How good are you at calming yourself?

Nervous, worried, anxious, stressed – call it what you will, each day offers moments that trigger our system. There’s no avoiding them: it’s simply figuring out how to manage them. 

 

And let’s be clear – stress isn’t all bad. Note the authors at calm.com: “One type of stress, known as eustress, can serve as a powerful motivator, nudging you to perform better and driving you to overcome challenges.”

 

Merriam-Webster defines eustress as “a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being,” adding, “During positive stress (eustress), such as a promotion or vacation, feel-good chemicals called endorphins are released.”

 

Ask your neighbor or your favorite AI about ways to calm down, and you’ll get a parade of verbs. We begin with the standards: breathe, visualize, exercise, and listen (to relaxing music), then add a few on the lighter side: dance, squeeze (stress ball), sniff (lavender), chew (gum), and shake (yes, shaking – some say it offers neurological benefits!).

 

Calming strategies work

They all work – some for a moment, a minute, or an hour or two.

 

For a “moment,” I love the 4-7-8 breathing exercise: inhale for four seconds, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Feel free to give it a go.

 

Some for a minute

My money is on challenging your thoughts, often referred to as cognitive restructuring.

 

Explains Sara Lindberg and Kerry Weiss, in their piece for healthline.com: “Part of being anxious or angry is having irrational thoughts… that often (are) the ‘worse-case scenario’.... When you experience one of these thoughts, stop and ask yourself the following questions: Is this likely to happen? Is this a rational thought? Has this ever happened to me before? What’s the worst that can happen? Can I handle that?”

 

Some for an hour or two

I enjoy the acronym HALT. Shares Clay Drinko, in his article for playyourwaysane.com: “When I’m feeling stressed or anxious, my first step is to HALT. That stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. Basically, I do a quick self-reflection and ask myself if I’m feeling any of those four sensations. If I’m hungry, I eat. If I’m tired, I take a nap. Just kidding. I have two young children. If I’m tired, I tell everyone around me that I’m tired, and they try to steer clear.”

 

Some for a day or a lifetime

Seeking creative outlets and building on them step by step may be the answer, according to author Martha Beck, who in January released her latest book, “Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose.”

 

A snippet from goodreads.com: “Using a combination of the latest neuroscience as well as her background in sociology and coaching, Beck explains how our brains tend to get stuck in an ‘anxiety spiral,’ a feedback system that can increase anxiety indefinitely. To climb out, we must engage different parts of our nervous system – the parts involved in creativity.”

 

Free yourself

Writer Stephanie Friedman shares a bit of insight on what led to Beck’s latest: “After earning three Harvard degrees in social science, dealing with intense anxiety that lasted ‘from birth to 60,’ and meditating for thousands of hours over the years, (Beck) embarked on a mission to not just learn how to find a temporary state of calm, but to free herself from anxiety long-term.” Beck took to drawing and painting, revealing how the “creativity spiral” overtook the “anxiety spiral.”

 

Sharing Beck’s words, Friedman writes, “Make a creative activity that you love the first priority for your time, then add on another piece, ‘and then another piece, and then another piece until your whole life time frame is filled with things you love.’”

 

Consistency, not complexity

Our final words are from the lips of psychologist Grace Tworek, as quoted by the Cleveland Clinic: “If you find something that works really well for you, engage in it frequently,” she said. “It’s not necessarily about the complexity of some of the things that we do to calm our nerves; it’s the consistency.”