Time traveling

 Time traveling is one of the superpowers of being human. 

    This is not science fiction. It's fact. We do it all the time! 

    When you recall something wonderful, or something traumatic, so vividly that you even feel the same emotions you had at that time... When you worry about what might happen tomorrow, or some other time, at some future event, or if something bad might occur, or when you imagine how great it will be when say, you and your fiancee are finally married, or you finish a school project you are excited about... You are, essentially, as far as your brain knows, time traveling.

    The human brain does not differentiate between something that is happening right now in the present moment and something you are remembering that happened in the past, or envisioning happening in the future. The emotional triggering in your brain of such things will initiate the same neurobiological reactions as if these were happening in the present moment, preparing your body for battle, or relaxing it for pleasure. This can even happen when you are just watching an emotion-evoking drama (or comedy) on a screen.

    For example,  if you had a bad car accident, or a bad argument with someone, and you find your thoughts going back to that incident, ruminating on what happened, playing it over and over in your mind, your body will have the same neurophysiological responses. Your heart rate speeds up, your breathing become shallow. Your attention narrows so that you are focused just on that memory, unable to think about other things. Your stomach may clench up along with your muscles, and you may get colder, as blood retreats from your hands and feet to fuel larger muscles (part of the mind-body fight or flight reaction), or a dry mouth. Emotionally you will feel those same emotions--fear, anger, frustration, regret or sadness. Even though you are not really, right now, driving, not having a car accident, or not with the person you had that argument with.

    Robert Sapolsky used a humorous example to illustrate what our minds do in his book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. Imagine zebras roaming around on the plains of Africa, and a lion comes and attacks. The zebras all run to get away, but the lion takes one down. If zebras were like people, they might regroup at the waterhole and talk about what just happened--how horrible it was, how awful that Zebra Zed got his throat ripped out, and gosh, what if the lion comes back? Who will get eaten next? And on and on, day after day... 

   Of course, they don't do that. They are animals, not people! Once the lion has claimed its victim, the zebras, after running off, begin to calm back down. The threat has passed, so their brain sends signals to shut down all that excitement and physiological changes that the threat caused. They can stop running, they can go back to eating, even procreating if that is on the agenda. Life goes on,

    Only people would keep revisiting the horror of the attack over and over, worrying about what they could have done to help Zed, or about when the next one might happen... That's why, in a nutshell, it's not wild zebras that get the stress illnesses we humans do in such great numbers! Cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, anxiety issues, COPD, et cetera.

    When people remember or imagine bad things happening, even though such things are not actually happening at that time, we have the same neurophysiological responses as if they were, even as if the bad thing were really life threatening (which they rarely are). What if...? Or, What will I do if...?

 What if I lose my job? 

What if I am late and the boss notices? 

What if I don't know what I am doing and make a huge mistake? 

What if my wife doesn't love me anymore? 

What if that person is mad at me? 

What if I get nervous and make a fool of myself?

   What if..., which people can do because we have a larger, more complex and highly developed brain than other animals, is one of the sources of great human suffering!

    On the other hand, What if... is also a source of tremendous invention, creativity, imagination, problem-solving, compassion, unity and healing, to name a few things. 

    Reflecting on past mistakes or tragedies can also be instructive and helpful, when done in a certain way, that is, with our powers of analysis and problem solving, our ability to imagine cause and effects, with compassion toward self and others, with our curiosity and adventurous spirit to try something new or different. Harnessing such powers, people have come up with some great ideas, like vaccines and cures for illnesses, designs for new technologies, or really cool story lines for their next book.

    While we can't physically travel back in time and change what happened, we can learn from it so that we can avoid making the same kind of mistake in the future, or learn something about ourselves that we need to work on, if we approach it with, again, curiosity and other positive emotions like determination, or excitement, which allow us to engaged that human-unique brain's powers of pattern-finding, ingenuity, and creativity.

 Here's a challenge: for the next day or so, try to notice when your thoughts are taking you into the past or into the future. Trust me, it happens a lot. Unless you have a regular meditation routine or other activity that keeps you in the present moment, your mind will be wandering, traveling in time, back and forth. No need to criticize yourself for doing it! Just notice. 

    Then as you get better at noticing this time traveling, whenever you do so, also make note of whether you are thinking about positive or negative things. If you find these are mostly negative, you are not alone. Many, if not most, people lean this way. And if you are one of them, you can increase your wellbeing, health, and overall enjoyment of life if you work on learning methods for decreasing stress and increasing positivity in your life.

If you find your thoughts are going mostly to positive things, on the other hand, take a moment to pat yourself on the back and bask in the knowledge that you are living well, and you are preparing your body and mind for healthy, resilient responses to whatever comes your way.

If you want help managing stress, anxiety, or getting over past traumas, losses, or phobias, I offer mind-body instruction in stress management and resilience for individuals and groups, and soon, Havening treatment. Contact me at managemystress@gmail.com. 

Cultivating Well-Being During the Election

    Managing stress is hard enough in a global pandemic. And now we have a presidential election upon us, with all its noisy debates and rancor. 

    How can we keep ourselves from a perpetually negative, stressed state, and instead cultivate resilience and a sense of well-being in a time like this?

A recent article in The Atlantic by Arthur C. Brooks ( How to Protect Your Happiness This Election Season) discusses how watching political, divisive, hard news can decrease happiness. The article refers to a fundamental Buddhist truth taught 2500 or so years ago, about the detriment of having attachments, in particular, attachment to opinions:  

The Buddha himself named this attachment and its terrible effects … in the Aṭṭhakavagga Sutra, when he is believed to have said, “Those attached to perception and views roam the world offending people.” More recently, the Vietnamese Buddhist sage Thích Nhất Hạnh wrote in his book Being Peace, “Humankind suffers very much from attachment to views.”

    I have lived through a dozen or so presidential elections (excluding early childhood). While they were all more or less acrimonious, it feels like emotions are more intense in this one, at an unprecedented level. It's happening during multiple crises, with our nation at peak levels of divisiveness.

    And what is the divisiveness based on? … Opinions. Just as that Indian philosopher/prophet warned, millennia ago, we have become so attached to ours that everyone is offended, everyone suffering. 

    Moreover, sometimes those opinions aren’t even rooted in fact, especially on social media (and sometimes even The Media). As a former college English teacher, this alone is stress-inducing for me! Sometimes they are beliefs, believed to be factual, but the believer refuses to check for validity...

    Opinions not grounded in fact don’t fall under the accepted adage, “Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.” This is my opinion, and belief!

    Brooks discusses relationships where hard-held, opposing opinions can be especially problematic, such as between life partners, or when differing from his or her in-laws’ opinions. It was sad but not surprising when he noted that studies show many people stopped talking to certain friends and relatives after the 2016 election due to political views. 
    

    How can we protect our mental, emotional, and physical health from the added stress this election is causing? It’s actually easier than you’d think, although you may not like the suggestion. 

    Stop watching political news and engaging in related social media.

    Every time we see/listen to a TV news story, or worse, engage with one played on Youtube or in social media, where we add our own comments or reply to (argue disparagingly with) those of others, we engage and experience negative emotions. Emotions like anger, frustration, disgust, condescension, ridicule, and just being judgmental are all tied to our stress response, including activation of the sympathetic nervous system. In fact, negative emotions are one of the easiest ways to recognize that we are in a stressed state. 

    The stress response is one where a different part of our brain takes charge of mind-body functions, changing how we think, perceive, focus, what memories we can access (negative mostly), what we pay attention to, and changes occur all over--in our cells, hormones, and other biological functions. 

    These all differ from when we are not stressed, when the parasympathetic nervous system is dominant, and that threat-based stress brain area is not in the driver's seat. 

    Of course, we all need to engage with politics in order to be an informed citizenry, crucial to the success of a democratic election. However, how many of you are actually undecided at this point? 

    One of the unique elements of this election, as unfortunate as that may be, is the polarization and divisiveness of US voters, and this is widely visible, thanks to social media and the plethora of news sources, real or fake. The difference between now and even 30 years ago is tremendous: multible 24-hour cable news stations, widespread internet use via "smart" phones with built-in cameras, texting, email, and of course, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Combined with pandemic isolation and fear, high unemployment, and social unrest, the media can get overwhelming, and is stress triggering.

    If you are firmly decided already, and nothing is going to change your mind about who to vote for, then do yourself a favor: tune out. 

    Limit news watching. Watch no more than 30 minutes a day, related to politics. Take a FB and Twitter break; at least shut off notifications from your social media accounts. Change the subject if politics and the election come up in your conversations with family and friends: 

    “Hey, can we not talk about politics?” you might say, if someone brings that up. (And I bet the other person will understand without further justification.) 

    Talk about something good or new in your life, or about something you appreciate these days. Share what you are doing that is positive and helpful this year, instead of sharing more negativity or stress.

What we talk about is our focus in the moment. And what we focus on affects our stress level, for good or bad. 

    It also instructs your brain, "This is what I like to focus on, so be on the lookout for more!"

    Perhaps that is not the best mission to give you brain right now.

    You can practice directing your brain to look for something positive and supportive of your well-being. For instance, take time before turning out the light at night, or each morning when you are still in bed, to reflect on things you are grateful for --even the simplest ones. If you can walk, breathe freely, have someplace comfortable to live, hot, running water, some good friends or relatives in your life, or if you do not have any friends or relatives with Covid19, these are all blessings or fortune you can appreciate, right? The beauty of the changing season, of a sunny day, or much needed rain—even knowing you have a good stockpile of TP! 

    Laughing is good—there is even a yoga based on laughter! Humor can put you into positive emotions, although not sarcasm, which is negative-based. Enjoy whatever meal or snack you are having. Eat mindfully, savoring the taste, texture, appreciating who prepared it or who gathered or grew the food. This is so much more soothing than ruminating over how wrong so and so is about whatever… 

    Moreover, while in a positive emotional state, you dan't be stressed at the same time. The more you do it, ergo, the less you turn on stress. Positivity promotes this unstressed state, and gratitude is the gateway to all those positive emotions, including love, curiosity, creativity, focused engagement, awe, excitement, feelings of unity, oneness. 

    Letting go of social media or habitual news watching can be challenging, but then again, so is cultivating well-being in today’s world. It is just another highly effective, self-care technique you can use. 

    Brooks’s article cites a recent (2017) Dutch study on how hard news with a political slant affects happiness. The researchers “found that on average, well-being falls 6.1 percent [emphasis added] for every additional television hard news program watched a week. They explained this by noting the dominance of negative stories on such programs, and the powerlessness viewers might feel in the face of all that bad news.” 

    Anybody besides me experiencing the occasional sense of powerlessness lately? 

    Why let our happiness fall an extra 6.1% for each story we watch? Dang, no wonder so many people are grumpy, morose, and depressed.

    Next time you find yourself turning on the news, opening social media, or binge-watching network news Youtube videos about Trump or Biden or any of this, notice what you are doing or about to do. And stop a moment. Close your eyes (unless driving) and take a slow deep breath. 

    Pay attention to the breath coming in, to your body as it holds the breath in, and then as you slowly release it. 

    Then see if you can spend two minutes, or even one, just paying attention to your normal breathing, in and out. Gently return your attention to this focus when any thought arises. 

    Repeat, often, throughout the day. 

    Or take a walk outside instead and notice bird song, the variety of colors of plants and trees, the sensation of the sun or temperature on your face. 

    Spending a few minutes focusing on input from your senses—smell, hearing, touch, sight, even taste, brings you out of your thoughts. And thoughts are where we tend to go dark and get stressed!

    Perhaps, for a day, for a few weeks, decide to not check that FB or twitter account, not to play that political video or news story. Just for this moment, this one day, these a few more weeks.

    Then make sure you calmly vote when it’s time to do so. 

Elisabeth Carter, EdM, MFA, is a writer and stress-management trainer.

Loving-kindness Meditation--for this time of uncertainty, loss, and unprecedented change

May you be happy

May you be healthy

May you be safe

May your mind be at ease

 

This is a meditation called metta, a Pali word translated as loving-kindness. It is often incorporated with mindfulness meditation, a practice that is increasingly well-known and used, among other things, as a stress management tool. (More on that another time.)

 

Today I offer loving-kindness meditation for your self-care & well-being toolkit to use in this time of Covid19—and whatever else may be going on for you, those you care about, and those in your community.

 

You can do this valuable, fairly simple meditation anywhere, for a few minutes, or for longer. It is meant to help people struggling with difficult emotions, help us overcome feelings of self-doubt or negativity, change habitual negative thought patterns, and bring positive changes in attitude as we develop loving acceptance. Give it a try, whether you mediate, do mindfulness practice or not!

 

You can tweak the precise wording of the above phrases for a later meditation. For now, say these a few times in your head now to help you remember them. Change the pronouns to I/my and repeat, as you will do this in your meditation process as well. Better yet, write these phrases down on a piece of paper. If you forget while meditating, just look at the list. No points lost for opening your eyes, promise. 

Next, select 4 people to direct the metta phrases toward, according to the instructions below. List these names as well, putting yourself first. Having the names chosen and listed in advance will help you stay focused.

 

These are the suggested categories in a typical loving-kindness meditation:

 

1.     Yourself

     Cultivating loving acceptance toward yourself is the jumping off point. You may experience resistance initially, such as feeling unworthy, undeserving. If so, simply return your attention to the repetition in progress. This is not a practice where you denigrate yourself in order to uphold the happiness of others. All people want to be happy. This includes you, me, and everyone else. Directing metta toward yourself is the basis for cultivating your ability to genuinely love others.

 

2.     Someone you respect a lot. Alive, please.

 

3.     A friend or dearly loved person. If you wish to have a few here, I think that’s just fine. However, for your first time, see if you can just pick one, so as to ensure an experience where each ‘receives metta’ in equal amounts.

 

4.     A neutral person--someone you don’t dislike or like, who you see around, but have no strong feelings about one way or the other. 

 

5.     Someone you are having difficulty with. (Just one person…)

 

Again, some can struggle with #1 above initially. When you focus on yourself, you may feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, even selfish. You may be more skilled at thinking about yourself in terms of past mistakes, regrets, bad things we did to others or that happened to us. Habituated negativity, wherever it is directed, is not healthy for mind, body or spirit. 

 

Ever heard this one?

Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and hoping 

the other person will die.

 

Metta can be a tool to help you manage such negative feelings. (Note: We all get them. You Are Not Alone.) Loving-kindness meditation isn’t designed to increase selfishness or conceit; rather, it is a commitment to your own happiness and self-respect. It can have far-reaching effects, from turning off that pesky mind-body stress response to improving your physical health and the way you engage with others.

 

Often people find #2 and #3 above easiest. Your struggle may even be with whittling down to just one! Remember that YOU are the person benefitting directly from this meditation, so it’s not as if someone you don’t pick will miss out. For now, don’t worry the matter to death. Just pick one.

 

And #4 can seem challenging at first, especially now, when maybe you aren’t seeing many people, especially ones you don’t know. What about the person who checks you out most at the grocery, or who delivers your mail? Or the guy that walks by your house every day, getting his exercise? Relax. Pick one.

 

For #5, choose someone you’ve had conflict with, evokes in you fear, anger, or a resistance to forgive. Maybe don’t start with a person you are having the biggest interpersonal conflict with this first time. (If you are a trauma survivor, for right now pick someone less triggering than your current/past abuser.) Again, just pick one!

 

OK. You have your metta phrases. And you have your name list. 

 

Next, to set your first meditation, decide how many repetitions of the 4 phrases to do for each person. For instance, "I will repeat the 4 phrases 2 times for myself, and 2 times for each person on the list." If you have enough time, you can also go back to the top (yourself), and repeat the process once through, or more!

 

Eyes blink, birds sing, minds wander. That is the nature of minds, especially stressed or negative ones. Getting all these decisions out of the way before starting means less need / temptation to let your thinking mind (aka monkey mind) take over, fumbling around to remember people, evaluate them, choose who will be in slots 2-5, and then inevitably drift off into the jungle of who knows what sort of thinking, thereby interrupting your meditation.

 

As with mindfulness meditation, just notice when your mind wanders, without judging, and bring your attention back to this mantra-like repetition. If you forget where you left off, start over from the last person you remember you had in mind, or go back to the beginning, yourself, and start all over. Do this every time your mind wanders. 

No points off for starting over.

 

There will not be a test.

 

Ready to meditate?

Get into a comfortable position with your lists handy, in case you need reminders.

 

Take a few deep in-breaths, letting each out slowly, letting your body relax a bit more each time. Allow your breathing to  

s l o w   d o w n  

to a peaceful pace. Close your eyes if that is comfortable; otherwise, lower your gaze and let your eyes soften their focus.

 

Say to yourself, silently, one phrase per breath:

 

May I be happy

(breathe)

May I be healthy

(breath)

May I be safe

(breathe)

 

May my mind be at ease

 

(breathe)

 

Move on to the next person on your list. If you find it helpful, you can hold an image of that person in your mind, but this is not necessary. Change the pronouns of the 4 phrases above (from I to You, My to Your) and repeat the process, one phrase per breath.

 

After doing this for the last person on your list, repeat the process, if time.

 

And that is it!

 

By the way, the above 4 phrases are not set in stone. Google’ “metta phrases” for variations. Some substitute for the last one, “May you have peace,” or “May you live in peace” for instance. Choose/tweak for what rings best for you. Just keep it consistent through any given meditation to help you stay focused/return to focus. 

 

May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May your mind be at ease….

A special gratitude to Dr. Gillian Galen of McLean Hospital, who presented a wonderful 3-part series, Meditation and Mindfulness for interested staff about 5 years ago, when I still worked there. I’ve drawn extensively from her presentations in this post.

How to Keep a Gratitude Journal

Gratitude is a powerful, transformative positive emotion, complex and yet so basic. Research shows that even regularly using a gratitude journal for a couple of weeks or a month will improve your health, both physical and mental, reducing stress and its effects and boosting positivity.

A UC Davis professor and researcher, Robert Emmons, says that practicing gratitude “can have dramatic and lasting effects in a person’s life.” His work with fellow colleagues found that regularly “practicing” gratitude 

can lower blood pressure, improve immune function, … reduces lifetime risk for depression, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders, and is a key resiliency factor in the prevention of suicide. [See www.headspace.com/articles/how-to-be-more-grateful ]

He also asserts that appreciation/gratitude “blocks toxic [negative] emotions, such as envy, resentment, regret and depression….” —emotional states that do not make you feel all warm and fuzzy. 

For the gratitude journal, see if you can keep it up daily for at least 2 weeks. Experts recommend choosing the same time each day, when starting any new habit. 

Dedicate a notebook or small journal just for gratitude. Share the activity with your family if you wish. Why wait till Thanksgiving to share what we are grateful for around the kitchen table? If you have children (or even if you don’t!), you can get some plain notebooks, old magazines (with pictures), and a glue-stick, cut out positive words and pictures of things you each enjoy, like foods or activities, and decorate the covers. 

Use the instructions below to do this little writing-reflection activity every day. As you go along, notice any positive changes in how you begin to feel.

1. 1.Sit someplace pleasant with the journal (or do it in bed at night). Take two or three deep breaths, exhaling slowly while allowing your shoulders, jaw, or any tight muscles, to release a bit. You can skip this part, but it makes you feel better--and may help your memory!
2. 2.For each of the three areas below, a, b and c, one at a time, think about the person or thing you appreciate until you feel the gratitude. Hold that positive feeling in your mind for 30-60 seconds. Closing your eyes may help. 
3. 3.Next write down, briefly but with specifics, who or what you are grateful for, and why. Holding the positive emotion is really more important than writing, in the moment. What you write can be useful later on (see below).

Some people have a hard time with one or another of these three (often it’s “a.”). Echos of warnings against pride from our childhood come back to haunt us, depriving us of a valid source of feeling good.  That’s ok, but see if you can come up with something ayway. To cultivate a rich life of gratitude and all its benefits, you want to foster appreciation in all three areas.

1. a. Gratitude for yourself: Something as small as a good choice you made that day, an accomplishment, however small, or in the past even, a trait or feature, or an action you did that made someone else feel good. 
2. b. Gratitude toward another person: What do you appreciate about a specific other person? Even a stranger, like the mailman, or some faraway person you have not met but admire. Or someone close, like your spouse, child, friend. 
3. c. Gratitude toward the world at large: What is something from the world at large that you appreciated today? It can be as small as a lovely flower, sunset, or a sound that pleased you. Maybe some good news. Or just running water, your comfy bed, central air conditioning, or that fussy car starting up easily when you needed it to!

For the most benefit, aim to do this every day for at least 2 weeks. After those two weeks, take a moment to reflect on how you have been feeling lately, both physically and otherwise. Are you a bit less stressed? How is your health, your chronic pain or sleeping? How are your relationships? You are likely to notice positive results in all these areas! 

Why does this work so well? 

Because your brain does what you tell it to. 

We prime it to pay attention to what draws our attention, just as we prime an engine to prepare it to move the lawnmower or car. If you spend a lot of time focusing on negative aspects of reality, your brain will work hard to find validating examples and such for you. It is less likely to pay attention to everything else out there, however. But prime your brain to look for things to appreciate, and knowing you want to produce these 3 examples every day, your brain will focus on finding them. It will be on the lookout, even when you aren’t consciously trying. It’s an obedient organ, really; it likes to please you, just like a (very) little child. Thus it will find things, more and more easily. 

To a great extent, our day-to-day well-being comes down to what we pay attention to. This little activity is a way to adjust that toward positive things. I have been doing it recently and found each day I had to choose from several things to write down, because my brain is perceiving more and more. I am visibly increasing my positivity. And, yes, I am feeling better, and sleeping better, too! It really does work.

Perhaps you will choose to continue the journal past those two weeks, your journal becoming filled with lots of good memories and feelings. When life’s troubles pop up to threaten your mood, remember that you can read through your pages, reminding yourself of the many things you have to be grateful for. Then you can re-prime that dutiful gray, weighty organ you carry around with you all the time!

Gratitude is also called a gateway to all the positive emotions. 

It leads to other positive emotions, lets them flow into you. So, when you want to shut off that smoldering, stress-inducing negativity, do something to bring forth feelings of gratitude!

Say someone gives you something you really need: a hug when you are sad, or money to pay an overdue bill. Right away you feel someone cares about you, or loves you, and you don’t feel so alone. You are grateful to your friend, even to the universe that you have such a kind, wise person in your life. You might even thank yourself for finding and keeping this nice person around! Maybe you feel relief, because that gift means that the crisis has been averted. Things seem a bit brighter, and you have hope it will all work out, somehow. You may think to yourself, how thoughtful that friend is, feeling love, affection, and admiration toward this someone who always seems to know what you need. All these beautiful, positive emotions come forth with that awakening of gratitude.  

Later, you might share the story of what that person sent you, telling family members or friends, or posting it in social media. Whenever you do that, you re-experience the same good feelings. 

We tend to think of gratitude as a response to something that happens to us, or to another person. They give you a gift, do a favor, and then you say “thank you” to express your appreciation. But those are only words, not the emotion that you always have access to within your own life. Words sometimes said in haste, just of politeness, with little real experiencing of the positive emotion we are talking about here. 

If you wait for people to do you favors or give you gifts before feeling appreciation, you miss out on a rich source of healing, life-enhancing, well-being promoting mood lifting positivity 

You don’t need an external source, however, to experience the benefits of appreciation in your body and mind. When it comes to emotions, good or bad, your brain doesn’t differentiate between things happening realtime, or in the act of remembering, or even in fantasizing or imagining things. Your body and mind will have the same emotional responses. How else could people scream or cover their eyes at scary movies? Or cry at sad ones?

How often do you think about what you did wrong, the nasty old trio of  shouldacouldawoulda,? By comparison, how often do you think about things you did right during the day or workweek? Or the accomplishments that brought  you where you are now?

I’ve written before in this blog about the value of positive emotions. (See my Sept. 2016 post, for instance.) The more positivity we experience lives, the better we feel. As we increase our experiences of gratitude, moreover, we begin to awaken to more things to be grateful for. What Dr. Barbara Fredrickson calls our positivity quotient begins to grow. When we hit a tipping point of 3 to 1, positive emotion experiencings to negative ones, we begin to flood with positive emotions, for we’ve trained that brain what to pay attention to. 

How about —When did you last savor a memory of a mentor or teacher (or parent) who helped you develop confidence and faith, or send them a card telling them how much they’ve helped your life grow? And what about simply those things we always take for granted, like running water, a comfy bed, or central air conditioning? I am soooo grateful for that! We didn’t have A/C when I was growing up, and summers were miserable then, let me tell you! 

Pause to savor the pleasantness of appreciating such things, now and then. A gratitude journal can be your tool to launch you on this path of well-being. Enjoy!

Elisabeth Carter Ed.M., MFA, completed the training to provide SMART at the Benson Henry Institute in 2015. For information about her Metro-West (Boston) based program, visit www.managemystress.net.

 

Corona is Circling, But Sky's Not Falling

What you think, you become;
What you feel, you attract;
What you imagine, you create.

                                                Buddha, Dhammapada

These are troubling times. A virus pandemic is circling the globe; the news is heightening anxiety, drawing our attention with announcements of how many more people have it today, how many more have died. 

Dang, even the President just said he's probably going to get tested. 

The markets have crashed, and there is a price war on oil between Saudis and Russians. If you went to a store yesterday, you know...  I've heard from 4 people today that they can't find toilet paper in the stores! 

What form is the crisis going to take next!

BUT. The sky IS not falling.

Because of my training in mind-body medicine, now and then I try to ease the pervasive tension on FB, in texts to freaked out relatives or friends. Throw in a cat joke from Alexa. Encourage people to B-R-E-A-T-H.  Offer someone a roll of TP.

Then I get chided for thinking the situation isn't serious.

It's serious. Duh.

But you know what else is serious? The dangers of stress. 

Long term, short term, when our bodies go into a stress response, we change.  Our perceptions of things change too.

Whenever we feel threatened, in danger, we go there--in 1/50000th of a second. 

And we're there, people. 

Not like we can just NOT do it. It's ancient survival wiring. 

Problem is, when this part of brains evolved, long ago, the animals with it (lizards, say) had one main stressor: survival. Survival in the face of predators or enemies. 

So the changes this response triggers are aimed to allow animals, and us, to quickly recognize life-threatening danger and remind us how to deal with it: to survive a fight, or run away fast. 

We can't fix this situation by running, or beating it up. Or even shooting.

This neurophysiological system hasn't changed.  
We have the same mind-body experience being stuck in traffic when we are in a hurry as our ancestors did when they faced a saber-toothed tiger.

When we become stressed, afraid, angry, our body still does the same thing it did in prehistoric days. We turn our brains over to the tiny lizard-brain (amygdala). 

This cuts off control by our highly advanced and human, and much larger, brain part, the PFC (prefrontal cortex, if you must know). 

Our attention is focused on the threat, and this tells our brain to look for more of the same. 

So we recognize potential threats, but not much else. 
We don't see the good, the positive, and we get frankly, a bit irrational.

The brain led by the amygdala makes us really a different person:

• We are less able to control our thoughts and actions, our words and feelings. 
• We lose access to creativity, skilled problem solving, and positive emotions. 
• We start to hoard bottled water, or milk and bread, because that is what we have done in past threats. (OK, maybe those were blizzards or earthquakes, which are not at all like viruses, other than being threatening, but hey, that's the memory we have about dealing with crisis, and we're sticking too it!)

We can't think clearly, literally. That's the purview of the PFC, which can access a lot more and varied memories and do more advanced processes. Including reason.

Stress uses up a lot of energy. You know how you feel at the end of a stressed day, or week. Exhausted! Or angry, then exhausted. 
  That energy goes to specific activities designed to help us address wounds, and give our largest muscles most of the blood to help us run or fight. 

So digestion shuts down, our gut hurts, our hands get cold. Being on hyper alert, our brainpower is also busy, but in that limited way. The wear and tear of prolonged stress leads to illnesses later in life, like cardiovascular disease. Diabetes. Gastrointestinal problems. Not to add to your fears, but... Just to make a point.

Recognize when you're stressed, and do something to shut it down before it causes trouble. Like tension headaches, stomach aches, tight muscles, and spousal arguments.

In stress, your immune system gets fired up, but too much, and it breaks down, leaving you more vulnerable to getting sick. If you have any pain, you will suffer worse by increased inflammation.

We spend so much time thinking about terrible things that MIGHT happen, even believing they will, and allowing ourselves to get worked up. 

But know what? That is not reality.
That is our negative imaginations, our thoughts. 
And usually, these are worse than the real thing we are worrying about!

And thanks to the news, we have lots of encouragement to go to that dark place.

Maybe it's time to turn away from the media. Schedule breaks at least.


What can you do?

BREATHE. 
No, really! You can immediately begin shutting down your own stress response with breathing. Stressed breathing is shallow, which means you don't exhale fully, and hold old air in your lungs. This signals the rest of your body that your oxygen is running out, stressing you more.

Like this:  
Blow out all the air in your lungs. 
Get it all out, then breathe in deeply, slowly. 
Fill your lungs, and hold it a second or two. 
Slowly exhale. Slower than the inhale. All the way out.
Let your body feel the air leaving, and notice your muscles will begin to soften. 

Do it once more. 
Release more muscles on this next exhale.

Then return to breathing normally, but pay attention to it, going a bit slower than before you started, and be sure to get rid of all the air while exhaling.


What you tell your brain to focus on, it will look for.
 If you tell it to focus on positive things by doing this regularly, it will be on the lookout for more such things. And will notice them where you hadn't before. Just as your focus on the virus leads you to find more scary stories on the internet and validates your fears.  

Say no thanks.
 
From a calming place after some deep breaths, think of something you love--a person, a beautiful place, your favorite knick-knack or piece of art. Your pet. something you love to eat. Or that great moment at the ball game. 

Push away any "Yea but" thoughts. ("Yea but we can't go top the games now! Yea but that pet died and I miss her...) Take control! Tell the naysayer thoughts that you aren't interested right now. Later. Return your attention to the good.


Keep that breathing slow, and hold the good memory or image in your mind. 

Close your eyes and savor the good emotion that image or memory evokes. Stay with that feeling as long as you can, at least 30 seconds.

“I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.” 

--Denis Waitley, American writer

Gratitude is an especially good positive emotion. It can open up all sorts of other positive emotions, so it is a good entry point if you're not feeling it. Think about what you have, what is great in the world, instead of what you don't have or like, or what you fear.

Count your blessings. 
Chances are, you're a heck of a lot better off than many. You're alive if you're reading this,. You're literate and your eyes are good, or your technology to compensate is.

Think of someone you feel gratitude toward. Write them a letter listing all the things you appreciate about them. Read it a few times and feel that gratitude. Savor that feeling.

GO OUTSIDE 
Take a walk, somewhere in nature--a park, woods, the countryside. Leave your phone off so you can pay attention to what is around you. Stop whenever you see something you like, and enjoy looking at it--a cute animal, a bird singing, the tapestry of rolling hills or of branches and dirt and tree bark.

RUN, if you are a runner, but focus on running, and not corona virus or other concerns.
Meditate, do yoga, swim laps, or work out--anything to slow down your mind, empty it if you can, and give your poor body that thinks it needs to fight or flee a way to release its energy and return to homeostasis before getting depleted.

You have to get through this, and you will, one way or another. And you need to make a plan.

But not right this minute. 

First you need to shut down the stress response, so that you can make that plan of action using all the brain power at your disposal. Without wearing yourself out.
Extended stress makes you stupid, irritable, irrational, disorganized, confused. You want to be at the top of your game. You know, just in case....

Relax, then do what you can.

                   Do what you can, then relax. 



  Some indicators that you are stressed:

Cold hands
Bad mood; negative emotions
Impatient
Memory has gotten suddenly worse
Trouble making decisions
Impulsive
Dry mouth
Tense shoulders, neck
Clenched jaw, hands 

For more, see other posts and the info at my website, www.managemystress.net


Be kind to yourself, and others. And chill.  
It's good for your health. --elisabeth