Picture credit - TED - Andy Puddicombe
Day 40 - Coping with Stress
19 May 2020
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sirurp@gmail.com
My learning for the day
Today I want to summarise two TED talks on coping with Stress. The first talk is about 10 minutes of mindfulness to nurture our mind. The second talk is about making ‘stress’ your friend
Talk 1 - All it takes is ten mindful minutes
Summary -
When was the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that
We experience every single moment of our life through our mind.
We rely upon our mind to make us feel happy, content, emotionally stable and at the same time, to be kind and thoughtful and considerate in our relationships with others.
We also depend upon it to make us focused, creative, spontaneous, and to perform at our very best in everything that we do.
Our mind whizzes away like a washing machine going round and round to manage all our demands from it. Do we realise how much stress we give to our poor mind?
Shouldn’t we take some time out to look after our precious mind?
The ten minute mindfulness each day helps us do that.
Most people assume that mindfulness/ meditation is all about stopping thoughts, getting rid of emotions, somehow controlling the mind, but actually it's quite different from that.
It's more about stepping back, sort of seeing the thoughts clearly, witnessing it coming and going, emotions coming and going without judgment, but with a relaxed, focused mind, to familiarize yourself with the present moment so that you get to experience a greater sense of focus, calm and clarity in your life.
Don’t we owe this small bit to our mind?
(Acknowledgement - I acknowledge gratitude to Revati Avasare, a LinkedIn friend, who taught me Dr. David O’Hare’s ultimate anti-stress weapon called 365-method of stress relief - 3 times a day, 6 breaths a minute for 5 minutes. Grateful to you Dr David)
Talk 2 - How to make stress your friend
Summary -
Stress makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case.
Kelly had been teaching for a decade that stress is harmful, stress makes you sick, it increases the risk of everything from the common cold to cardiovascular disease.
She came across a study conducted to track 30,000 adults in the United States for eight years after asking them a question, "Do you believe that stress is harmful for your health?"
What they found was that people who experienced a lot of stress but did not view stress as harmful had the lower risk of dying of stress.
These researchers, tracking deaths for 8 years, observed that 182,000 Americans died prematurely, not from stress, but from the belief that stress is bad for you.
This study gave Kelly an insight - stress could be our friend and not an enemy; Can changing how you think about stress make you healthier?
Her further research on Oxytocin, as a stress hormone, gave her one more understanding - Stress makes you social (an under-appreciated aspect of the stress response). She found that when oxytocin is released in the stress response, it is to motivate you to seek support. When life is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by people who care about you.
So when you reach out to others under stress, either to seek support or to help someone else, you release more of this hormone, your stress response becomes healthier.
When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the biology of courage.
And when you choose to connect with others under stress, you can create resilience.
So when you face stress in the future, remember that you can trust yourself to handle this friend of yours. And remember that you don't have to face them alone.
My learning so far on this topic
Day 10 post - What is Hans Selye’s stress theory?, Ways to cope with stress
Day 20 post - Symptoms of stress, Main causes of workplace stress, Holmes-Rahe stress inventory
Day 30 post - Stress and Anxiety; are they different?, Mobile Apps to cope up with stress
What is stress?
When you perceive a threat or a major challenge, chemicals and hormones surge throughout your body. This is called stress. It is basically a survival mechanism of our body.
There is good stress (eustress), bad stress (acute stress) and chronic stress
Eustress is the type of stress when we feel excited e.g. when riding a roller coaster or when competing for a promotion etc.
Acute stress is a short term stress because of some stressors e.g. stuck in a traffic jam when we are late for a meeting, an argument with your spouse, an unkind criticism from your boss etc.
Chronic stress is a long term stress brought on by continual acute stresses when we repeatedly face stressors. This condition gives a feeling of helplessness and a feeling of being put in inescapable state. Chronic stress causes many physical and mental health related issues e.g. heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide.
How to improve this skill?
Set a goal to become a go-to person by mastering the art and science of coping with stress.
Follow the LAST model to build your personal brand as a Guru of coping with stress.
Learn - Invest time in learning different frameworks/ models/ techniques of coping with stress
Apply -
Identify a model suitable to you
Create a template to document the flow of the process
Find opportunities to use the selected method/ template
Maintain record/ process flow of every important activities you did with respect to coping with stress
Maintain notes of your thoughts/ insights/ failures/ challenges…. to be used for sharing/ training others
Share - Share the insights captured in step 2 above in a planned manner (social media posts, blogs, videos, study notes…)
Train - Generate opportunities to train your peers and team members so that, over time, your organization benefits from your efforts
Purpose of this document
I took a 66 day challenge to study Life Skills last year (10 April 2019). To my astonishment, I succeeded in studying for 66 days one skill a day.
My objectives of learning these skills were - To strengthen my mind to face life’s challenges with ease, To use these skills in my worklife for a better performance, To use these skills in my personal life for enriching my relationships, To open new possibilities to surprise myself.
This is my next 66 day challenge (from 10 April 2020) - To share my Life Skills learning with my social media friends.
I pray that my toil helps you in your success journey.
What are Life Skills?
UNICEF defines Life skills as - psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They are loosely grouped into three broad categories of skills
- cognitive skills for analyzing and using information,
- personal skills for developing personal agency and managing oneself,
- inter-personal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others.
Which LifeSkills are covered?
The World Health Organisation identified these basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures:
1. Decision-making
2. Problem-solving
3. Creative thinking
4. Critical thinking
5. Communication
6. Interpersonal skills
7. Self-awareness
8. Empathy
9. Coping with emotions
10. Coping with stress.
Some trivia
‘Life skills’ was never part of the school curriculum. WHO/ UNESCO mandated academia to teach these skills in all schools across the globe in 1993.
Different countries educate their children in these skills with different objectives
- Zimbabwe and Thailand - prevention of HIV/AIDS
- Mexico - prevention of adolescent pregnancy
- United Kingdom - child abuse prevention
- USA - prevention of substance abuse and violence
- South Africa and Colombia - positive socialization of children.
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