My fascination with the adrenal stress
phenomenon -that magic thing that happens to your body that temporarily
turns you into superman or superwoman- has been a lifelong
fascination. It seemed other worldly. How could one's body suddenly be
10x as strong or fast as it was a second before, just when you needed that
extra turbo charge to save a life or something else vitally important? "Was it just a myth," I sometimes thought? Turns out, it is not. Each
of our bodies actually has an elaborate protection system that is triggered by
fear of imminent harm. There are actual, physiological changes in the
body that reassign priority of body functions to meet the perceived threat.
Its cool, really cool!
That fascination alone, however, would never
have warranted creation of an association dedicated to adrenal stress
education. What I learned in a barn in Colorado did.
Before I got the barn, however, I had already
started learning more about the body's adrenal system in other ways.
Several years ago when I was suffering from a repeated round of
unexplained fatigue for months at a time, a friend recommended a book to me
about adrenal fatigue. The book made a lot of sense to me, both in terms
of physical symptoms and the rationale for their cause. I am a Type A
personality, pedal-to-the-metal approach to my career as atrial
lawyer for many years, and from time to time, my ability to continue at
that frantic pace failed me. I was exhausted despite any
amount of sleep, had body aches for no apparent reason, and a disinterest in
all the things I usually enjoyed. I also confirmed in my mind the
absolute parallel of my career with someone constantly in fear and under the effects
of an adrenal rush when I took an adrenal stress scenario-based self-defense
course. The physiological reaction of my body and mind to my mock
attacker instructor was identical to the reaction when I was in court or in
depositions.
Where all of these divergent pieces started
merging to together was at an annual event in Colorado called 48
Hours of Adrenaline, a full weekend of scenario-based self-defense training unlike
any other on the planet. This event features something called "The Gauntlet."
"The Gauntlet" is an intense training
exercise where each student, accompanying by a coach, goes through three
chambers of a barn in sequence, each chamber featuring some type of threat
situation that the student was training to deal with in their classes earlier
in the weekend. The instructors are specifically trained in inducing an
adrenal stress reaction in the students and are dressed in protective gear that
allows full force strikes on them, thus allowing the students to practice
what they would do in an actual, fearful situation out in the real world.
The coach is right next to the student the entire time, talking in their
ear, telling them what to do if they blank out and forget, and going through
resolving the scenario to a successful conclusion. In between the
chambers are a few minutes to catch your breath and brace for the next
scenario.
I was terrified my first time through The
Gauntlet, actually more terrified in the time it took to await my turn to go
into the barn. My terror showed. One instructor
guided me over to a group of other students, all combat vets, and had them walk
me through the breathing techniques they used while preparing for a mission.
I don't remember much of what happened in that total of 5 minutes and 3
simulated attacks on my way through the barn that afternoon, my
adrenaline-fogged brain is responsible for that, but the exhilaration
I felt when I was done was out of this world! it was captured on
videotape (you can see it on the48 Hours of Adrenaline website). Everyone in the world should
be able to feel that way after facing and conquering adversity. I had
learned to activate my adrenal response to fight off attackers, bring it down a
notch and regain my breath when the threat was neutralized, and then
re-activate it again for the next challenge.
How cool would it be to be able to activate
your powerful adrenal responses in your day-to-day life when necessary, then be
able to turn it off when the work day is done? Perhaps one's
adrenal system would not get so fatigued if it could be turned off to rest.
The next year at 48 Hours of Adrenaline, again
standing in a barn, I listened as one of the instructors shared his story, a
combat vet suffering from PTSD who hadn't even left his home for four years,
but slowly began to get control back over his life through
participating in and teaching adrenal stress training.
This was the lightbulb moment.
Those intrepid instructors who had delved into the world of adrenal
stress response and how to use it for effective self-defense were holding the
keys to powerful insights into the physiology that leads to PTSD and adrenal
fatigue. In fact, those two syndromes seem to be the two sides of the
same coin -- PTSD is over-reaction to stimulus (fight or flight at the
slightest provocation), whereas adrenal fatigue is freezing in response to
stimulus. Fight, flight, freeze, such a useful
physiological response, run amok in our over-stressed world of constant triggering.
The Adrenal Stress Education Association was created to provide a forum for
bringing together the disciplines relating to how our bodies respond to
perceived threats (adrenal stress), adrenal fatigue, and PTSD, with the goal of
teaching resilience and healing bodies, hearts, and minds.
