The Ability to Think, Gain Insight, But Also Worry and Despair

Did you know that the neocortex gives you the ability, as a human, to develop language, read this post, and the capacity for thoughts, ideas, and feelings as well as insight?

On the flip side, it also gives you the ability to worry, despair, imagine the worst, perseverate, create drama and come up with crazy interpretations and scenarios for events that have occurred or even future events (that’s called dreading it.)

Which would you like to cultivate? I hope the first abilities are high on your list. Unfortunately, many of us choose the latter. Which is great if you can channel your abilities to for example mystery, sci-fi, or script writing for movies…

Even then, you must be able to bounce back.

Cats and Kids

Have you ever seen (or tried to help, or even done this yourself) someone try to get a cat into a pet carrier, so they can visit the vet? (The article link has a perfect photo…)

The claws come out in force, hissing sounds, bared teeth and meows abound. The kitty is in the fight-or-flight response mode. (intuitively, it might even know where it’s headed to…)

The picture here is the opposite; no kitty will high five you as you try to manage the seemingly impossible feat.

At the vet’s office, the same occurs when you try to take the cat OUT of the carrier!

The tense situation doesn’t release until your kitty is safely back home, and then-

something remarkable happens.

The darn cat acts if nothing’s happened! You’re more stressed about the whole ordeal than they are.

The cat curls up on top of the couch, licks the paws a bit, and falls asleep!

Animals and small children have this amazing ability to return to the state of rest-and-relax seemingly without much effort.

So, What Gives for Us Adults?

Why are we always fretful about situations that have happened, mulling them over and over, or even thinking of things that haven’t happened yet – dreading what’s to come….

Remember the neocortex?

That’s why.

But how do you combat those feelings of dread, doom, and drudgery?

Don’t worry — it can be fixed.

To illustrate it, we need to think back to the day, when our survival sometimes depended on being able to run away, to flee the enemy (man or animal), and this part of our brain was the open gate to staying alive.

Today, though, the negative thoughts that occupy our minds are most often only a danger to our psychological well-being and sanity.

 

It’s exhausting

It’s exhausting when you get a nasty email from a colleague, a mean text from a friend or loved one, or get called into the boss’ office for a reprimand.

Any one of these generate a state of anxiousness for a prolonged time (sometimes even years!) if you’re not equipped to return to the relaxed state.

Research has shown that “toughing it out” doesn’t work. In fact, it creates more stress and overwhelm.

Talking Yourself Out of Stress

And, you can’t talk yourself out stress – especially in high stress situations like the following:

Imagine coming out of the store (you just stepped into get a dozen donuts for the meeting) and finding your tire flat. No biggie, you call AAA (and pat yourself on the back for responding to their low yearly offer just last month) and in just 30 minutes, you’re at work, only a few minutes late. And your boss understands things happen (you don’t even have to show the receipt for AAA), your co-workers are happy — you brought yummy donuts.

Now imagine the same situation, but this time, there’s a winter storm warning [the parking lot at the store is almost deserted (who else would go out in this weather!?)], you have an important presentation at work (everyone is relying on you to deliver, and if you miss it, you’ll probably get fired…) You call AAA and they inform you that it’ll be at least an hour before they’ll get to you. The storm, you see.

You take a deep breath, but still, you’re in a state of fear. You sit in your car and call the cab company. There — the solution is at hand! But, due to the storm, they’re running at a 50% capacity and it’ll be a while before they can dispatch someone to pick you up. It takes all you’ve got for all this not to induce a full-fledged panic attack.

Trying to talk yourself out of that can be futile. And if a friend, co-worker tells you to “just relax” when you’re stressed, it’s even worse.

Soothing Our Panicked Mind

To soothe and regulate our bodies and mind out of any stressful situation, we can take solace in the simple act of breathing.

You’ve undoubtedly told someone (or took one as you sat in your car in the parking lot) in an agitated state to “just take a deep breath” and it’ll all work out. You might have even done this naturally yourself. And when they (or you) did suck in long, deep breaths, they often calmed down. It’s no great feat in itself, but it has immense power in regulating how your fight-or-flight response can return to the rest-and-relax state.

The key to it all relies on being able to return to a rest-and-relax state.

And maintaining that state until another threatening situation comes along.

Which means overcoming the next challenge with less stress-induced adrenaline surfacing.

Breathing is Life

From the first breath we take as newborns to the last one as we fade away from this physical world, our breathing gives us life.

Consider that telling yourself (or someone telling you) to relax doesn’t work, but that breathing can actually change the way you feel is backed by research.

In one study, researchers asked participants to simply slow down their breath during a stressful time when they had to make a tough decision. With this simple instruction to breathe slower and deeper, they were able to reduce anxiety.

Stephen Porges of the University of North Carolina, has concluded that especially abdominal breathing (expanding the belly as you breathe in) and lengthened exhales (e.g. 4 breaths in and 8 out), have significant benefits in reducing stress, anxiety, and blood pressure. These longer exhales relax and restore our nervous system. And isn’t that what we all want? Our “nerves” are shot — we need to learn relax them in order to build resilience.

Breathing consciously for even a few minutes before or after a stressful event can help you anytime, anywhere. It’s an incredible built-in tool we have. Start by taking action to feel better, happier, more relaxed and energized today. That’s the goal.

If you adapt a breathing technique like meditation offers, your body and mind are able to “bounce back” from the day’s stressors, and instead of feeling exhausted, you feel rested and recover your sympathetic nervous system by giving your body and mind the required downtime to create the practice and to feel happier today as a teacher, parent, spouse, and friend, click here.

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Keep Reading the blog: Restoring Mental Energy

©2018 Taru Nieminen