Stay calm in your centre.
Dr. Travis Bradberry
Co-author
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 & President at TalentSmart
How
Successful People Stay Calm
The ability
to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to
your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve
found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in
times of stress in order to remain calm and in control.
If you
follow our newsletter, you’ve read some startling research
summaries that explore the havoc stress can wreak on one’s physical and mental
health (such as the Yale study, which
found that prolonged stress causes degeneration in the area of the brain
responsible for self-control). The tricky thing about stress (and the anxiety
that comes with it) is that it’s an absolutely necessary emotion. Our brains
are wired such that it’s difficult to take action until we feel at least some
level of this emotional state. In fact, performance peaks under the heightened
activation that comes with moderate levels of stress. As long as the stress
isn’t prolonged, it’s harmless.
Research
from the University of California, Berkeley, reveals an upside to experiencing
moderate levels of stress. But it also reinforces how important it is to keep
stress under control. The study, led by post-doctoral fellow Elizabeth Kirby,
found that the onset of stress entices the brain into growing new cells
responsible for improved memory. However, this effect is only seen when stress
is intermittent. As soon as the stress continues beyond a few moments into a
prolonged state, it suppresses the brain’s ability to develop new cells.
“I think
intermittent stressful events are probably what keeps the brain more alert, and
you perform better when you are alert,” Kirby says. For animals, intermittent
stress is the bulk of what they experience, in the form of physical threats in
their immediate environment. Long ago, this was also the case for humans. As
the human brain evolved and increased in complexity, we’ve developed the
ability to worry and perseverate on events, which creates frequent experiences
of prolonged stress.
Besides
increasing your risk of heart disease, depression, and obesity, stress
decreases your cognitive performance. Fortunately, though, unless a lion is
chasing you, the bulk of your stress is subjective and under your control. Top
performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ under stressful
circumstances. This lowers their stress levels regardless of what’s happening
in their environment, ensuring that the stress they experience is intermittent
and not prolonged.
While I’ve
run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when
faced with stress, what follows are ten of the best. Some of these strategies
may seem obvious, but the real challenge lies in recognizing when you need to
use them and having the wherewithal to actually do so in spite of your stress.
They Appreciate What They Have
Taking time
to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the “right” thing to do.
It also improves your mood, because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by
23%. Research conducted at the University of California, Davis found that
people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced
improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels
of cortisol played a major role in this.
They Avoid Asking “What If?”
“What if?”
statements throw fuel on the fire of stress and worry. Things can go in a
million different directions, and the more time you spend worrying about the
possibilities, the less time you’ll spend focusing on taking action that will
calm you down and keep your stress under control. Calm people know that asking
“what if? will only take them to a place they don’t want—or need—to go.
They Stay Positive
Positive
thoughts help make stress intermittent by focusing your brain’s attention onto
something that is completely stress-free. You have to give your wandering brain
a little help by consciously selecting something positive to think about. Any
positive thought will do to refocus your attention. When things are going well,
and your mood is good, this is relatively easy. When things are going poorly,
and your mind is flooded with negative thoughts, this can be a challenge. In
these moments, think about your day and identify one positive thing that
happened, no matter how small. If you can't think of something from the current
day, reflect on the previous day or even the previous week. Or perhaps you’re
looking forward to an exciting event that you can focus your attention on. The
point here is that you must have something positive that you're ready to shift
your attention to when your thoughts turn negative.
They Disconnect
Given the
importance of keeping stress intermittent, it’s easy to see how taking regular
time off the grid can help keep your stress under control. When you make
yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage
of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even—gulp!—turning off your phone
gives your body a break from a constant source of stress. Studies have shown
that something as simple as an email break can lower stress levels.
Technology
enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be available
24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work
when an email that will change your train of thought and get you thinking
(read: stressing) about work can drop onto your phone at any moment. If
detaching yourself from work-related communication on weekday evenings is too
big a challenge, then how about the weekend? Choose blocks of time where you
cut the cord and go offline. You’ll be amazed at how refreshing these breaks
are and how they reduce stress by putting a mental recharge into your weekly
schedule. If you’re worried about the negative repercussions of taking this
step, first try doing it at times when you’re unlikely to be contacted—maybe
Sunday morning. As you grow more comfortable with it, and as your coworkers
begin to accept the time you spend offline, gradually expand the amount of time
you spend away from technology.
They Limit Their Caffeine Intake
Drinking
caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the
“fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up
and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight
mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is
great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a
curt email. When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyperaroused state
of stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. The stress that caffeine
creates is far from intermittent, as its long half-life ensures that it takes
its sweet time working its way out of your body.
They Sleep
I’ve beaten
this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of
sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress
levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the
day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that
you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory
are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep
deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor
present. Stressful projects often make you feel as if you have no time to
sleep, but taking the time to get a decent night’s sleep is often the one thing
keeping you from getting things under control.
They Squash Negative Self-Talk
A big step in
managing stress involves stopping negative self-talk in its tracks. The more
you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our
negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When you find yourself
believing the negative and pessimistic things your inner voice says, it's time
to stop and write them down. Literally stop what you're doing and write down
what you're thinking. Once you've taken a moment to slow down the negative
momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and clear-headed in
evaluating their veracity.
You can bet
that your statements aren’t true any time you use words like “never,” “worst,”
“ever,” etc. If your statements still look like facts once they’re on paper,
take them to a friend or colleague you trust and see if he or she agrees with
you. Then the truth will surely come out. When it feels like something always
or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural threat tendency inflating
the perceived frequency or severity of an event. Identifying and labeling your
thoughts as thoughts by separating them from the facts will help you escape the
cycle of negativity and move toward a positive new outlook.
They Reframe Their Perspective
Stress and
worry are fueled by our own skewed perception of events. It’s easy to think
that unrealistic deadlines, unforgiving bosses, and out-of-control traffic are
the reasons we’re so stressed all the time. You can’t control your
circumstances, but you can control how you respond to them. So before you spend
too much time dwelling on something, take a minute to put the situation in
perspective. If you aren’t sure when you need to do this, try looking for clues
that your anxiety may not be proportional to the stressor. If you’re thinking
in broad, sweeping statements such as “Everything is going wrong” or “Nothing
will work out,” then you need to reframe the situation. A great way to correct
this unproductive thought pattern is to list the specific things that actually
are going wrong or not working out. Most likely you will come up with just some
things—not everything—and the scope of these stressors will look much more
limited than it initially appeared.
They Breathe
The easiest
way to make stress intermittent lies in something that you have to do everyday
anyway: breathing. The practice of being in the moment with your breathing will
begin to train your brain to focus solely on the task at hand and get the
stress monkey off your back. When you’re feeling stressed, take a couple of
minutes to focus on your breathing. Close the door, put away all other
distractions, and just sit in a chair and breathe. The goal is to spend the
entire time focused only on your breathing, which will prevent your mind from
wandering. Think about how it feels to breathe in and out. This sounds simple,
but it’s hard to do for more than a minute or two. It’s all right if you get
sidetracked by another thought; this is sure to happen at the beginning, and
you just need to bring your focus back to your breathing. If staying focused on
your breathing proves to be a real struggle, try counting each breath in and
out until you get to 20, and then start again from 1. Don’t worry if you lose
count; you can always just start over.
This task
may seem too easy or even a little silly, but you’ll be surprised by how calm
you feel afterward and how much easier it is to let go of distracting thoughts
that otherwise seem to have lodged permanently inside your brain.
They Use Their Support System
It’s
tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself.
To be calm and productive, you need to recognize your weaknesses and ask for
help when you need it. This means tapping into your support system when a
situation is challenging enough for you to feel overwhelmed. Everyone has
someone at work and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and
ready to help them get the best from a difficult situation. Identify these
individuals in your life and make an effort to seek their insight and
assistance when you need it. Something as simple as talking about your worries
will provide an outlet for your anxiety and stress and supply you with a new
perspective on the situation. Most of the time, other people can see a solution
that you can’t because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation.
Asking for help will mitigate your stress and strengthen your relationships
with those you rely upon.
Travis Bradberry, Ph.D.
Your test results will
pinpoint which of the book's 66 strategies will increase your EQ the most.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140805002649-50578967-how-successful-people-stay-calm?trk=tod-posts-postall-ptlt&trk=tod-posts-postall-ptlt
A practical
overview of Turbo Charged Reading
YouTube
How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Emotions when
Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?
Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blog:
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com
gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com
for extra TCR information
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com
just for fun.
To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more
things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”
No comments:
Post a Comment