Stress Management by Dr. Rozina Lakhani- Psychiatrist.Points from a recent seminar are discussed here. Although it may not be same as attending a live seminar, one of the points may touch your heart and help you decrease your stress and increase the joy in your life. IntroductionObjective: In this seminar you will identify stress and your patterns of reaction. You will learn how to change your attitude, make an action plan, and implement it in your life.I often share this joke about psychiatrists and light bulb: “Do you know how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb??? One, two, three, five, ten?? It takes only one, but it depends on the bulb, if it wants to be changed or not.” There is such wisdom in this joke. Nobody can help a person unless they want to change themselves. “All change starts with awareness of what to change.” One cannot improve unless they know how to. (That is where I am trying to help you a little by sharing the knowledge - tools for change-so you can improve if you decide to do so). Knowledge allows people to modify their attitude and practice healthy habits, leading to wellness. It is the attitude and practice that make the difference in how one feels. Therefore, if you just read this and do not change your attitude or practice the tools, it might be a waste of your time. So please use your knowledge to modify your attitude and practice the healthy habits.
Manage stress before it manages you.Increase your stress hardiness thru “Deposits” in your “Coping Account”. We all have emotional coping accounts inside us. The stressors of life (financial problems, relationship problems, health problems, difficulties in family or job) are emotional withdrawals. The activities that energize and uplift us (self care, exercise, music, creative activities) are deposits. Try to not only decrease the withdrawals, but also increase the deposits to keep the coping account in a positive balance.Stress and Stressor: Dr. Hans Selye defines Stress as “The non specific response of the organism to any pressure or demand” and Stressor: “The stimulus or event that produces the stress response” Stress can be Positive and energizing or negative and overwhelming. Dr. Seligman states that “It is not the potential stressor itself but how you perceive it and then how you handle it that will determine whether or not it will lead to stress” Transform your tension into opportunityYou can “Transform your tension into opportunity.”How? By changing your reactivity to response. Stress Reaction is an automatic reaction to danger or demand. Your body’s reaction to a perceived stressful event prepares you for action with a “fight or fight response. When the system fails due to overload, it gives a “freeze” response. Imagine you are in a jungle and a lion comes in front of you. You will either, run (flight), attack (fight), or feel so scared that you can’t move (freeze). What is happening in your body?Stress hormones: adrenalin, noradrenalin and cortisone are pumping. Your blood pressure and heart rate are going up and your muscles are getting tense and ready for action. This reaction can be good in the short term, especially in emergency situations. Stress can (for a short while) serve as a motivator, giving us the incentive to meet life’s challenges. But prolonged stress can have serious consequences for us physically, emotionally and behaviorally. It may lead to headaches, irritability, sleep and appetite problems. Physically it may lead to hardening of blood vessels, resulting in high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke. Emotionally it may lead to anxiety, depression or other mental disorders. Some times when the stressors become too overwhelming, it may lead to a freeze reaction, whereby a person feels paralyzed emotionally. Can we have a difference response to stress? Is there an innate physiologic response that is protective? Yes. A Relaxation Response. How do we develop that? With mindfulness and meditation. Mindfulness and MeditationWhat is mindfulness? It is being aware of each moment, and. being aware of whatever is happening inside us and outside us (within the scope of our senses). Mostly we live in the past or future, rarely in the present. Mindfulness does not mean living for the moment (enjoyment without awareness) but in the moment (enjoyment with awareness). What is meditation? It’s simply concentration practice.Mindfulness and mediation are like a magnifying glass. Have you ever tried to use a magnifying glass to concentrate sun-rays to a point on paper? Did it lead to black spot on the paper? If you do it long enough, it can lead to burning. How does that happen? The lens allows the sun rays to merge at one point making them much more powerful. That is the power of mindfulness, concentration and meditation. These techniques help us focus our wasted energy (energy that is wasted due to undirected mental chatter and worry) to improve our enjoyment of life. Mindfulness teaches us the complete owning of each moment of our experience – good, bad or ugly. Disciplined practice of mindfulness and meditation can lead to relaxation, calmness and insight. It leads to enhanced health and quality of life. Attitude: Small thing – Big difference.There are certain attitudes that form the foundation for mindfulness and meditation practice discussed in Dr. Jon Kabat Zinn’s book “Full Catastrophe Living”.1. Non Judging - Be an observer of events and people in the life. We tend to label every thing: this is right, this is not, this shouldn’t be happening, this is unfair etc. Many things in life are just neutral. (Sky is blue because it is; the weather is changing because it is. People are the way they are. Try to observe things as they are instead of judging all the time. 2. Patience – Events unfold in their own time- e.g. butterflies come out of cocoons or plants grow out of a seeds in their own time. Some times we just have to allow things to happen at their own time. 3. Begin by willing your mind to see everything as if for the first time. Sometimes we get into an “I know attitude.” We close the door to learning or improvement. No moment is the same as any other. Connect with nature: ISMS advises in “My Philosophy of Happiness”: “To a man who looks with such eyes upon the world, it is not a prison but a garden. A marvelous garden- the garden of the lord. I shall invite my heirs to feast their eyes on the miraculous beauty of the earth-rivers and seas to slake the earth’s eternal thirst, hills like the tents of great encampment, forests like an army with banners, with wide open spaces, dawns and sunsets, the indomitable arch of the sky. All these great gifts are freely given to the man with open eyes, open hands and open heart. But the eyes must be clear, the hands and heart must be strong. I would impress upon my heirs the absolute need to be healthy. If they neglect their body, they will be at odds with the universe.” 4. Trust your inner self and inner feelings. Become more fully yourself, not like anybody else. Believe in your goodness. Teachers & books are only signposts. Your true guide is your inner self. Trusting it allows you to be your authentic self. 5. Non Striving- trying less and being more. Sometimes we need to stop trying so hard. There are no goals in meditation. The more we allow things to be the more we become. 6. Letting go/non attachment: e.g. catching monkeys in India- example from Full Catastrophe Living, e.g. From movie Nemo, e.g. Sleep mechanics 7. Acceptance: coming to terms with what is. Unless we accept what is or where we are, we cannot go where we want to go. We do need direction and some focus for our future. e.g. Imagine getting on a major highway. You need to know whether you want to go north or south. If you are in, Seattle, you do need to decide if you want to go to Vancouver BC or Oregon, thus, deciding to go north or south bound. But if we don’t keep a local map and just keep thinking about the destination, then we won’t arrive at the destination. Whether we like it or not, we have to accept the fact of where we are, before we can move in the direction of where we want to be. AcceptanceWhy Me?Arthur Ashe- the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS. He received many letters from his fans. One of his fans wrote a letter asking Why you? You are a great person and you don’t have any bad habits. There are so many bad people in the world. Why you?He Responded: “The world over 50,000,000 children start playing tennis, 5,000,000 learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to circuit, 5,000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to final and 1 holding the cup. I never asked GOD “Why me” and today in pain I should not be asking GOD “Why Me” 5 Golden Principles: 1. Enjoy what we have 2. Avoid what we don’t like 3. Change if we can’t avoid 4. Accept if we can’t change 5. Accept with a change in attitude-as if we chose it. Serenity Prayer: God give me serenity to change the things I can, the courage to accept the things I cannot and the wisdom to know the difference. Poem: RAIN When it’s rainy, I want rain, When it’s sunny, I want sun, When it’s cold, I want cold, When it’s hot, I want hot I want whatever the weather is, And I am always happy As I always have what I want. Non-acceptance and AngerSome times we don’t want to accept our life situation and we become angry. We may lose our temper, and hit, throw or curse. In the past, we used to believe that “expressing anger is the best way to deal with it.” Now we know that expressing anger can cause more harm. Many times after expressing anger, we feel embarrassed, ashamed and angrier. We rarely get what we want (the other person walks away mad and it makes things worse. They may hold a grudge and take it out on others).So “What to do?” Acknowledging the inner feeling of frustration and directing the energy in constructive ways lead to feeling better. Some of the things you can do are: As soon as you realize that you are getting angry, walk to a place where you can get water (refrigerator or fountain or water bottle). Sit down and drink. Then do what needs to be done. This alone allows you to calm down and gives you those precious moments where you can think and decide your best response. Both the acts of sitting and drinking water calm your brain down. When we are angry our mind cannot think and we have knee jerk reactions. When we calm down then we can think. Other things you can do; 1. Think twice. 2. Give self time. 3. Breathe. 4. Walk away. 5. Count to seven or say a prayer. 6. Talk to an objective friend. 7. Put yourself in other’s shoes. 8. Avoid blame (helpless and upset) 9. Ask if “Is it really worth it” 10. Accept your own role. Non acceptance and WorrySome times we don’t accept 'what already is' and worry. Worry is like weeds. Clean your weeds regularly as does a good gardener. Worrying is a learned habit and can be unlearned. What we focus on increases. We attract what we think about. Therefore focus on things we want, not on things we don’t want. Only worry about things we can control. Look for ways to take practical steps in any situation (We can’t stop rain but we can use umbrella or rain coat from getting wet).Worry with a writing instrument. Once you write, the mind is cleared, so we can work on finding solutions. Most worries never come to pass. List all the worries for 3 days.Fear can paralyze and incapacitate. Familiarize yourself with what you fear, Ease into it, in controlled circumstances. Change and ControlChange is one thing you can be sure of. If life never changed, it would be more stressful. Change can be positive or negative.Our body: robust and resilient, built in mechanism for maintaining stability and vitality in the face of constant changeDrs. Holmes & Rahe: Life changes index-Higher score= High probability of illness in following year.Controllable and not controllable What can we do?1. Reduce changes that you can control.2. Learn to flow with it.3. Accept inevitable-It is the best thing that could happen.ISMS in his letter “Philosophy of happiness” advises “I say you should endeavor to suit your desire to the event, and not event to your desire. If a wall tumbles down and crushes my foot, I must say: “that is the best thing that could happen to me.” We think if we have more control, we would have less stress. In reality we don’t have control of things, but we can influence things (a farmer cannot control and make a flower bloom, but he can influence its ultimate outcome, by providing the best environment for the flower. We need to determine what we can influence and what we cannot. Taking any action, no matter how small, no matter if it doesn’t immediately change the situation, makes us feel better. If you believe you are in control of your life, you are. If you are connected to the Universe which is really in control, then you are! Plan for Positive Action.Write down one change you plan to make in each area of your life in the following way.“I commit myself to the following changes to bring my life into balance.” Body: _______________________________________________________Mind: _______________________________________________________Soul: ________________________________________________________ “There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that is your own self. So you have to begin there, not outside, not on other people.” Aldus Huxley. Conclusion:1. Stressors are unavoidable part of life.2. The level of stress depends on our perception. 3. Make deposits in a ‘Coping account’ so it does not become negative. 4. As nobody can eat for us, nobody can cope with our stress for us. 5. Happiness lies not only in reaching our destination, but also in enjoying the journey. Enjoy each step. Appreciate each moment. Find pleasure in little things. 6. Be thankful for simple things. Write in a Gratitude journal every morning. 7. Give something to others. Make some one happy. 8. Trust your inner voice. 9. Practice mindfulness and meditation daily. Feedback: Three things I learnt:1. 2.3. One thing I would change_______________________________________________ Click here to go back to Stress Management Home |