How do you stay calmer? There are a million blog posts out there that will teach you how you can stay calm. Believe me, I have read quite a few of them. The problem is that those blog posts assume that you will remember all the techniques when you are going through it. That is the assumption. We say to ourselves, “I will read it today and when it is time, the “techniques” will automatically come to me.” But, when does that ever happen? Never! When we are going through it, we fall back to our defaults and muscle memory. The trick is to practice things when you don’t need them – so they show up when you do.
In one of the previous posts, we discussed how our mind loves stress. How it craves it. In this post, we are going to focus on getting that mind off that hamster wheel.
Today we’re going to talk about a few techniques that can help us to calm our minds when we are in the moment. So, something happened today, somebody said something or something happened at work. That one instance led you to have internal chatter which turned into anxiety. So, what do you do when this happens? How do you handle this? How do you not stay in the moment and move on? How do you not feel that anxiety and stay calmer?
These are some of the questions we are going to answer in this post. There is nothing special about me, I had the same issue. I would let the little things bother me. These little things would occupy my mind for days and my brain would be so occupied that I would not think about anything else. After a while, I realized that I did not like that feeling. I did not want anything living in my mind rent-free. So, over time I developed a method that helped me calm my mind and I practiced it religiously. The regular practice helped me develop muscle memory and now it is my default in stressful situations.
Often, when we are in the moment, we feel like we are stuck forever and it is hard to live past that moment. But, it is possible. Those moments are not here to stay but are here to pass.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change -Dr. Wayne Dyer.
It’s such a simple thing to say, if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. I have heard it a million times, but this little phrase never seems to show up when crap hits the fan. Think of this way, your thoughts are like a glass cup. They create the outside shape of the container and fluid inside is the actual life we live. So whatever the shape of the container, the fluids inside are going to take that shape. Long story cut short, our thoughts determine our life.
In the book called Obstacle is the way by Ryan holiday he states that obstacles are the way of life. No life is perfect and no matter how hard we try, we are going to have obstacles. But, if we think about those obstacles as challenges and those challenges as opportunities for growth, it changes the way we look at life. This perspective creates an offensive mindset. From personal experience I can tell you, an offensive mindset is much better than a defensive mindset. When you are in an offensive mindset, you feel more in control while in a defensive mindset, you are letting things just happen to you.
So, it’s time to actually look into the BUS method. In the BUS method, B stands for Bait and Switch, U stands for Universal Slingshot and the S stands for Sensory Meditation.
B – Bait and Switch
Think of your brain as a nuclear power plant. As long as it has fuel, it is going to keep working and keep on creating thoughts. Often, people give advice such as “just stop thinking about it.“ But, when was the last time it actually worked for you? When was the last time you told your brain to stop and it went complete blank? Unfortunately, our brain doesn’t have an on and off switch. But, we can redirect it – we can give it something to chew on. For example, I have this wonderful dog who had this habit of chewing wires. I tried numerous things, but the best thing that worked was buying him toys that he can chew on. So, instead of something negative to chew on, I gave him something positive to chew on.
The same concept can be applied to our brains. When our brain is going on a negative track, give it something positive to chew on. For example, instead of negative thoughts, we can read a book, listen to positive music, go do a workout in order to get the excess energy out. Anything that gives it a redirection and gives it something else to chew. But, before we can redirect, we need to loosen the pull of the negative thoughts. One redirection technique that has worked for me is the 4x4x4x4 box breathing method. Think of your breath as the string that keeps our body attached to your mind. When you do the breathing exercise, it brings the mind back to the body and decreases the pull of the negative thoughts.
So what do you do in the box breathing method? Box breathing is a 4 step process:
- Breathe in, count to four (internally).
- At the end of breathing in, hold your breath, and count to 4 (internally).
- Then start exhaling and count to 4 (internally).
- At the end of the breath, pause, and count to four (internally).
Try to do this at least 8-10 times. The box breathing method is designed to reduce the pull of negative thoughts. Keep in mind, this needs to be practiced regularly. The more you practice, the better you get at it.
U – Universal Slingshot
Once the pull of the negative thoughts is reduced, then we can use the second technique called Universal Slingshot. The Universal Slingshot is a 3 step process:
- The first step is to imagine creating a ball of thoughts that you do not want to think about.
- Imagine creating a slingshot and putting that thought ball in a slingshot.
- Shooting the slingshot and imagine the thought ball leave your current place, city, state, country, and going past all the planets – even leaving our solar system.
The more vividly you imagine, the better it works. Keep on doing this until you feel like you are off the hamster wheel.
S – Sensory Meditation
The third thing is sensory meditation. I do not know why, but meditation is something we have a tendency of discounting. I used to discount meditation by thinking that it will never work for me. My problem was that I could never sit still. Sitting at one spot and focusing on myself sounded not plausible. But, after doing it for a while I think of meditation as my medication. It is amazing how much meditation can help even if we do it for just 10 to 15 minutes per day.
Meditation simply means to be aware. With sensory meditation, we are trying to stay off the hamster wheel by being aware of the present moment. There are a couple of ways we can do sensory meditation:
- The easiest method is the analog watch method. In this method, look at any analog clock. Now, when you are looking at the clock, don’t look at the time, but focus on the second hand. Your main goal is to give that second hand all the attention you have. When I do this, I do it for at least 1-2 minutes. This helps me redirect my attention from repetitive thoughts to something else. Basically, it helps further reduce the pull of obsessive thoughts.
- The second thing you can try is the waterfall method. Believe me or not, our ancestors spent most of their time in nature. So nature plays a huge role in our psychological well being (it is ingrained in our DNA). This is one of the reasons when we feel at peace when we are in nature. In the waterfall method, all you are doing is turning on any faucet in your house on low and focusing on the sound and water. That is it. It is that simple. Your main goal for the next 3-5 minutes is to observe the water and the sound. This should have the same effects as the analog method.
Now, keep in mind that there is going to be an initial resistance in your mind of these things not working. This is normal. Your mind does not want to change, it wants the stress. But create a simple goal. Do it for 30 days and see how it affects you. If it doesn’t work, move on and do something else.
https://youtu.be/LXmoF2SCG0o