SEQUIM — Jay Bryan and his wife, Heidi, own a pair of health clubs in Clallam County, but they didn’t promote those when they spoke recently to a roomful of business people.
Instead, the Bryans talked about those mornings when you’re nervous about a presentation you’ve got to give.
Or you’re grumpy going to work because you had a spat with your spouse.
At these times, Jay Bryan began, your body is wont to go into the fight-or-flight stress response.
He admitted that even he, holder of a master’s degree in human performance and veteran of more than 20 years of experience in cardiac rehabilitation and physical therapy, was feeling keyed up about the lunchtime presentation he was set to give to the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce.
His stress hormones and blood pressure were rising, just as they can do in myriad situations during the work day.
So the morning of his talk, Bryan went for some of the same medicine he would prescribe for his audience.
He exercised — didn’t say how much — because the point, Bryan said, is that he moved his body.
“Had I not done that exercise session,” those hormones “would still be coursing through my system, wreaking havoc . . . Our bodies were designed to move in response to stress,” so if you sit still and stew in those hormones, they can take a toll on your heart and your overall energy level.
Relief awaits right outside your office, Bryan added. It’s a quick walk, taken midmorning, at lunch time, mid-afternoon — doesn’t matter when.
10-minute walk
“A 10-minute walk gives you benefits today” by moderating your blood pressure and flushing out stress hormones, Bryan said.
“Exercise helps today. It lowers my blood pressure today. You don’t have to wait six months for it to help,” he said.
Take a walk instead of wading through e-mail, he suggested.
This is sometimes called “blowing off steam” or “getting fresh air,” practices that have fallen victim to Facebook-checking and other screen-centric time consumers.
Heidi, who with her husband owns and runs Anytime Fitness in Sequim and Port Angeles, added that she hears from too many people who believe that to improve their health, they have to come to the gym every single day for at least an hour.
Not so, Heidi said.
“Sometimes I can only do 10 minutes” wedged into the middle of the work day, “but I do it because I feel so much better at the end of the day,” she said.
There’s that 10 minutes again. Jay Bryan added that even small bits of exercise equip a person to be more productive at work.
“You’ve got to ‘bring it,'” he said. The people you work with “have got to see the fire in your eye every day,” for your business to be a positive environment.
By contrast, “if you’re a grump, that’s not going to bring out the best in them.”
Bryan also urged his audience to think about personal matters.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed, “and think about what is most important thing to you.”
‘Magic pill’
Then he told his listeners that he had a “magic pill” that will deliver an elixir to enhance their lives.
And at the end of his talk, Bryan asked for some of the important things that had come to mind.
Several audience members listed relationships with spouses and children.
“Whatever you came up with, without good health, those relationships aren’t all they can be,” Bryan said, adding that if you keep yourself fit, you have more to give the people in your life, and you have more energy to enjoy your time with them.
And that magic pill?
A 10-minute walk right after lunch, naturally.
“If you take a 10-minute walk after you leave this building,” said Bryan, “you’ll see benefits today.”
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@ peninsuladailynews.com.