How to Be Calm and Resilient No Matter What
We’re living in a time of great anxiety. People now report being more worried about stress and anxiety than at any other health concern, including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Sounds like it’s time to find a way out of the overwhelming stress spiral.
Imagine this. You’re at the doctor’s office for an annual checkup. Excitedly, you point out that you’ve lost the weight that you both knew you needed to drop. “That’s wonderful,” the doctor says, adjusting the stethoscope around her neck and drawing up a stool next to your own chair. “But we’ve got a bigger health concern than your weight.”
“We do?” you ask, puzzled.
The doctor nods, “Your stress levels are way out of control.”
You swallow. Sure, you answered on the higher end of the scale on the stress-related questionnaire your doctor went over with you. But everybody is stressed these days. And stress isn’t that bad…is it?
According to the Health and Wellness 2019 study put out by the Hartman Group, stress and anxiety have overtaken weight as the primary medical concern for Americans. “Sixty-three percent of consumers say they are treating or preventing anxiety or stress compared to 61 percent who are treating or preventing being overweight,” says David Wright, senior manager of marketing at the Hartman Group. “Weight is still seen as a key indicator of overall health, but mental/emotional health is becoming a more prominent aspect of how consumers understand health and wellness,” Wright explains.
With more than six out of 10 people reporting their greatest health need is to manage or reduce their feelings of stress, how do we begin to tackle this health crisis? The first place is to start right at home, in your own life. Here’s where you can begin.
Identify what is really underneath your stress.
Many people assume life would be better “if only.” If only that coworker wasn’t such a grouchy bear. If only your boss saw your potential. If only your spouse appreciated you more. If only you’d chosen a different career, lived in a different part of town,or were a different age.
These and other similar thoughts are merely masks, hiding the true issue, says Diana Calvo, life coach and psychotherapist based in Boulder, Colorado. You have to recognize what is really upsetting you, rather than avoiding it or trying to distract yourself, advises Calvo, who specializes in helping clients deal with stress and anxiety.
“More often than not, feelings of stress and anxiety show up because a separate, uncomfortable feeling is trying to express itself,” says Calvo. “And we desperately don’t want to feel it.” Stress or anxiety is a protective mechanism that is trying to keep us unaware of those painful truths, such as disappointment in life or grief over a doomed relationship or the imminent death of a loved one.
“Engage in a daily practice of noticing your inner experience and reaction to it,” says Calvo. “For example, if you feel angry, notice your dislike of feeling angry, what you want to do to try to make it go away, and it feels like in your body.” Once you begin to pay attention to your true feelings, you’ll be able to address them instead of just trying to bury them.
If you discover you have a long list of nagging worries buried under your stress, start a “Worry List” to get all the stressors out of your head and onto paper. You can turn it into an action list and cross them off as you do what you need to do to resolve them. And for the things you can’t control–you can turn those things into a prayer list.
Reduce needless negativity and stress
10% at a time
Track how much time you’re spending taking in negative information, such as news programs, online rants, political arguments, and other forms of media that leave you feeling stressed out and anxious. Determine to reduce that number by 10 percent each week until you are feeling better.
Minimize or eliminate whatever stressors you can.
Learning to deal with stress and anxiety is the key. But there are also ways to reduce the amount of stress in your life. For example, do you find yourself on every board or committee you’re asked to be on? Have you signed up to provide 50 cupcakes to the school bake sale even though you have a big report due at work the same week?
Reducing stressors, when possible, begins with setting boundaries around yourself and your time. Sure, it would be wonderful to help with your sons’ fundraiser for Little League Baseball, but that’s the same time of the year that you’re overloaded at your accounting firm with tax season.
Your day is literally peppered with opportunities to do more, have more, be more. It can be exhausting just thinking about it all. The hard thing about scaling back and saying “no” sometimes has even led to the pop-culture idea of FOMO (fear of missing out). But sometimes, for the sake of your health, it’s better to miss out on an activity and the stress that comes with it.
Laugh At It.
The Bible contains a proverb that says a wise woman can “laugh at the days to come” (Proverbs 31:25). Who can do that? Only people who are relaxed, confident, and spiritual. They’re also people who can find some humor in situations, even stressful ones.
Laughter is healing. No one knows this better than Charles Marshall, a humorous motivational speaker, who has been making people laugh for more than 25 years. Marshall started out as a musician which had been a lifelong dream. But a health problem destroyed his musical career, leaving him devastated.
“It was a soul-crushing, crying-myself-to-sleep experience,” he says. “My whole identity was as a musician. It was all I’d ever wanted to do.”
From that setback, though, Marshall found a new calling–making people laugh and providing them with motivation in the process. After years of standup comedy, he is now a sought-after keynote speaker, author, and columnist.
“I come from the perspective that humor is an antidote to life’s pain,” Marshall says. As well as being an effective healer for grief-stricken hearts, humor is also useful in helping people de-stress and combat anxiety. Looking for humor and adding laughter to your life is one step to relaxing which can help you to calmly deal with the stress in your life.
Find peace through prayer.
Emily struggled with anxiety and panic attacks for many years in high school and college. Stress and worry were just a part of her life. She says, “I allowed them to move into my mind and become my permanent mental roommates. From money problems to relationship issues, if it became too much, you would find me curled up in a ball in the fetal position on the floor, hyperventilating until parts of my body went numb and crying until there were no more tears left.”
After Emily graduated from college, she found a closer with God and began to study His Word like she never had before. As a result, she began to trust God with every care and worry and cast them upon Him (see 1 Peter 5:7). By giving her burdens to God, she has been able to find more peace when stressors threaten to fill her with anxiety.
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7.
