Running, great for reducing stress but the stress will slow us down

I have been running for about thirty years. It has been a constant through my life when a lot of other things have changed around me. We have lived in a number of different countries and raised four children. Three are great, one not so much. There has been some very stressful life changing events in this time but I have always kept up some degree of running.

One thing I always felt was that during really stressful times my running was harder work which was really unrelated to my training at the time but was definitely part of being troubled by issues over which I had little or no control. I have at times stopped to try and reduce over breathing and panicking, and dry retched out on my runs at other times. I have found that due to my head spinning on runs when I am stressed I'm actually better off running on a treadmill and watching telly. Something pretty mindless, but for some reason gripping, like Law and Order works really well for this and helps muscles relax into a run.

I actually can't find a lot of information about this but since I have been running with the nike app on my apple watch for the last year it has become really obvious to me how tense I can be while running if stressed and how much this can really slow me down. My legs feel heavy and my hips are very tight.

These are two runs I have done in the last year the first one is after a stressful day, three very difficult things going on at once, and the second two days later when I had adjusted to the new events.

I think the lesson is to keep running because I know it is very beneficial in reducing stress and keeping us away from medications and the bottle. But we need to recognize that stressful life events may slow us for a period of time and make the running have a harder feel.