Startups: Stress, exercise and adrenal exhaustion

Stress is an unfortunate by-product of startup life – both for founders and teams. Picture a small team trying to match a new product to an (often unstated) customer need. Coupled with lack of funding, lack of feedback data, competition, speed of technological change and normal life demands over long periods of time – there is a need to ensure life balances out the stress, choosing the right exercise is an interesting topic.

In an earlier post about mindful stretching, Ashtanga Yoga, Yin Yoga and Tai Chi, I offered a few clues about body chemistry, specifically stress hormones. I also previously I wrote about the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) benefits of smiling.

SNS–>PNS

As a recap: The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), is responsible for the body’s rest and relaxation response. This is in contrast to the SNS sympathetic nervous system, which is activated during high-stress situations. See also Vagus nerve or vagal response.

Prolonged chronic stress, such running startups can mean that you are SNS dominant and that’s not great, cortisol imbalances and prolonged stress may lead to adrenal exhaustion. I’ve met founders in this state and know it well myself.

Transitioning from SNS (sympathetic nervous system) to PNS is super valuable for startup people and picking the right exercise depends on your:

  • Age (because of the next point 👇)
  • Jing (a Daoist concept of life force – perhaps a combo of:
    • genetic composition and 
    • epigenetic factors:
      • how well you eat and sleep vs how hard you’ve lived
      • SNS Dominant vs PNS Dominant (long term detectable via lab analysis of hair samples, momentary blood or saliva cortisol analysis is not reliable)
  • Existing stress state, immunity etc

Hard Arses

Because startup people are “alpha” types they often also workout HARD! (think Tom Gleeson). While regular exercise is FTW, high-intensity workouts create stress because the body will release more cortisol, a stress hormone that:

  • can push a person further into SNS
  • When cortisol is chronic in its presence and elevation, this may lead to adrenal fatigue

So intense exercise may be a very poor choice for an individual experiencing adrenal exhaustion or cortisol imbalances.

Choice for Age and Jing

Younger people generally have more Jing and therefore intense exercise is a reality, but hopefully can attitudinally adjust to also be self nurturing and “Jing preserving” (a large and controversial topic!).

The reality is that successful startup people stay in startups and don’t grovel back to corporate. So Aging becomes a factor sooner or later.

PNS Promoting Exercise

To break the cycle of stress hormones circulating, your exercise should induce recovery as a priority, here are some:

“Sung” exercise

Sung exercise was suggested in this post as “loosening” and PNS promoting. By bringing mindfullness, breathing I find that I can break the cycle of “go” energy with the added benefit of more connectedness into where the body is tight, actively feeling the letting go and the cognitive benefits of actually increasing awareness of your internal state.

Yin Yoga

According to the hard arse principle above, I’ve only recently been experimenting with this. I don’t enjoy Yin yoga, in class I’m ruminating: “is this actually doing anything?”, “am I wasting an hour”. Yet I do feel better (a lifted more optimistic state) afterwards.

Passive Exercise

Passive exercise, such as sensory deprivation or sauna sessions promote relaxation and reduce cortisol levels, which is particularly beneficial for those with adrenal issues.

When the body is exposed to a mild stressor, such as thermal stress (such as sitting in a sauna) or cold stress (such as cold showers or dips in cold water) this kind of passive exercise helps trigger hormetic stress – I don’t know if this is PNS or SNS promoting** but you can breath into the stress when it builds – this promotes cellular health and improves the body’s ability to adapt to stressors over time.

Evening gentle stretch

Typically in the last hour before sleep I do some simple stretches while the TV is on – mostly yogic floor and a few lengthening stretches from 8 Brocades. Gentle, exploratory movement can be particularly beneficial for individuals experiencing stress, adrenal exhaustion or other adrenal-related issues.

Other Life balancing activities

Walking, swimming especially in nature will yield rewards.

Alcohol Reduction

I read/heard recently that alcohol actually reduces your ability to reduce stress naturally. I can’t be bothered looking for that reference now, but any alcohol reduction sounds (I didn’t say elimination 😀) is a positive.

Conclusion

In conclusion, these practices are things I use to support adrenal health and promote recovery and re-balancing. By promoting the parasympathetic response, reducing cortisol levels, and triggering hormetic stress, these practices and exercises can help reduce stress, promote healing, and support long-term health and wellbeing.

** area for further research

References

I asked GPT for some science to backup my wild empirical assertions.

  • Huberman, A. (2021). Episode 34: Andrew Huberman on the Neurobiology of Stress, Relaxation, and Sleep. The Rich Roll Podcast. Retrieved from https://www.richroll.com/podcast/andrew-huberman-533/
  • Alkadhi, K. A., & Zelber-Sagi, S. (2021). Sauna bathing for health: An underexplored opportunity. Journal of clinical gastroenterology, 55(6), 455-462. doi: 10.1097/MCG.0000000000001532
  • Choi, J. H., Park, M. K., & Lee, H. J. (2019). Effects of sensory deprivation in a floatation tank on mood states, cortisol level, and muscle soreness in elite athletes. Journal of sports science & medicine, 18(3), 490-497.
  • Farias, D. L., Rechia Fighera, T. M., Kruel, L. F., & Cadore, E. L. (2021). Hormesis and physical exercise: A narrative review. Ageing research reviews, 66, 101259. doi: 10.1016/j.arr.2021.101259
  • McEwen, B. S. (2015). Neurobiological and systemic effects of chronic stress. Chronic stress, 1, 1-11. doi: 10.1177/2470547015577616
  • Zhang, J. W., & Piff, P. K. (2019). An integrative review of the physiological and psychological effects of floating restricted environmental stimulation technique. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 404. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00404

OpenAI’s Game B gambit

Much waxing philosophical has been made about organisations in a post-capitalist world, Daniel Schmachtenberger and Jordon Hall (Greenhall) are two names that spring to mind weaving complex dances around what such a world would look like and barriers to manifest it.

Two of the biggest barriers to Game-B are the “winner-takes-all” and “multi-polar traps” (I’ve linked for brevity).

So it was intriguing to listen to Sam Altman’s interview with Lex Fridman and hear OpenAI’s approach to be winner in Generative AI but NOT winner-take-all:

  • a foundation is the ultimate beneficiary of the surplus revenues
  • the corporation that makes the money has shareholders – the catch is that their returns are capped at 100x their investment, the surplus goes to the foundation
  • the foundation will likely distribute wealth to the broader population via something like UBI. Sam indicates that GPT will help in the decision-making process.
  • decisions have been made to withhold source code, so that China can’t access and accelerate
  • decisions have been made to share with some entities.

By no means perfect or resilient to leaks or defectors it does demonstrate a balancing of incentives without going full post-capitalism.