Four Techniques for Reducing Stress
On a daily basis, life throws chaos our way—whether it's our finances, our relationships, or our health. Around 50% of individuals in professions such as health care, banking, and charities are burned out, and businesses spend $300 billion per year on workplace stress.
As a result, we continue to press forward, surviving solely on adrenaline. We overbook ourselves; we consume another cup of coffee; we reply to one more email. We believe that if we stay pumped up all the time, we will finally be able to accomplish things.
However, this only serves to fatigue us, deplete our productivity, and result in exhaustion.
There is another way—a more tranquil approach. Cultivating a more calm, relaxed state of mind does not imply that we will drown in our obligations. Rather than that, studies indicates that it will increase our attention, energy, and inventiveness in addressing them. Additionally, science indicates that there are simple ways for us to tap into that peaceful state of mind in order to be more robust in our chaotic life.
A strained mind in comparison to a peaceful mind
Stress was never intended to be a constant state of being. According to Stanford scientist Robert Sapolsky, you are only supposed to feel worried five minutes before you die. When a wild animal pursues you in the savanna, your stress response is designed to save your life—it mobilizes your attention, muscles, and immune system in order to get you out of danger swiftly. When animals flee, they immediately switch from fight-or-flight mode to "rest-and-digest" mode, in which the parasympathetic nervous system replenishes their supplies.
Stress is supposed to be a temporary state, as it depletes your body, health, and vitality. Additionally, it has an effect on your emotional intelligence and decision-making. When you are tense, you are more prone to react to situations rather than reply rationally.
Additionally, you have a unique perspective on the world. Stress narrows our attention, impairing our ability to see the big picture. When we are more at ease, our attention span increases. Indeed, we literally see more. Participants in one study underwent a three-month meditation course. They then performed what is known as the attentional blink task, which involves watching images emerge rapidly one after the other. Typically, when individuals perform this activity, their attention is not drawn to all of the target images. However, following the mindfulness training, participants were able to pick up on more of the target images than they were pre-retreat, implying that their state of mind had improved.
Being able to attend more events means that you will notice more details about other people and will be able to communicate more effectively with them. Stress and worry (or any other bad feeling) encourage us to become self-focused for evolutionary reasons: when our forefathers and mothers were anxious, they were in a survival dilemma. It was beneficial to remain focused on yourself in order to save your life.
When we are stressed, we are less likely to notice if a colleague appears burned out or depressed and more likely to become upset if they fail to perform as expected. However, when you are calmer and happier, it is likely the day when you will exhibit greater empathy: you will notice your colleague and reach out to see if there is anything you can do to assist them.
When you are calm, you manage your energy more effectively because you are not continuously burning yourself out, spending your days with your sympathetic nervous system on high alert. Calm enables you to concentrate on the task at hand and complete it much more swiftly.
Additionally, tranquillity can have an effect on your creativity. According to research, our most creative thoughts occur when we are not actively concentrated or worried. We are most creative when our brains are in alpha wave mode, a relaxed state of mind, such as when we are showering or taking a walk in nature. Indeed, individuals who spend four days immersed in nature return with a 50% increase in inventiveness.
If you want to maximize your productivity, creativity, and innovation—whether it's making progress at business or resolving basic life problems—remaining calm is critical.
How to establish a state of mind that is peaceful
We are well aware of how to become anxious. The majority of us are really adept at stimulating our adrenal system and becoming tense. The question then becomes, how do you unwind? Numerous studies indicate that several practices not only feel good, but also put us in a calmer, more relaxed state—a position from which we can deal more effectively with whatever life throws at us.
1. Breathing. Jake, a character in my book The Happiness Track, was a United States Marine. Marine was driving a Humvee across Afghanistan on a convoy when his vehicle collided with an improvised explosive device. He looked down after the explosion and noticed that his legs were severely shattered below the knee. He recalled a breathing exercise he had heard about for intense warfare scenarios during that moment of shock, panic, and pain.
It enabled him to carry out his task, which was to check on the rest of the passengers in the van. It gave him the presence of mind to issue commands to summon assistance and then tourniquet and prop up his own legs before he passed out—a feat that saved his life.
Our breathing is a highly effective mechanism for regulating our emotions, which we take for granted. You may engage your parasympathetic nervous system—your body's relaxing response—through your breath.
That is why we turned to breathing to assist veterans—50 percent of whom do not improve with counseling or medication. We began teaching the veterans various breathing exercises despite their skepticism. Within a few days, some of them began sleeping without medication; during the week-long program, many of them no longer met the criteria for post-traumatic stress, which continued up to a year later.
You may alter your feelings by manipulating your breath. In another study, researchers examined participants experiencing various emotions and discovered that each emotion elicited a distinct pattern of respiration. Then they gave other people the opportunity to practice the various breathing patterns and asked, "How do you feel?" " It turned out that performing certain breathing exercises elicited emotional responses.
One of the most relaxing breathing exercises is to inhale (for example, to the count of four), hold, and then exhale for up to twice as long (e.g., to a count of six or eight). You can slightly tighten your throat to create an ocean-like sound, which is a technique utilized in deep relaxation breathing. As you do this, particularly with those extended exhales, you activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which lowers your heart rate and blood pressure.
Conscious Breathing
A technique for increasing one's resistance to stress, anxiety, and wrath
2. Self-compassion. Frequently, we are our own worst critics. We believe that self-criticism will increase our self-awareness and motivate us to work harder, but this is a fantasy. Indeed, extensive evidence indicates that self-criticism erodes our resilience. When we beat ourselves up, we become less able to learn from our mistakes. Self-critical individuals frequently suffer from increased anxiety and despair, as well as an inability to recover from setbacks.
Consider someone running their first marathon and tripping and falling. "You're a loser," someone on the sidelines says. What are you doing in this location? "Return to your home." That individual is our internal, self-critical voice. Self-compassion is someone who stands on the other side and says, "Everyone stumbles; this is natural." You are incredible; you are really crushing this."
Self-compassion is the capacity to be conscious of one's feelings—to be aware of the emotions that arise within when one fails at something. That is not to say you have to identify with them; you may simply observe and notice them without adding fuel to the fire. Self-compassion also entails an acceptance of the fact that everyone makes errors and that this is a natural part of being human. And it is the capacity to speak to oneself with the same warmth and kindness that you would speak to a friend who has just failed.
When we adopt this mentality, research indicates that we become calmer—we experience less stress and have lower cortisol levels. Additionally, we are more resilient: we are less fearful of failure and more determined to improve.
3. Connection. How frequently are we truly present for another person? When was the last time you were completely present with someone, even your spouse?
There is an epidemic of loneliness in the United States and throughout the world. We are aware that loneliness has a detrimental effect on our body and psyche, resulting in deteriorated health and even premature mortality. And because stress and a lack of calm in today's environment tend to make us self-centered, they may contribute to this loneliness.
After food and shelter, our greatest human need is to connect with other people in a positive way. We have a deep and heartfelt need to belong to one another from the minute we are born until the day we die. And when we meet that need, we experience a sense of calm: the oxytocin and natural opioids released during connection may have a calming effect on our bodies, while the awareness of others' support can settle our brains. When confronted with hardship, research indicates that our relationships and community play a critical part in our resilience.
So how can we cultivate a state of mind that fosters a sense of connectedness?
The good news is that by prioritizing your own health and well-being through techniques like breathing and self-compassion, you can also direct your focus outward and feel more connected. Positive feelings, such as tranquility, naturally make us feel more connected to others. You might also experiment with certain techniques that have been shown in study to increase your sense of connectedness.
4. Consideration for others. Consider a day when nothing is going well for you—you've spilled your coffee and it's raining. And then a friend calls, in the midst of a true emergency, and you leap to action to assist them quickly. What happens to your mental state at that precise moment?
Suddenly, you're brimming with vitality; you're entirely at their disposal. That is the effect of pursuing altruism, service, and compassion on one's life.
It significantly improves your well-being, as many of us have discovered when we commit small acts of kindness. Compassion causes our heart rate to slow and our parasympathetic nervous system to become more engaged.
Additionally, kindness and compassion might help shield us from adversity. In one of my favorite studies, researchers discovered that individuals who had experienced stressful life events lived shorter lives. However, among these volunteers, there was a tiny group that appeared to continue living. What transpired with these individuals?
When the researchers probed a little deeper, they discovered that they were all actively involved in assisting friends and family members with various tasks throughout their lives—from transportation and shopping to cleaning and child care. Service is a meaningful method to nourish not only the community in which you live, but also to nourish, inspire, and revitalize oneself. It's similar to the children's book—filling someone else's bucket also fills yours.
Cultivating calm does not mean avoiding all stressful emotions. Indeed, when we take time to breathe, connect, and care, some of the bad emotions we've been avoiding may surface. However, this is the moment for self-compassion; it is acceptable to feel horrible. Resilience does not imply that we will always be joyful, but it does imply that we have the energy, perspective, and support of others to weather the storm.