September 26, 2025 • 24 mins
In the final week of our Stress Month series, we explore how stress disrupts the hormones, sleep, skin, and even the brain. Stress isn’t just mental—it shows up everywhere, from restless nights to breakouts to brain fog that follows you through the day. We break down how stress hormones like cortisol and testosterone get knocked off balance, slowing recovery, sapping energy, and even raising the risk of bone loss. We look at how stress robs runners of endurance and power while also leaving non-runners drained and sluggish. Add in sleepless nights, skin flare-ups, and mental fog, and stress proves to be a whole-body experience. To close the series, we share strategies for better sleep, balanced hormones, healthy skin, and mental clarity. Whether you’re chasing miles or just chasing peace of mind, this episode helps you recognize the physical toll of stress—and how to start reclaiming your health.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello, everyone, greetings and salutations. Welcome back to another episode
of the Back of the Back podcast. I'm Arose Kyle Walker. Wait,
I forgot to say it back in the Back podcast.
Second went I'm a Kyle Walker. Thank you so much
for tuning in. If you blinked, you missed it. Because
now September is like over. This is the last Friday
in September, the last of our series. I don't know
where the month went. It's it was like here, it
(00:32):
was here a minute ago, and now it's gone, and
I don't know what happened, but this is it. They're
going to wrap up our series on this one. This
is our Stress Effect series. Hopefully you have been enjoying it.
I've gotten a few bits of good feedback, so that's
always nice to hear that it's resonating with folks, So
that's that's good. If you have something that you would
(00:52):
like discussed at some point in time, as like a
series here on these Friday episodes, I am always open
to suggestion, always open for what listen would want to
hear or talk about or discuss over the course of
a month. I'm still really enjoying doing these Friday series.
You know, Monday is kind of our race reviews and
just talking general running stuff. These Friday episodes have been
more about the series and really diving into things over
(01:14):
the course of the entire month, and I don't know,
I've enjoyed it. I hope you have as well. Feel
free to let me know, but if you have any suggestions,
I would love to hear them. So on the Stress
Series again, as we're going to wrap it up today.
Our first week we had the nervous system and heart. Okay,
so that was how stress affects the nervous system and
the heart. Then we had lungs and stomach, so we
moved everything to kind of the mint section. Last week
(01:35):
we did skeleton and muscles, so we talked a little
bit about that. That was all nice and fun and
good to go. We got a few different ones we're
gonna touch on this week as we kind of, I
don't know, just kind of end everything. So just remember though,
that stress is not just about the aches and pains
that we get, all right. It changes your hormones, and
it disrupts your skin, and it wrecks your sleep, and
as we've said every week, it re wires your whole
(01:59):
body and I feel like we cannot stress that enough.
It rewires your whole body. So right now we're gonna
talk real quick about hormones in the indocrine system. I
know that sounds super brainy, but it's a lot easier
than you might think. If I can mildly explain it,
then you know it's really easy. That's just really easy.
So hormones and intocrine system for runners. And again we
(02:21):
go back to the famous word that is the big
buzzword right now. I hate that it's used so much
in this although it is a true statement. Midigan runners
cortisol imbalance. That has a lot to do with your
hormones in your indocrine system. What that can lead to.
In case you were wondering weight gain, especially around the
mid section, we kind of covered that in the stomach area,
but it's it's a thing slower recovery, menstrual irregularities, and
(02:47):
then lower testosterone. In that lower testosterone for us men
can equal less power and stamina. Now for the testosterone part,
I wanted to kind of take a little side note
on that just so guys, especial guys who if you're
within kind of the age of the host of this podcast.
Lower testosterone is just kind of a thing, like it's happening.
It happens as you age, it happens when you get
(03:09):
to a certain point. So lower testosterone for men who run, okay,
that is chronic stress. It lowers your testosterone, which directly
impacts your muscle strength, your endurance, and your recovery. So
lower levels can mean less explosive power in your sprints
(03:29):
and then slower gains from weightlifting or training or whatever.
It also can equal longer recovery windows. It can just
take longer for the body to recover from the exercises
that you're putting it through, and that's longer after long
runs or maybe even after races. It can also contribute
to increased belly fat ha ha hello, which makes running
(03:50):
feel harder at the same paces. So if you're like
me and you're of the age where you know your
testosterone levels have lowered and you really should probab be
taking the testosterone supplement, which I have an unopened bottle
of and just haven't busted it out. And then let's
say you also maybe like to imbibe the adult beverage
or two, especially if it's made out of barley and hops.
(04:12):
Shall we say, you are just wrecking your chances at
those six pack abs. Let's be real honest, now, six
pack abs will never be threatened by me. I carry
around the full keg, shall we say, But I even
I am aware of the things that I'm doing that
are not helping the whole mid section area. They are
definitely things that I need to get more under control
(04:33):
in my life, even if it means starting by taking
the testosterone supplement which are available. Member, do everything with
doctors blessing. You know, as long as the doctor's okay
with it, then you're good to go. Don't just listen
to the idiot with the microphone. But guys, if you're
packing on the pounds and you're not losing the belly fat,
there's a lot of reasons for that. Most of them
are self inflicted. But you cannot help that. Your test
(04:56):
testosterone the words as you age. Nobody can stop that
from happen, and that's just what it do. So just
keep that in mind. Don't beat yourself up too much.
But there are things that we can do during glass
tech supplements that could help with the whole mid section issue. Okay,
so in everyday life, you know, we had the runner
stuff that we had, the everyday life stuff. Low testosterone
from stress can cause reduce libido, So maybe you are
(05:19):
not as not as a flavorful Lindsey Bedroom show a say,
and you'll need a little help to space things up
with your lever however you do it. I know that
was terrible, but it can have the decreased libido, decreased energy,
and even mild depression. So lower testosterone can put in
a little bit of a depressed date. Men often chalk
(05:39):
these things up to just getting older. Ding ding ding.
I have done this myself, but stress is a big driver.
Over time. It can weaken bones and that's an osteoporosis
risk and then reduce motivation and sap confidence reduce motivation. Definitely,
that is something that I had just blamed on getting older.
All Right, you guys know, I love this podcast and
(06:01):
I love running. Am I as one million percent committed
to running as I was maybe ten years ago at
this point, No, no, ten years ago, I couldn't fab
them missing a race due to injury or just I
need to recover, or I just I don't want to go.
And then there definitely been times more recently where I
just didn't want to go, and so I didn't. And yeah,
(06:25):
so it's definitely a thing. And I've told you guys again,
the whole reason this stress series came up is because
there's just been a lot of stress to deal with
and so I just thought this was a good time
to jump into it. But yeah, that reduced motivation. Stress
big time affects your motivation like that is no kidding.
And then when you're not motivated and when you're not
out doing the things and you're getting a little bit
(06:45):
of belly fat on you and you just feel like
you're getting older, Yeah, that's going to kill your confidence,
you know, and you know things in the bedroom moderness spacey,
I won't go with bad X and again, but all
that can take away your confidence. And that's the everyday
stuff also mixing the fact you're running and play towing.
You're running and not seeing gains, you're not coming in faster,
you're not improving. Again, Now your confidence as a runner
(07:07):
is on shaky ground because you're not doing the things
that you're used to doing or that you previously were doing.
But the stress is rewiring your body. It's lowering your testosterone.
It's not just that you're getting older and now you're
running into all these problems and you are internalizing all this. Men,
I'm talking to you, of course, and so you'd be like, well,
I'm just lesser than Well, no, there's actually a lot
of things working against you. There are things that we
(07:30):
have to overcome, and that is a very difficult struggle.
It is not easy. And as the expression goes, rome
was not built in the day. So when you identify
these problems, you have to start taking the correct steps
to fixing them. But it is not an overnight fix.
It is not a one week fix. It is a
lot of fixes over a lot of time until maybe
you start to see the improvement that you want to see.
(07:51):
But it's not easy, but nothing easy is worth doing.
And then let's see for men's stress isn't just about
feeling tired. It's about losing that edge both in performance
and every day vitality. So I wanted to jump a
little bit more into the testosterone stuff. Trust me, I
know this is a female audience driven podcast, but guys,
(08:12):
whoever listens, sometimes we just we gotta throw a little
love your direction, and you know, let let you know
I'm thinking of you. And again, that stuff pertains to
me far more than those to a lot of the
ladies out there. I'm sure. Uh. Anyway, let's see what
is next to do to do? We did the coursol
and balance, Yep, we did Uh yeah, wait, okay, yeah
next all right, sleep disruption. So stress and sleep disruption
(08:34):
for runners, stress of course equals poor sleep ta da.
Poor sleep equals lower performance, higher risk of injury, and
slower adaptation to training. Even one bad week of sleep
can tank a training cycle. Found that very interesting that
you're you're training and you're adapting to the training or
doing let's say you're just getting into a marathon program.
(08:56):
You're going with a fourteen week, and then that first
or second week, let's say a second week, you're not sleeping. Well,
something happened. Things are stressful, Your sleep is bad. So
even though you had the first week or maybe the
first two weeks of building that base, then all of
a sudden, you get in the week three and everything
just falls apart and it crumbles down, and you're like,
wait a minute, what was those first two weeks about?
(09:16):
Why am I not improving off of that? Why am
I coming back down? Could be that something stressful happened,
could be that you're not sleeping well. And if you're
not sleeping well, your body's not recovering and you're not
adapting to the program that you're trying to do. So
just things to keep in mind in everyday life. Of course,
trouble falling asleep, waking up at three am with racing thoughts,
or dragging through the workday, all these can be signs
(09:38):
of stress. Stress dreams are definitely a big thing. They're real.
They happen. As your life gets more stressful, your dreams
will just go bonkers. And I as I record this,
I know the night before I was having some weird,
freaking dreams. Woke up several times because my dreams were
so just you wake up and you look around, you like,
(09:58):
what the hell that was me last night? Right before
recording this podcast, for sure, Ah, it was interesting when
that happened, So so weird, just so weird. So yeah,
we have the trouble falling sleep, wake get up at
three am with racing thoughts, and then dragging through the
workday in that wired but tired, as they call it,
wired but tired feeling where your body is exhausted but
(10:21):
your brain won't shut off. That is me most nights,
most nights, whether I train or not, like, I know,
my body's tired, I'm ready to go to sleep. And
I definitely think some of this might go back to
the low testosterone because now anymore, like let's say nine
o'clock at night, when I hit that wall, I'm ready
to go to bed. Like that's where I'm dozing off
(10:41):
on the couch. That's where I just am ready to
go to bed. I don't care if I'm in the
middle of a show or not. I will just actively
walk away from the show, even if I'm in the
middle of it, because it hit me I am ready
for bed. And that has not been the case of
my life until this very recent stretch of super stressful
events and occurrences. But now, boy, when I hit that wall,
(11:02):
I'm going to bed. I'm out, Like by everybody, have
a good night. I'm through. So that definitely is because
of a lot of the stress stuff that's going on.
And then you might be that tired and you might
be dozing on the couch. You might be like, Okay,
I've hit the wall, I'm going to bed. Then you
go upstairs and you take your time, you know, you
brush your teeth, use your mouth, wash, wash your face,
use a restroom, changing your night clothes, hop in bed,
(11:24):
and then all of a sudden, you're wide awake. It's
like what I was dying on the couch. I thought
I was not gonna be able to make it up
the staircase without falling asleep on stairs. And now I'm
in bed ready to sleep, and here we go. The
mind is racing or now I'm just feeling totally awake?
Or what am I gonna do? Oh? What are we
gonna do tomorrow? What's our next run? Look like? What
do I have to do at work? What are the
kids up to? Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,
(11:45):
And your mind just goes nuts. So again, all this
can be because of the stress. Next one, skin and hair.
The hair part I don't have to worry too much about.
So hey, lucky mean right? Skin and hair runners Sweat
plus stress induced acne or rashes equals uncomfortable runs, flare
(12:06):
ups of eczema or psoriasis from training stress and life stress. Okay,
so running in the sweat mixed with stress can cause
skin issues. All right, Now, I am someone who has
dealt with just the slightest, most mild case. I think
(12:26):
of ezema. Ever, like there's a few spots in my arm,
especially in the winter when it is super dry, we'll
all get a little bit of a flare up and
then I have to use little corzone cream on it. Yeah,
no big deal. People have it way worse than I do.
I have noticed that to be a stress induced thing.
It's more dry air thing. But I do recognize that
that can be very uncomfortable and it is not fun
when you have those little flare ups. And if stress
(12:48):
is one of the things that can cause your flare ups,
then hey, you know, that makes all the sense in
the world for me. It's dry air for some people's
stress either which way, they're uncomfortable when they happen. So
runners keep an eye on that. If you're having flare
ups while you're running, it might be because you also
dealing with stress outside of the running world in everyday life.
That can be breakouts before big events, stress induced hives,
(13:11):
noticeable hair thinning after prolong stress. And yeah, just remember
that when I got married to my first wife and
before any kids, I had a beautiful head of hair.
It was gorgeous. I had long, thick, full hair, and
(13:32):
then I got married, and then I had two daughters,
and then I got divorced, and then suddenly I have
a great hat collection because the hair is gone. It's
not all the way gone, Like you couldn't take two
fingers and put them anywhere in my head and not
touch hair of some sort. But the thinning, it hurts.
(13:52):
It hurts a little bit. Now I could go a
whole coging on it. I could just have next to
nothing on top, and like I would still grow out
long hair on the sides bag, you know, if I
really wanted to go with that brother, But I kind
of don't. I just embrace the bald and bearded beautiful look.
And that's what I kind of rock and have been
rocking for quite a few years now. But I have
no doubt, no doubt, because even after my divorce, I
(14:15):
still had a full head of hair. And then as
things got worse and kids got older, it all went
by by, it went away, and I miss it. I
miss it terribly anyway, all right. So that was the
skin and the hair. If you ever wonder why your
skin betrays you before, like a job interview or your
wedding or races. That's stress chemistry. Next up we have
(14:36):
brain and mental processing. Okay, So the brain, of course,
like everything else, can be affected by the stress. For runners,
brain fog that is poor focus on pacing or form
that can be zoning out on routes, forgetting gear. Stress
impairs decision making making mid run, hydration in fueling strategies
(14:56):
sometimes a little off and a little wonky. Okay, so
the brain fog really can mess with your run, and
you may not you may have never thought, okay, it
may have never crossed your mind why your run went
to crap and that it might have been a brain
fog that you're in. But think about it. Okay. Your
pacing gets messed up, that's a problem. Your form is wrong,
(15:16):
that's a problem. If you're zoning out on your route,
you take a wrong turn, you go a direction you
didn't mean to go. Zoning out on your route, I
think also can mean you're not watching your step, you
trip on the sidewalk, you veer off your sidewalk, and
you're you know, you run through that. That's of course,
if you take that one step off the sidewalk that
you don't mean to take that's where the mud puddle
is every time. Every time, that is where the mud is.
(15:38):
That's where they just put down the new sod. That's
where if your foot hits a grass coming off the
sidewalk and you didn't mean for it too, It's where
you run into some imperfection in the ground. Shall we say?
That's just every freaking time. Let's see here forgetting gear,
you know, that's where maybe you're under stressed and you
forgot your headphones. Maybe you're under stressed and you forgot
to put your shoes in your car stacy. So maybe
(16:00):
you're under stress and you just you forget the things
that you need to have for your race or that
you like to have for your race, And so that
can definitely be a stress thing, which interesting if you
kind of evaluate that situation, it impairs your decision making
mid run, Like the people who run through the aid
station who don't didn't even see the aid station, and
then they're trying to figure out why am I thirsty?
(16:23):
Or the ones who don't take the goo when they
normally want to take their goo, or don't take their
sport beans when they normally want to take their sport beans.
Your mind just can be foggy, it can be elsewhere,
and that can mess up your running, whether it be
during a race or during a training run. In everyday life,
that equals memory lapses, decreased creativity, snapping a family, difficulty
concentrating on tasks. So these are all things that brain
(16:45):
fog can kind of do in your everyday life. Brain
fog caused by stress walking into a room and forgetting
why you're there, or rereading the same email three times.
I have gotten so bad, and I keep using the word,
the old word on walking into and forgetting why in
the world I went in there like that has been
a thing lately, and so I'm gonna go. I will
(17:06):
switch my line of thinking from I'm getting old too,
I'm under a lot of stress. But boy, hottie, that
is happening more and more, and I hate it. It
drives me nuts and you feel like an idiot. No
one else in the world knows that that happened to you,
but you know, and you feel like I'm more on
when it does. All right, let's move on to coping
in real world strategy. Okay, so hormones balance stress with nutrition, protein,
(17:29):
whole foods, and cut caffeine late sleep, create pre bed routines,
limit screen time, and do some deep breathing. That blue
light coming from your phone, it stimulates your brain and
keeps you awake. Seriously, when I plug my phone in
when I go upstairs, yeah, that's a good ten fifteen
to twenty minutes of doing my pre bed rituals without
(17:52):
looking at the phone. When I plug the phone in,
put on my nightstand, I'm done with it. It's done,
and I think it does wonders. There are people who
will stare at that screen until they try and go
to sleep, and then they can't go to sleep. Those
screens are freaking evil. Man. I hate phones. As the
parent of two teenage girls, I freaking hate cell phones.
Skin and hair, stay hydrated, basic skincare, and avoid stress.
(18:14):
Snacking yep, stress that snacking can be a prowle that
affects a lot more than just your skin. But that's
a little bit of everything. And then brain. You can
do journaling, practice mindfulness and unplugging to reset mental space.
Runners and non runners alike. Rest days and downtime are
essential for whole body help. We've all said respect the
rest day, even though we don't want to, all right,
(18:36):
So Over the whole series, we've gone through how stress
effects damn near everything had to tell. Stress hits everywhere
inside your body, outside your body, on your skin, head, head, shoulders, needs,
and toasts. It can get everywhere. You can always remove stress,
but you can't, I'm sorry. You can't always remove stress,
but you can learn how to notice and manage its effects,
(18:58):
which I think mostly is what this is about. We
can't get rid of the stressful things in our lives,
but we can notice it. We can try and alter
how we approach things. We can try and deal with
the problems as they rise if we at least have
an understanding of why these problems are arising. So that's
always good. But stress is part of life and training.
You're never gonna go through a marathon training cycle without
(19:18):
there being stress. It can just be the stress from
the training cycle. But then you factor in the rest
of life because we're all grown ass adults and there's
all things coming at us left, right, and center that
are going to try and stress us out. And so
those are just things that we were gonna have to
learn to deal with. But you need to recognize the
physical toll that the stress has on you and then
(19:39):
recognizing it is kind of your first step towards the resilience. Okay,
the just getting through. I see this is what's happening. Now,
let me try and get through this process, get to
the other side of it so that I can remove
the stressor from my training cycle and then yeah, I mean,
I think that's it by way of stress stuff. If
I've missed anything, reach out and let me know. Oh,
(20:00):
hopefully you guys enjoyed the series. I would love a
feedback on the series if you enjoyed it, and then
be any other series that you would like, anything else
that you would like kind of approach October. I don't
have anything lined up in Stone. I've got some ideas
I'm kicking around, but would love to know what you
think for October. It's a long month. I think that
we've got five Fridays in October because Halloween is on
(20:21):
a Friday, so that'll be fun once we get to that.
But if October goes as fast as September did, then boy, hotey,
we're good to go. Okay, So on Monday's episode, we
have a lot of catching up to do because for
the last month, most of September, we have had guests
on the show. We don't have a guest coming up
on Monday. We've got a lot of things that we
got to talk about. We got to talk about the
(20:42):
Heartland thirty k series from start to finish because all
three of those the races have come and gone. We've
got to talk about injury. We've got to talk about,
you know, race disappointments, like Monday might be a little heavy.
I'm going to try not but Monday might get a
little heavy, so just be ready for that. We don't
have a race this weekend. This was supposed to be
my fifty mile lay. If you're following along and can
(21:02):
kind of draw or kind of read in between the lines,
the fifty dollars is not gonna happen. Do it to injury,
and so we're gonna break all that down and talk
all about that on Monday, which sucks. So nothing this
weekend for the podcast. We won't have anything, but we'll
be back on Monday with a new episode. We'll be
back next Friday with a new episode of a Second Wind,
and we're gonna jump into whatever series we land on.
(21:24):
We'd love listener suggestions. If we don't get that it's
up to me. Be afraid, be very afraid, and we'll
just keep on going. Remember, follow us all over social media.
Facebook is our main account, Instagram is our secondary account.
We do have TikTok, where I'm trying to do better.
We have X, which I don't do anything. Sorry, I'm
not sorry. I don't really care about X. That place
(21:47):
is a toxic mess and I don't like it. But
please follow us everywhere. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and
that needs help, make sure you're all downloading and listening
to episodes. And then there's the Patreon page. We would
love to have you help with kind of just a
little monthly, little monthly something, little something for the effort,
shall we say, on the old Patreon page. It allows
(22:08):
us to kind of keep going and pay the bills.
We just got hit with the big old honking bill
for the tax financial system that we use. Like, oh crap,
I didn't really have that money available in the podcast account,
but hey, we got to get it paid anyway. So
the Patreon page helps us more than you will ever know.
And I know, I know, asking for money it sucks.
(22:29):
It sucks. But if you've ever done a podcast, or
if you've ever heard other podcasters talk about it. This
shit ain't free. Man like a cost arm and a
leg to produce anything of any kind of value or quality,
and we definitely try and give you value in quality.
So anyway, I'm just shut the hell up. We'll be
back Monday with a bran new episode of the podcast,
the Back to Back Podcast, Oh Don't Forget. On October
(22:51):
second is our next meeting of the Chasing Rabbits Run Club.
I hope you will come out on Thursday evening six
thirty Discourse Brewery. We've had so much fun. The first
three weeks have been huge, raging successes, and I hope
we can just keep it going and keep growing. I
will let you know that this Thursday, coming up, October
second is Garmin Kansas City Marathon Night. We will have
(23:13):
a representative from the Garman Kansas City Marathon at the
run club. He is gonna come out, he'll talk to
you about the race. He's got discounts, he's got a
free race entry drawing, he's got swagged to give away.
So if you have ever run the kans City Marathon,
find an old shirt and wear that to the Chasing
Rabbits Run Club. It's Garman, Kansas City Marathon Night October
second Discourse Brewery, six thirty pm for the Chasing Rabbits
(23:35):
Run Club. And again we have been having an absolute
ball at these things. I hope you will come out
and have a great time with us. That's gonna do it.
For this week's episode of the Back of the Back Podcast,
second one, I'm your sky walker and it's my pleasure
as hold us. Everyone, have a safe week of training.
We will see you hopefully Thursday at the Chasing Rabbits
Run Club. Pasta PIU, mister p
Hello, everyone, greetings and salutations. Welcome back to another episode
of the Back of the Back podcast. I'm Arose Kyle Walker. Wait,
I forgot to say it back in the Back podcast.
Second went I'm a Kyle Walker. Thank you so much
for tuning in. If you blinked, you missed it. Because
now September is like over. This is the last Friday
in September, the last of our series. I don't know
where the month went. It's it was like here, it
(00:32):
was here a minute ago, and now it's gone, and
I don't know what happened, but this is it. They're
going to wrap up our series on this one. This
is our Stress Effect series. Hopefully you have been enjoying it.
I've gotten a few bits of good feedback, so that's
always nice to hear that it's resonating with folks, So
that's that's good. If you have something that you would
(00:52):
like discussed at some point in time, as like a
series here on these Friday episodes, I am always open
to suggestion, always open for what listen would want to
hear or talk about or discuss over the course of
a month. I'm still really enjoying doing these Friday series.
You know, Monday is kind of our race reviews and
just talking general running stuff. These Friday episodes have been
more about the series and really diving into things over
(01:14):
the course of the entire month, and I don't know,
I've enjoyed it. I hope you have as well. Feel
free to let me know, but if you have any suggestions,
I would love to hear them. So on the Stress
Series again, as we're going to wrap it up today.
Our first week we had the nervous system and heart. Okay,
so that was how stress affects the nervous system and
the heart. Then we had lungs and stomach, so we
moved everything to kind of the mint section. Last week
(01:35):
we did skeleton and muscles, so we talked a little
bit about that. That was all nice and fun and
good to go. We got a few different ones we're
gonna touch on this week as we kind of, I
don't know, just kind of end everything. So just remember though,
that stress is not just about the aches and pains
that we get, all right. It changes your hormones, and
it disrupts your skin, and it wrecks your sleep, and
as we've said every week, it re wires your whole
(01:59):
body and I feel like we cannot stress that enough.
It rewires your whole body. So right now we're gonna
talk real quick about hormones in the indocrine system. I
know that sounds super brainy, but it's a lot easier
than you might think. If I can mildly explain it,
then you know it's really easy. That's just really easy.
So hormones and intocrine system for runners. And again we
(02:21):
go back to the famous word that is the big
buzzword right now. I hate that it's used so much
in this although it is a true statement. Midigan runners
cortisol imbalance. That has a lot to do with your
hormones in your indocrine system. What that can lead to.
In case you were wondering weight gain, especially around the
mid section, we kind of covered that in the stomach area,
but it's it's a thing slower recovery, menstrual irregularities, and
(02:47):
then lower testosterone. In that lower testosterone for us men
can equal less power and stamina. Now for the testosterone part,
I wanted to kind of take a little side note
on that just so guys, especial guys who if you're
within kind of the age of the host of this podcast.
Lower testosterone is just kind of a thing, like it's happening.
It happens as you age, it happens when you get
(03:09):
to a certain point. So lower testosterone for men who run, okay,
that is chronic stress. It lowers your testosterone, which directly
impacts your muscle strength, your endurance, and your recovery. So
lower levels can mean less explosive power in your sprints
(03:29):
and then slower gains from weightlifting or training or whatever.
It also can equal longer recovery windows. It can just
take longer for the body to recover from the exercises
that you're putting it through, and that's longer after long
runs or maybe even after races. It can also contribute
to increased belly fat ha ha hello, which makes running
(03:50):
feel harder at the same paces. So if you're like
me and you're of the age where you know your
testosterone levels have lowered and you really should probab be
taking the testosterone supplement, which I have an unopened bottle
of and just haven't busted it out. And then let's
say you also maybe like to imbibe the adult beverage
or two, especially if it's made out of barley and hops.
(04:12):
Shall we say, you are just wrecking your chances at
those six pack abs. Let's be real honest, now, six
pack abs will never be threatened by me. I carry
around the full keg, shall we say, But I even
I am aware of the things that I'm doing that
are not helping the whole mid section area. They are
definitely things that I need to get more under control
(04:33):
in my life, even if it means starting by taking
the testosterone supplement which are available. Member, do everything with
doctors blessing. You know, as long as the doctor's okay
with it, then you're good to go. Don't just listen
to the idiot with the microphone. But guys, if you're
packing on the pounds and you're not losing the belly fat,
there's a lot of reasons for that. Most of them
are self inflicted. But you cannot help that. Your test
(04:56):
testosterone the words as you age. Nobody can stop that
from happen, and that's just what it do. So just
keep that in mind. Don't beat yourself up too much.
But there are things that we can do during glass
tech supplements that could help with the whole mid section issue. Okay,
so in everyday life, you know, we had the runner
stuff that we had, the everyday life stuff. Low testosterone
from stress can cause reduce libido, So maybe you are
(05:19):
not as not as a flavorful Lindsey Bedroom show a say,
and you'll need a little help to space things up
with your lever however you do it. I know that
was terrible, but it can have the decreased libido, decreased energy,
and even mild depression. So lower testosterone can put in
a little bit of a depressed date. Men often chalk
(05:39):
these things up to just getting older. Ding ding ding.
I have done this myself, but stress is a big driver.
Over time. It can weaken bones and that's an osteoporosis
risk and then reduce motivation and sap confidence reduce motivation. Definitely,
that is something that I had just blamed on getting older.
All Right, you guys know, I love this podcast and
(06:01):
I love running. Am I as one million percent committed
to running as I was maybe ten years ago at
this point, No, no, ten years ago, I couldn't fab
them missing a race due to injury or just I
need to recover, or I just I don't want to go.
And then there definitely been times more recently where I
just didn't want to go, and so I didn't. And yeah,
(06:25):
so it's definitely a thing. And I've told you guys again,
the whole reason this stress series came up is because
there's just been a lot of stress to deal with
and so I just thought this was a good time
to jump into it. But yeah, that reduced motivation. Stress
big time affects your motivation like that is no kidding.
And then when you're not motivated and when you're not
out doing the things and you're getting a little bit
(06:45):
of belly fat on you and you just feel like
you're getting older, Yeah, that's going to kill your confidence,
you know, and you know things in the bedroom moderness spacey,
I won't go with bad X and again, but all
that can take away your confidence. And that's the everyday
stuff also mixing the fact you're running and play towing.
You're running and not seeing gains, you're not coming in faster,
you're not improving. Again, Now your confidence as a runner
(07:07):
is on shaky ground because you're not doing the things
that you're used to doing or that you previously were doing.
But the stress is rewiring your body. It's lowering your testosterone.
It's not just that you're getting older and now you're
running into all these problems and you are internalizing all this. Men,
I'm talking to you, of course, and so you'd be like, well,
I'm just lesser than Well, no, there's actually a lot
of things working against you. There are things that we
(07:30):
have to overcome, and that is a very difficult struggle.
It is not easy. And as the expression goes, rome
was not built in the day. So when you identify
these problems, you have to start taking the correct steps
to fixing them. But it is not an overnight fix.
It is not a one week fix. It is a
lot of fixes over a lot of time until maybe
you start to see the improvement that you want to see.
(07:51):
But it's not easy, but nothing easy is worth doing.
And then let's see for men's stress isn't just about
feeling tired. It's about losing that edge both in performance
and every day vitality. So I wanted to jump a
little bit more into the testosterone stuff. Trust me, I
know this is a female audience driven podcast, but guys,
(08:12):
whoever listens, sometimes we just we gotta throw a little
love your direction, and you know, let let you know
I'm thinking of you. And again, that stuff pertains to
me far more than those to a lot of the
ladies out there. I'm sure. Uh. Anyway, let's see what
is next to do to do? We did the coursol
and balance, Yep, we did Uh yeah, wait, okay, yeah
next all right, sleep disruption. So stress and sleep disruption
(08:34):
for runners, stress of course equals poor sleep ta da.
Poor sleep equals lower performance, higher risk of injury, and
slower adaptation to training. Even one bad week of sleep
can tank a training cycle. Found that very interesting that
you're you're training and you're adapting to the training or
doing let's say you're just getting into a marathon program.
(08:56):
You're going with a fourteen week, and then that first
or second week, let's say a second week, you're not sleeping. Well,
something happened. Things are stressful, Your sleep is bad. So
even though you had the first week or maybe the
first two weeks of building that base, then all of
a sudden, you get in the week three and everything
just falls apart and it crumbles down, and you're like,
wait a minute, what was those first two weeks about?
(09:16):
Why am I not improving off of that? Why am
I coming back down? Could be that something stressful happened,
could be that you're not sleeping well. And if you're
not sleeping well, your body's not recovering and you're not
adapting to the program that you're trying to do. So
just things to keep in mind in everyday life. Of course,
trouble falling asleep, waking up at three am with racing thoughts,
or dragging through the workday, all these can be signs
(09:38):
of stress. Stress dreams are definitely a big thing. They're real.
They happen. As your life gets more stressful, your dreams
will just go bonkers. And I as I record this,
I know the night before I was having some weird,
freaking dreams. Woke up several times because my dreams were
so just you wake up and you look around, you like,
(09:58):
what the hell that was me last night? Right before
recording this podcast, for sure, Ah, it was interesting when
that happened, So so weird, just so weird. So yeah,
we have the trouble falling sleep, wake get up at
three am with racing thoughts, and then dragging through the
workday in that wired but tired, as they call it,
wired but tired feeling where your body is exhausted but
(10:21):
your brain won't shut off. That is me most nights,
most nights, whether I train or not, like, I know,
my body's tired, I'm ready to go to sleep. And
I definitely think some of this might go back to
the low testosterone because now anymore, like let's say nine
o'clock at night, when I hit that wall, I'm ready
to go to bed. Like that's where I'm dozing off
(10:41):
on the couch. That's where I just am ready to
go to bed. I don't care if I'm in the
middle of a show or not. I will just actively
walk away from the show, even if I'm in the
middle of it, because it hit me I am ready
for bed. And that has not been the case of
my life until this very recent stretch of super stressful
events and occurrences. But now, boy, when I hit that wall,
(11:02):
I'm going to bed. I'm out, Like by everybody, have
a good night. I'm through. So that definitely is because
of a lot of the stress stuff that's going on.
And then you might be that tired and you might
be dozing on the couch. You might be like, Okay,
I've hit the wall, I'm going to bed. Then you
go upstairs and you take your time, you know, you
brush your teeth, use your mouth, wash, wash your face,
use a restroom, changing your night clothes, hop in bed,
(11:24):
and then all of a sudden, you're wide awake. It's
like what I was dying on the couch. I thought
I was not gonna be able to make it up
the staircase without falling asleep on stairs. And now I'm
in bed ready to sleep, and here we go. The
mind is racing or now I'm just feeling totally awake?
Or what am I gonna do? Oh? What are we
gonna do tomorrow? What's our next run? Look like? What
do I have to do at work? What are the
kids up to? Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,
(11:45):
And your mind just goes nuts. So again, all this
can be because of the stress. Next one, skin and hair.
The hair part I don't have to worry too much about.
So hey, lucky mean right? Skin and hair runners Sweat
plus stress induced acne or rashes equals uncomfortable runs, flare
(12:06):
ups of eczema or psoriasis from training stress and life stress. Okay,
so running in the sweat mixed with stress can cause
skin issues. All right, Now, I am someone who has
dealt with just the slightest, most mild case. I think
(12:26):
of ezema. Ever, like there's a few spots in my arm,
especially in the winter when it is super dry, we'll
all get a little bit of a flare up and
then I have to use little corzone cream on it. Yeah,
no big deal. People have it way worse than I do.
I have noticed that to be a stress induced thing.
It's more dry air thing. But I do recognize that
that can be very uncomfortable and it is not fun
when you have those little flare ups. And if stress
(12:48):
is one of the things that can cause your flare ups,
then hey, you know, that makes all the sense in
the world for me. It's dry air for some people's
stress either which way, they're uncomfortable when they happen. So
runners keep an eye on that. If you're having flare
ups while you're running, it might be because you also
dealing with stress outside of the running world in everyday life.
That can be breakouts before big events, stress induced hives,
(13:11):
noticeable hair thinning after prolong stress. And yeah, just remember
that when I got married to my first wife and
before any kids, I had a beautiful head of hair.
It was gorgeous. I had long, thick, full hair, and
(13:32):
then I got married, and then I had two daughters,
and then I got divorced, and then suddenly I have
a great hat collection because the hair is gone. It's
not all the way gone, Like you couldn't take two
fingers and put them anywhere in my head and not
touch hair of some sort. But the thinning, it hurts.
(13:52):
It hurts a little bit. Now I could go a
whole coging on it. I could just have next to
nothing on top, and like I would still grow out
long hair on the sides bag, you know, if I
really wanted to go with that brother, But I kind
of don't. I just embrace the bald and bearded beautiful look.
And that's what I kind of rock and have been
rocking for quite a few years now. But I have
no doubt, no doubt, because even after my divorce, I
(14:15):
still had a full head of hair. And then as
things got worse and kids got older, it all went
by by, it went away, and I miss it. I
miss it terribly anyway, all right. So that was the
skin and the hair. If you ever wonder why your
skin betrays you before, like a job interview or your
wedding or races. That's stress chemistry. Next up we have
(14:36):
brain and mental processing. Okay, So the brain, of course,
like everything else, can be affected by the stress. For runners,
brain fog that is poor focus on pacing or form
that can be zoning out on routes, forgetting gear. Stress
impairs decision making making mid run, hydration in fueling strategies
(14:56):
sometimes a little off and a little wonky. Okay, so
the brain fog really can mess with your run, and
you may not you may have never thought, okay, it
may have never crossed your mind why your run went
to crap and that it might have been a brain
fog that you're in. But think about it. Okay. Your
pacing gets messed up, that's a problem. Your form is wrong,
(15:16):
that's a problem. If you're zoning out on your route,
you take a wrong turn, you go a direction you
didn't mean to go. Zoning out on your route, I
think also can mean you're not watching your step, you
trip on the sidewalk, you veer off your sidewalk, and
you're you know, you run through that. That's of course,
if you take that one step off the sidewalk that
you don't mean to take that's where the mud puddle
is every time. Every time, that is where the mud is.
(15:38):
That's where they just put down the new sod. That's
where if your foot hits a grass coming off the
sidewalk and you didn't mean for it too, It's where
you run into some imperfection in the ground. Shall we say?
That's just every freaking time. Let's see here forgetting gear,
you know, that's where maybe you're under stressed and you
forgot your headphones. Maybe you're under stressed and you forgot
to put your shoes in your car stacy. So maybe
(16:00):
you're under stress and you just you forget the things
that you need to have for your race or that
you like to have for your race, And so that
can definitely be a stress thing, which interesting if you
kind of evaluate that situation, it impairs your decision making
mid run, Like the people who run through the aid
station who don't didn't even see the aid station, and
then they're trying to figure out why am I thirsty?
(16:23):
Or the ones who don't take the goo when they
normally want to take their goo, or don't take their
sport beans when they normally want to take their sport beans.
Your mind just can be foggy, it can be elsewhere,
and that can mess up your running, whether it be
during a race or during a training run. In everyday life,
that equals memory lapses, decreased creativity, snapping a family, difficulty
concentrating on tasks. So these are all things that brain
(16:45):
fog can kind of do in your everyday life. Brain
fog caused by stress walking into a room and forgetting
why you're there, or rereading the same email three times.
I have gotten so bad, and I keep using the word,
the old word on walking into and forgetting why in
the world I went in there like that has been
a thing lately, and so I'm gonna go. I will
(17:06):
switch my line of thinking from I'm getting old too,
I'm under a lot of stress. But boy, hottie, that
is happening more and more, and I hate it. It
drives me nuts and you feel like an idiot. No
one else in the world knows that that happened to you,
but you know, and you feel like I'm more on
when it does. All right, let's move on to coping
in real world strategy. Okay, so hormones balance stress with nutrition, protein,
(17:29):
whole foods, and cut caffeine late sleep, create pre bed routines,
limit screen time, and do some deep breathing. That blue
light coming from your phone, it stimulates your brain and
keeps you awake. Seriously, when I plug my phone in
when I go upstairs, yeah, that's a good ten fifteen
to twenty minutes of doing my pre bed rituals without
(17:52):
looking at the phone. When I plug the phone in,
put on my nightstand, I'm done with it. It's done,
and I think it does wonders. There are people who
will stare at that screen until they try and go
to sleep, and then they can't go to sleep. Those
screens are freaking evil. Man. I hate phones. As the
parent of two teenage girls, I freaking hate cell phones.
Skin and hair, stay hydrated, basic skincare, and avoid stress.
(18:14):
Snacking yep, stress that snacking can be a prowle that
affects a lot more than just your skin. But that's
a little bit of everything. And then brain. You can
do journaling, practice mindfulness and unplugging to reset mental space.
Runners and non runners alike. Rest days and downtime are
essential for whole body help. We've all said respect the
rest day, even though we don't want to, all right,
(18:36):
So Over the whole series, we've gone through how stress
effects damn near everything had to tell. Stress hits everywhere
inside your body, outside your body, on your skin, head, head, shoulders, needs,
and toasts. It can get everywhere. You can always remove stress,
but you can't, I'm sorry. You can't always remove stress,
but you can learn how to notice and manage its effects,
(18:58):
which I think mostly is what this is about. We
can't get rid of the stressful things in our lives,
but we can notice it. We can try and alter
how we approach things. We can try and deal with
the problems as they rise if we at least have
an understanding of why these problems are arising. So that's
always good. But stress is part of life and training.
You're never gonna go through a marathon training cycle without
(19:18):
there being stress. It can just be the stress from
the training cycle. But then you factor in the rest
of life because we're all grown ass adults and there's
all things coming at us left, right, and center that
are going to try and stress us out. And so
those are just things that we were gonna have to
learn to deal with. But you need to recognize the
physical toll that the stress has on you and then
(19:39):
recognizing it is kind of your first step towards the resilience. Okay,
the just getting through. I see this is what's happening. Now,
let me try and get through this process, get to
the other side of it so that I can remove
the stressor from my training cycle and then yeah, I mean,
I think that's it by way of stress stuff. If
I've missed anything, reach out and let me know. Oh,
(20:00):
hopefully you guys enjoyed the series. I would love a
feedback on the series if you enjoyed it, and then
be any other series that you would like, anything else
that you would like kind of approach October. I don't
have anything lined up in Stone. I've got some ideas
I'm kicking around, but would love to know what you
think for October. It's a long month. I think that
we've got five Fridays in October because Halloween is on
(20:21):
a Friday, so that'll be fun once we get to that.
But if October goes as fast as September did, then boy, hotey,
we're good to go. Okay, So on Monday's episode, we
have a lot of catching up to do because for
the last month, most of September, we have had guests
on the show. We don't have a guest coming up
on Monday. We've got a lot of things that we
got to talk about. We got to talk about the
(20:42):
Heartland thirty k series from start to finish because all
three of those the races have come and gone. We've
got to talk about injury. We've got to talk about,
you know, race disappointments, like Monday might be a little heavy.
I'm going to try not but Monday might get a
little heavy, so just be ready for that. We don't
have a race this weekend. This was supposed to be
my fifty mile lay. If you're following along and can
(21:02):
kind of draw or kind of read in between the lines,
the fifty dollars is not gonna happen. Do it to injury,
and so we're gonna break all that down and talk
all about that on Monday, which sucks. So nothing this
weekend for the podcast. We won't have anything, but we'll
be back on Monday with a new episode. We'll be
back next Friday with a new episode of a Second Wind,
and we're gonna jump into whatever series we land on.
(21:24):
We'd love listener suggestions. If we don't get that it's
up to me. Be afraid, be very afraid, and we'll
just keep on going. Remember, follow us all over social media.
Facebook is our main account, Instagram is our secondary account.
We do have TikTok, where I'm trying to do better.
We have X, which I don't do anything. Sorry, I'm
not sorry. I don't really care about X. That place
(21:47):
is a toxic mess and I don't like it. But
please follow us everywhere. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and
that needs help, make sure you're all downloading and listening
to episodes. And then there's the Patreon page. We would
love to have you help with kind of just a
little monthly, little monthly something, little something for the effort,
shall we say, on the old Patreon page. It allows
(22:08):
us to kind of keep going and pay the bills.
We just got hit with the big old honking bill
for the tax financial system that we use. Like, oh crap,
I didn't really have that money available in the podcast account,
but hey, we got to get it paid anyway. So
the Patreon page helps us more than you will ever know.
And I know, I know, asking for money it sucks.
(22:29):
It sucks. But if you've ever done a podcast, or
if you've ever heard other podcasters talk about it. This
shit ain't free. Man like a cost arm and a
leg to produce anything of any kind of value or quality,
and we definitely try and give you value in quality.
So anyway, I'm just shut the hell up. We'll be
back Monday with a bran new episode of the podcast,
the Back to Back Podcast, Oh Don't Forget. On October
(22:51):
second is our next meeting of the Chasing Rabbits Run Club.
I hope you will come out on Thursday evening six
thirty Discourse Brewery. We've had so much fun. The first
three weeks have been huge, raging successes, and I hope
we can just keep it going and keep growing. I
will let you know that this Thursday, coming up, October
second is Garmin Kansas City Marathon Night. We will have
(23:13):
a representative from the Garman Kansas City Marathon at the
run club. He is gonna come out, he'll talk to
you about the race. He's got discounts, he's got a
free race entry drawing, he's got swagged to give away.
So if you have ever run the kans City Marathon,
find an old shirt and wear that to the Chasing
Rabbits Run Club. It's Garman, Kansas City Marathon Night October
second Discourse Brewery, six thirty pm for the Chasing Rabbits
(23:35):
Run Club. And again we have been having an absolute
ball at these things. I hope you will come out
and have a great time with us. That's gonna do it.
For this week's episode of the Back of the Back Podcast,
second one, I'm your sky walker and it's my pleasure
as hold us. Everyone, have a safe week of training.
We will see you hopefully Thursday at the Chasing Rabbits
Run Club. Pasta PIU, mister p
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