Rest.
You need to prioritize rest.
According to research by Duke Cancer Institute, chronic stressful conditions, such as the stress of navigating racism daily, have a direct impact on the cellular mechanisms that drive lethal, invasive forms of breast cancer.
Stress is killing Black women, and I have decided to choose life.
Among aggressive subtypes, like triple negative and inflammatory breast cancers, Black women have higher incidences and lower survival rates than white women. Black people are more likely to die from most cancers and to live the shortest amount of time after a cancer diagnosis than any other racial/ethnic group. Although Black women have an 8% lower breast cancer incidence rate compared with white women, they are 41% more likely to die from it. The reason for these racial disparities is largely driven by decades of structural racism.
Racism causes stress, and stress causes physical adaptation. It changes your genes and can be passed unto your offspring, which is known as intergenerational trauma. As Fitness professionals we know the power of stress in adaptation which is why we recommend the stress of structured exercise. Although some stress is necessary and good, chronic, sustained stress is deadly.
I started prioritizing my rest two years ago. In 2020 I quit my job.
Prior to 2020 I worked two jobs and was the primary caregiver for three children. I worked my day job where I made only enough to cover my youngest's daycare fees, then moved on to my evening job which was about pursuing my passion; fitness. Throughout my 15 years in Canada, I have often worked two jobs.
2016 was the first time I contracted pneumonia. I had been sick for several weeks and kept ignoring it. Pneumonia is an opportunistic virus; it attacks your lungs when you are already sick and your immune response is compromised. I remember sitting on the couch, gasping for air while crying on the phone to my mother. I told her I couldn't breathe. She urged me to go to Emergency.
When I got there they couldn't believe I was still walking. I was told my blood oxygen level was 50%.
In 2017 I contracted pneumonia for the second time, and in 2018, two weeks after delivering my youngest, I contracted it for the third time. The first two times I was told I had "walking pneumonia" because I had continued to show up at work until the moment my lungs felt so heavy I thought they were going to collapse.
Pneumonia kills. It killed Brittany Murphy, it killed James Brown, and it killed Chi Chi DeVayne when she was only 34 years old. I had pneumonia 3 times in 3 years, and all 3 times I went to work until I couldn't.
The reason I share with you that Black women have worse health outcomes is to remind you that we have to prioritize self-care. We have to prioritize our rest.
So many fitness professionals tell you to do more. They suggest you would be further if you worked harder. But what if the problem isn't doing too little but doing too much? All the benefits of exercise happen in the recovery. All the benefits of movement happen in the rest.
As Black women, we are often taught that we have to work twice as hard for half as much. I thought I had to show up through all my struggles. I thought I had to keep going. I thought I had to be strong. And being strong almost killed me. In 2020 I said enough is enough.
Fannie Lou Hammer wrote, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired”. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. So I quit my job, I started anew, and I prioritised my rest.
A client told me the other day, "I never thought I'd go to the gym and be told by my trainer to relax". I replied, you already know how to hold tension. I want you to learn how to let it go. I want you to learn how to rest.
In what ways will you prioritize your rest today?
