Mind Gym (34 page)

F
red is sitting in solid traffic on his way to his brother’s wedding. If it doesn’t clear soon, he will miss the start of the ceremony. It’s a very small gathering at their local church. If he doesn’t make it, he’s going to be in a world of trouble. Why didn’t he take the train or leave half an hour earlier? He feels completely helpless. The more he realizes that there is nothing he can do, the angrier he gets. He imagines his father’s reaction. He imagines his mother’s disappointment. Soon, Fred’s frustration turns to dread, and his dread turns to panic.

Fred’s other brother, Chris, is in a car about fifteen miles behind Fred. He’s stuck in the same traffic jam. Like Fred, he is going to the wedding and he’s expected to read in the ceremony. Chris decides, however, that since there is nothing he can do about the traffic, there is no point in worrying. He is better off doing something useful. He sits back and starts to practice his speech.

Chris and Fred’s half sister, Anne, is twelve cars ahead of Fred. Yep, she’s stuck too. Anne has spent the last ten minutes on the phone to a traffic hotline to try to find out how long she’ll be stuck. She’s left a message for her mother to tell her the situation and to see if the ceremony can be pushed back. Then it occurs to her that Fred might also be stuck in traffic, so she picks up her phone again and dials.

Fred, Chris, and Anne are all stranded in the same situation. Yet they each have very different approaches to dealing with it. In the previous chapter we discussed how to differentiate between positive stress (which boosts your performance) and negative stress (which inhibits your performance). Anne is a good example of someone who is experiencing positive stress. She is alert and focused on productive activity; she has figured out what she can do given the circumstances and has started to implement her plan. Fred, on the other hand, is working himself into a frenzy that will only end up making things worse. Fred’s way of dealing with this stressful situation is not really dealing with it at all. Finally, Chris’s reaction is to relax rather than stress about the situation.

We have all, at different times, experienced each of these reactions. At one stage or another, we have freaked like Fred, chilled like Chris, and reacted effectively to a situation like Anne. However, we probably didn’t think about whether our reaction was the best approach for that specific situation. Instead, we jumped into doing whatever felt right at the time. The purpose of this chapter is to give you more choices for how to respond when you are about to become, or already are, negatively stressed.

HOW DO YOU SEE STRESSFUL SITUATIONS?

Most of us would find skydiving fairly stressful. However, if a skydiving instructor was about to make her 300th jump, the chances are she would barely be stressed at all.

Psychologists Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman suggest that the way in which you view a situation makes just as much difference to your level of stress as the situation itself. They call this concept “cognitive appraisal.”
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Among the most influential factors in determining how stressed you feel are your personal beliefs (e.g., jumping out of planes is dangerous) and situational factors—how familiar or predictable the event is (e.g., the first jump versus the 300th).

This difference in perception is one of the main reasons why, in identical situations, some people remain totally calm while others become highly distressed. The beautiful thing about this theory is that you can alter your level of stress simply by choosing to think about the situation differently.
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In the pages that follow, we present nine tactics of tackling stress—we call them stressbusters. Each has its own strengths. Of course, one stressbuster will be more useful than another in different situations. Or you may need a combination of stressbusters to help you out of a proverbial jam. The nine stressbusters are ordered, roughly, from those that require thinking about a situation differently, like Chris in the example earlier, to those that focus on taking action, like Anne. If you master these stressbusters and discover how to combine them to create the best effect, you’ll discover a new level of control in your life.

Distress occurs when we believe not only that we aren’t capable of dealing with a situation but also that the situation itself is important. One simple way of reducing your level of stress is by changing your assessment of the
situation
(which has the bonus effect of making the outcome seem less crucial).

Quite often, of course, the opposite is the case. The more you think about the thing you’re stressed about, the more important it feels. Fred is anxious about missing his brother’s wedding because, of course, a wedding is an important family milestone. While he is stuck in traffic, his mind might be telling him,
Well, don’t worry about being late for the next family gathering. You won’t be invited. Your father’s will? Forget about it. He’ll probably just leave you his watch to remind you what an idiot you’ve been
. This type of runaway thinking is known as a “catastrophic fantasy.” We all create catastrophic fantasies in our heads when faced with certain stressful situations. Consider your thoughts the last time you were late for a meeting. Consider the nights you laid in bed awake worrying how you might lose your job because of some minor miscommunication.

If you are in a stressful situation and working out a catastrophic fantasy in your mind, the first step is to remind yourself that the scenario you’re imagining may sound catastrophic but it is also just a fantasy. So, dismiss it. If you can pause and listen to yourself, you will probably realize that it is a highly unlikely scenario.

The second step is to reverse the fantasy: Rather than paint the most negative version of the situation, go the other way and give the situation the most positive twist possible. As an example, Fred could change his thinking to this:
I’m going to be late for the wedding, but I’m not the first person to be late for a wedding and I won’t be the last. They can either delay things until I get there or they can proceed without me. My brother will be annoyed, but at the end of the day, he is my brother, and he knows I want to be there. He’ll forgive me. Or if he does hold a grudge because I’m a few minutes late, well, that’s his problem not mine. I know I’ve done my best. If being late for my brother’s wedding is the worst thing I’ve ever done to him, then I guess it shows what a good relationship we have
.

By playing the situation down, reducing the importance and impact of being a few minutes late, Fred could avoid becoming so distraught.

Much like exaggerating the importance of an event, you might also tend to exaggerate the probability of a negative outcome.

Marie, a participant in a Mind Gym event, recounted a horror story about sending out a company e-newsletter. After sending the e-newsletter to the company’s employees, Marie realized that she’d made a major mistake. The graphs on the lead story were wrong: rather than illustrating one business’s success, the graph suggested a massive failure. In a state of panic, Marie offered to send a personal email to that business, explaining her mistake. But rather than take her up on her offer, her boss told her not to worry. “To be quite honest,” he continued, “I’m not sure how many people will notice.” He was right: out of the twenty thousand people who received the e-newsletter, not one mentioned it.

Marie was correct in her perception that it would be extremely bad news if everyone had thought that the business was a failure. But she was also wrong to assume that everyone, or indeed anyone, would notice her error. Playing down the probability of a bad outcome is a very powerful way to counteract distress.

Imagine someone is trying to rent out their house but is having problems attracting interest because of the small size of the bedrooms. By repainting the walls in a lighter color and removing some of the furniture and clutter, the owner can make the rooms feel bigger and more attractive. In a similar way, a stressful situation can appear much less daunting if you think about it, or “reframe” it, in a different way.

For example, you are trying to organize a vacation but everything is going wrong. The cheap tickets you spotted online are now twice the price. The hotel your friend recommended as “the only place worth staying at” is fully booked. A close friend has announced that he is having his birthday party in the middle of your proposed vacation dates. And just when you thought nothing else could go wrong, you discover that your passport is due to expire in three weeks.

Your initial reaction to all this may be to give up—everything’s getting too stressful and conspiring against you. But by reframing the situation, things could look far more positive and, therefore, far less stressful. The cheap airline tickets are gone: flying first class rather than coach might be more expensive but at least you’ll really enjoy the eight-hour flight. The hotel is fully booked: you can probably find a hidden gem that won’t be so touristy. Your close friend is having a birthday party: you can celebrate separately, without having to deal with or listen to his crazy sister. Your passport is expiring: It’s about time! You can finally get rid of that terrible picture.

Reframing is not creating Pollyanna optimism, in which everything is roses and there’s no other way to see the world; instead, it’s thinking differently about the external facts and focusing on what is good about them rather than what is not.

Feeling stressed leaves us feeling depressed. One way of tackling this feeling of depression is to think of all the good things that are going on in your life at the moment. For example, the offer you made on a house fell through and it seems that finding a decent place to live is impossible. But what are the good things in life at the moment? Get a piece of paper and write them all down. Do you have close friends? An interesting job? Are you in love? Hey, you still have enough money to buy a new house. All the waiting and planning you did before you made the offer has put you in a great financial position.

Chances are that your list will be longer than you expect. Thinking about the positive things in your life will take the attention away from the negative stress, which in turn makes you feel better. When things are going right, don’t be afraid to celebrate. Rather than worry about the next thing you need to tackle, pat yourself on the back. It will help boost your energy level for the next challenge.

At the end of a busy day set aside a couple of minutes to think through what you have achieved rather than what you have to do tomorrow. This will reduce your level of anxiety and help you sleep better too.

If the first four stressbusters don’t seem to be enough, try asking the following question:
Is worrying about the situation helping me? Is there something better I could be doing with all this mental energy?
You have only so much mental energy to go around. If you’re using it all worrying, then you won’t have the energy to address the issues that are causing all the grief in the first place. If you save your energy for something more worthwhile, you’re more likely to get the situation fixed, and you’ll feel better about yourself in the process.

Sometimes the best way of dealing with excessive stress is to escape from it. Sure, you could literally try to walk away from it—a change of scenery and getting some oxygen into your brain might just help you see things differently. But you can also choose a mental escape, resolving not to think about the situation for a while. Or a break may involve taking time out (an evening off or a night out on the town), so that when you return to the situation, you have a fresh perspective. Of course, escaping for too long can be dangerous. The causes of distress may have increased while you were away, making your level of distress even greater. But a short break can also help to put things into perspective and bring long-term benefits.

Sometimes the best way of dealing with a stressful situation is to share your thoughts with someone else rather than carry the burden alone.
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It sounds too simple to work, but talking through a situation will actually help you feel better.
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Most of us have played a support role for our friends, colleagues, and family. There is no reason why they wouldn’t be delighted to do the same for you. But remember, your friends (okay, at least
our
friends) aren’t clairvoyant. You will need to ask them for support if you are going to benefit from their help. Here are some ways a friend or colleague can offer support:

•   Listen and empathize: “He really called you that? No wonder you feel terrible. They don’t know how lucky they are to have you there.”

•   Challenge your assumptions about what is happening: “Are you sure that is what he meant? Things written in emails can sound far more aggressive than they actually are.”

•   Facilitate a solution to the situation: “Why don’t I ask him if he wants to join us for coffee or a drink after work to clear the air?”

•   Help come up with solutions: “Let’s get together and see if we can think up some more creative alternatives.”

•   Actually do things on your behalf: “I’ll make some posters and put them on trees around the area. Does he answer to another name besides Rover?”

•   Lend or give you the physical or financial support that would alleviate the cause of your distress: “I’ve just done my expenses, so I’m fine for money at the moment. I’ll pay to have the red wine stain removed and you can pay me back when you want. He’ll never know it happened.”

This is what friends are for (well, one of the reasons), so don’t be afraid to ask for help.