When to Hit Reset
How to keep calm when it all gets too much. When you just need to hit RESET?
On Wednesday we talked about a STRESSOMETER and how when you learn to gauge your stress levels and actively manage your thinking, you can keep yourself calm and in control. (Remember how powerfully you react to the pressures and hurdles in life determines your level of stress?)
But what if it all goes Pete Tong, what do you do then?
Well then you need to hit the Reset button?
If you’ve got yourself stressed, angry, upset or anxious, you can reset to a much calmer emotional state quite easily and quickly, by following these three steps:
When it is safe to do so:
✴️ Recognise – that you have got yourself stressed, and that your ’stressometer needle’ is in the red
✴️ Realise – that you have created this state by the way in which you have reacted to events – even though you might not know HOW you’ve achieved this right at this moment
✴️ Reset – your breathing, thinking and attitude
Breathing: focus for a few moments on your breathing – it’s likely you’re breathing quite fast – and start to take back control of it; start to slow it down. It might feel like you are trying to slow down a runaway horse, but that’s fine… just pull back on the reigns and tell yourself ‘woah there’, or just ‘calm down’ – if you’re not into horses!
Thinking: people panic, create stress, get anxious or angry because of the way they have reacted to something… their thinking has changed, and so has their emotional response. If you are in one of the states mentioned above, then its very likely you are thinking either in a ‘catastrophic’ or ‘black and white’ way, and you need to start thinking in a calmer, more in-control way. So, keep telling yourself ‘everything is alright’, that no matter what happened ‘you will cope’ and ‘it will be ok’. This will calm down your thinking, and help you regain perspective.
Attitude: when people feel powerful, they are much less likely to create fear, anxiety or stress. So if you have an attitude of ‘I can do this’, ‘I can beat this’ and/or ‘I can cope with this’, you will find it much easier to manage your breathing and thinking. The point is: don’t just think these things or just say these things, REALLY believe that you can, create a powerful attitude and you WILL find it much easier to manage your reactions to the events and pressures of modern life. The very act that you realise you have created the state in the first place is incredibly empowering… if you created it, then you can un-create it.
If you want to know how powerful you feel about life generally, take our beliefs quiz… just message us/comment below with ‘yes please’.
Have a great weekend
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This is part of a series building up your mental health every week – so we do advise going back and reading our Thriving at Home series from the beginning.
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