What Rucking Taught My Nervous System (and Why My Rings Fit Again)
From swollen hands to deep sleep: the biology of stress, the myth of motivation, and what actually makes a body adapt.
I knew I had to leave my job for years.
My intuition told me.
But I stayed.
And my body kept the score.
It started quietly—just a little more fatigue. A little less sleep.
Then one day, I realized my resting heart rate was sitting in the 90s.
I wasn’t recovering at night.
My deep sleep started to shrink. My HRV dropped.
And my hands were so swollen—especially my right hand—I couldn’t wear rings anymore.
I thought I was doing everything right.
I ate well. I took the best supplements.
I tried to keep moving, even when I was exhausted.
But it wasn’t enough.
Because the problem wasn’t my protocol.
It was my life.
I was in a place that drained me on every level.
And no amount of green juice, collagen, or breathwork could override that.
So finally—after years of trying to fix the symptoms—I left.
And I could barely walk the dog without feeling wobbly.
What Was Actually Happening Inside My Body
I wasn’t just tired.
I was chemically jammed.
For years, I’d been bathing in cortisol, adrenaline, and inflammation.
Not the kind you see in an ER.
The quiet kind—the kind that swells your hands, steals your sleep, and builds deep in your tissues.
That’s what people miss.
Insulin resistance isn’t always blood sugar spikes.
Sometimes, it’s cellular. Hormonal. Emotional.
My body wasn’t burning fat. It wasn’t repairing.
It was surviving. Holding on.
The blood wasn’t flowing to repair—it was flowing to endure.
That’s why the sleep stopped.
That’s why the puffiness wouldn’t go down.
That’s why I could take every supplement in the world and still feel like I was falling apart.
Because the nervous system never lies.
And mine was screaming for safety.
How I Started Rucking (and What It Did to Me)
I didn’t ruck to lose weight.
I started rucking because I wanted to feel my legs again.
I wanted to move grief through my fascia.
I wanted to carry something real instead of just carrying everyone else’s expectations.
So I put 10 pounds in a backpack.
That first walk was two kilometers.
I came home, collapsed on the PEMF mat, and needed a nap to function.
But I didn’t stop.
I didn’t track. I didn’t rush. I just walked.
Eventually two became three, three became 3.5, then six kilometers a day.
Then I moved to 13 pounds.
Then 16.
Those increases were okay. I still needed recovery, but I could feel something shifting.
Then came 20 pounds—and that’s when it hit me.
The Part No One Talks About: Adaptation Takes Recovery
That jump from 16 to 20 pounds?
It wrecked me.
During. After. Everything hurt.
I needed two full days between rucks to recover.
And here’s the part people never say:
It wasn’t because I was unmotivated. It was because my body was adapting.
That transition phase? That’s where people quit.
They think they’re lazy. They blame themselves.
But the truth is—your body is trying to transform, and transformation requires materials and space.
You need:
Protein
Collagen
Creatine
Glycine
Minerals
And you need time—time for your nervous system to re-pattern.
Time for your tendons and bones to remodel.
Time for your mitochondria to switch from survival to strength.
Adaptation doesn’t happen in the effort.
It happens in the pause between efforts.
That’s what no one teaches.
And it’s why so many people fall off just before the magic happens.
From Collapse to Capacity: The 23-Pound Phase
After about two months at 20 pounds, something changed.
I could go farther. I didn’t need as much recovery.
Then I moved to 23 pounds.
The first few walks were rough—my shoulders were screaming.
My chest was sore. My posture collapsed halfway through.
But I kept going.
And after a few weeks, it stopped hurting.
Now, I do 3.5 kilometers with 23 pounds and feel like I could go again.
No nap. No crash. Just clarity. Energy. Grounding.
My rings fit.
My hands are no longer swollen.
I can see the bone on my ankle again.
Resting heart rate? Down from the 90s to the 60s.
HRV? Up.
Oura called my resilience “exceptional.”
I sleep through the night. Two hours of deep sleep. Every night.
And I wake up feeling like myself again.
If You’re Where I Was a Year Ago…
Ask yourself:
What is your body trying to tell you?
If your heart rate is high, your sleep is gone, your hands are swollen, and you’re exhausted all the time—
This isn’t a motivation issue.
It’s not because you’re lazy or doing it wrong.
It’s because your body doesn’t feel safe.
You can eat perfectly.
You can walk daily.
You can take all the adaptogens in the world.
But if your environment is toxic—if your nervous system is bracing every day—
You will not heal.
And the longer you blame yourself, the deeper the damage goes.
This isn’t about protocols.
It’s about chemistry.
And the foundation of all chemistry is safety.
You’re not failing.
You’re adapting to something your body no longer wants to tolerate.
That’s the truth.
And once you start listening—your body will tell you exactly how to come home.
🎥 Real-time reflection: Why habit stacking is failing most people (and what adaptation actually requires) from Instagram.
