of all our habits. It takes a while to see what habits serve us and which ones are destructive.
Excitability
A car engine does work in the same way a cell does work. The engine needs food/fuel which is stored in the gas tank. The food is then delivered to the engine by pushing on the pedal in order for the engine to push the car. In the same way, when a person has to do something like walking up a hill, food is delivered into the cells via the blood.
Some cars and some people jump when prompted. The ease at which this happens we are calling excitability but have used the term reactivity to mean the same thing. A reactive car/person requires the ability to generate large volumes of fuel instantly to the car/cellular engine. At the same time, the engine must have a large capacity to burn/eat the large volumes of food in order to generate the necessary power.
Pathology
The car like a person has to be excitable enough to make it up a hill, have enough endurance to drive/stay awake all day, and be efficient enough to idle or sleep all night in order to recover. As long as our physiology can achieve these different gears, we will be able to withstand the normal challenges presented by the elements.
Each of these gears develop from habitual. Training is when one alters his or her habits on purpose in order to develop one of these gears.
The study of how any one of these gears or modes or physiological states weakens we call pathology. This can be helpful to understand because one way to approach training is to first reduce the habits that weaken one of these gears. The most common reason for weakening of ones physiology has to do with the chronic reliance on excitability combined with lack of activity. This results in deconditioning, which is basically the opposite process of training.
Groggy
Probably everyone knows what I mean by groggy. It is uncomfortable because you are tired enough to go to bed but part of you wants to be productive and you don’t want to throw your rhythm off by sleeping during the day.
In terms of metabolism, it is as if the actual engine wants to run but the fuel line to the engine is pinched, so even if you try to stimulate the engine it doesn’t respond. There is a very good chance that the engine is actually tired. Your brain is actually tired.
The actual brain fatigue leads to a force causing nutritional delivery system to reverse direction. It is not just that the fuel line is pinched, but the gas is actually flowing in the opposite direction. The brain fatigue really means waste build-up. The ability to stimulate the brain is weakened in the deconditioned state. In other words, in the groggy situation, the fatigue of the brain causes the flow of gas in the opposite direction, and in the deconditioned state the ability to push the fuel into the brain is minimized.
In this situation, intense stimulation (excited state) is really stupid, and even potentialy dangerous. It would be like trying to put the pedal to the metal in a car that already has an overheated engine. Nothing good is likely to happen.
You could sleep. It will actually fix the situation. All the waste will be processed. The brain will recover, but it will take a long time and might mess up your daily schedule.
Don’t sit down, because after only a few minutes, the reversal of the nutritional delivery system will strengthen, and after a short time you will have not choice in the matter.
Posture is the only solution. But if you just sit there and hold your body up, it might not be enough stimulation to override the desire to sleep. Walking is the other end of the posture range, and is the best solution. Just go for a walk. Being outside provides the stimulation. Because it is mild it stimulates the normal nutritional deliver system which will help process the waste from the emergency nutritional delivery system. It will still be mildly uncomfortable, but just wait and every 20 minutes or so you will feel better. The rule is never use stimulants when you are tired. Never eat a lot when you are tired. Stimulatens are for when you already are awake and want to focus more intensely. Don’t sit down. You have to admit you cannot perform immediately, and you have to do something mildly physical. This is the best way to reverse the decades long habit leading to deconditioning.