The Mighty Bear Waits Patiently for His Fish

Posted on September 17, 2012 | 1 Comment

I’m a new dad.

So, obviously, I have no free time.

I’m also a dog owner, and I have a full time job, and I’m taking two graduate-level courses, and I commute 2 hours a day.

So, obviously, I’m losing my mind. But there’s still one more thing I have to do.

I’m a writer. I have to write.

When you lead a busy life, it can be very hard to find a few minutes here and there to follow your passion. Whether it’s writing, playing video games, scrapbooking, cooking, or any other hobby or professional pursuit, sometimes you are forced to make due with half an hour here or fifteen minutes there.

It can be incredibly frustrating.

I feel like I’m constantly chasing my next spare moment. Well, I used to feel that way. Now I feel much more relaxed about the whole thing, because I remembered about the bear.

The bear goes fishing. See him, there, in the shallow part of the river? The water rushes by him while the salmon jump and jump. What is he doing? He’s not chasing every fish that goes by. He waits until one is within range and then he GRABS it. Yum, fish.

I’ve chased a lot of fish. Usually it just leaves me exhausted, too tired to catch the ones that leap right at me. Daddy doesn’t get to eat, and now he’s a hungry bear.

I’m trying something new, though. I have too many things to take care of, I can’t be constantly looking for a quiet moment when I can get some writing done. The moment comes whether I’m looking for it or not. So I’m concentrating on the task at hand, and staying alert for opportunities.

And when the opportunity arrives, I GRAB it.

Are you busy? Let’s play one-up in the comments.

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Selfish Altruism – The Curse of Codependence

Posted on September 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

In one of my favorite books (David Chadwick’s Crooked Cucumber) the main character gets up early to clean the communal toilets at his school. Shunryu Suzuki wants to do good deeds, but he wants to make sure that his practice is pure, so he tries to hide his “nice” behavior from others.

In some situations, we can do good things and not tell anyone about them. That can help us make sure our actions are altruistic, and keep our practice pure.

But what about when we’re with other people? How can we know whether we’re doing good for the sake of goodness or if we’re doing good because we know they’ll notice?

Or what if we’re so caught up in meeting others’ expectations that we lose sight of our own intentions altogether?

What is codependence?

Codependence is a psychological condition that sometimes takes on the appearance of altruism. The codependent person will often put their own needs below the needs of others, and spend a lot of time and effort on others’ needs. Often this condition will be accompanied by denial, low self-esteem, compliant behavior, passive-agressive behavior, or controlling behavior.

Basically, the codependent person gets a feeling of fulfillment by acting altruistic. It’s akin to martyrdom, without the saintly aspect.

Altruism’s evil twin

Given that altruistic behavior and codependent behavior can look so similar, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. This is true whether you’re around a codependent or you are one (and I have certainly been both).

When I was busy but I told my friend I had time to talk, was I making that sacrifice for myself or for her? When I went out of my way to help someone else, did I do it because I knew it would look good or did I do it because I really wanted to do something nice, because I cared about that person?

In Crooked Cucumber, Suzuki ultimately realizes that it doesn’t matter whether or not people see him cleaning toilets… doing good is doing good.

But is it really that simple?

Why is altruism important?

Say you’re approached by a homeless person asking for spare change. I’ve been lied to by many homeless people, so I never give cash anymore. If I contribute to the cause, I do so via organizations that make sure the funds are used for their intended purpose.

So I don’t feel bad when a homeless person asks me for change and I refuse, because I’ve chosen to help in another way that I feel good about.

However, when I’m out with a group and an indigent solicits us for cash, I feel ungenerous when I refuse, especially if one of my friends contributes.

My behavior is the same either way, but the two situations feel different. I want my friends to think of me as a generous person. But if I did donate in person when there were other people around, I’d be acting based on selish motives, not altruistic ones.

Altrusim is important because it’s honest, while codependent behavior is a little less so.

How can you be sure that your practice is pure?

If you do good when you’re alone, don’t tell anyone about it. If you get no reward other than to feel good about what you did, you’re in the clear.

If you’re with others, I’d recommend getting in touch with your desert island identity. Codependence is a condition where own-mind and others’-mind get confused. Your perception of self gets mixed up with how you think other people feel about you. Being true to yourelf can provide some clarity.

Have you struggled with the distinction between altruism and codependence? Share your story in the comments.

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Your Desert Island Identity

Posted on September 3, 2012 | 2 Comments

We play more than one role in our lives.

I am a husband, a father, a brother, a friend. I have a research faculty position at a univeristy. I’m a writer. I’m a gamer. I’m different things to different people, and sometimes I feel like I need to act a certain way, depending who I’m with.

I used to spend my every waking hour playing one role after another. I was the caring friend, the supportive husband, the wise stranger, or the consummate professional. When I had a decision to make, I didn’t look into my heart for the answer – I consulted one of these roles, these advisers. Eventually, I stopped hearing from myself, even when I was alone.

For a long time I struggled to re-discover who I was, what I wanted, what I liked. Not everyone has this problem, but to those of us who do, it can be a confusing experience. We can get lost in our roles, and lose sight of ourselves.

We need a touchstone. We need a way to make sure our decisions are our own, that we’re not compromising our own beliefs to cater to the needs and expectations of others. We need to make sure that our actions reflect what’s in our minds, not what we think we ought to do.

It’s easy to get muddled when we’re constantly surrounded by people whose opinions we value. To find clarity, we need to travel.

Drop yourself on a desert island, all alone. Nobody is there to criticize or judge you. No-one is there to support you or encourage you. You’ve got nobody to impress. No-one will see our clothes or hear you speak or taste your cooking. It’s just you.

What are you like, on the island? Are you more brave? More pensive? Quieter, or louder? Are you lonely or content?

What do you really want for dinner, now that you can’t tell your significant other that you’re fine having “whatever”?

What’s your posture like, if nobody ever sees you slouch again?

Do you have patience for politics, when fish are the only creatures around to talk with? Do you still care as much about that hot-button issue when you don’t have anyone to convince?

Your desert island identity isn’t just a thought experiment. That person you imagine on the island is with you every day, behind all of the other roles you play. The next time you interact with someone, think about what your desert island identity would say to them. If it’s not too vulgar, maybe you should go ahead and say it. The odds are good that you’ll feel truer to yourself.

That’s what it all comes down to, isn’t it? Who are you?

Without all the people and objects in your life to define you, what’s left over?

I don’t think there’s a truly satisfactory answer to that question. In the end, we’re not on a desert island. Our lives are defined by the people we know, the things we do, the places we go.

But sometimes it’s good to let all that fall away, if only for a few minutes, and allow the least complicated version of our selves to be visible. It gives us a chance to get back in touch with the essential character of our lives.

How similar is your desert island identity to the roles you play every day? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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The Meterology of Mood

Posted on August 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

It was a grey day, inside and out. I was leaving my family to go on a business trip that would last all week. I was heading for a part of the country where I didn’t want to be, I was going to be staying in a hotel that wasn’t very nice, and I had to give a presentation that I didn’t want to give. Also, I forgot to eat breakfast. I wasn’t feeling very friendly.

The weather matched my mood. Low, dark clouds covered the sky in an unbroken blanket of grey, not leaving a single gap for the sun to shine through.

I waited in line for my boarding pass, and again for security, and then again to board the plane. I gazed out the window and sighed as we taxied and took off. In a few minutes, the plane was swallowed by clounds. Shadow everywhere… And then, suddenly, sunshine. Above the clouds, the sun was blazing merily and the clouds were fluffs of white. I was so startled, I stopped feeling gloomy.

It’s funny, how moods work. When you’re happy, you don’t worry about how you might feel tomorrow or next week. When you’re sad, it feels like you’ll always be sad.

Weather works the same way. When it’s sunny, you don’t think about the clouds on the other side of the globe, and when it’s cloudy where you are, it’s cloudy everywhere.

Of course, when it’s cloudy we know the sun will come out again in due course. “I hope the sun comes out tomorrow,” we say, “because I’ve had about enough of the rain.” We learn at an early age that weather comes and goes, and that if we wait long enough, we’ll see something different.

Moods come and go just like the weather, don’t they? Why, then, can emotions seem so much more permanent when we’re experiencing them?

I think it’s because the weather is outside of us, separate from us, while our moods are part of us. Our moods are simply angles of perception. We can observe ourselves feeling angry, for example, but it’s difficult to separate that emotion from our experience of it. It’s difficult to approach it objectively, the way you’d observe a bolt of lightning or hear a clap of thunder.

In the end, moods and weather work the same way. They both operate on principles of cause and effect, they’re often somewhat predictable, they both have signs of impending change and, of course, they are both temporary.

Is it possible to think about mood as objectively as we think about weather? The next time you feel irritable, can you allow it to be a temporary cloud moving across the landscape of your mind? The next time you’re feeling sunny, can you take a few extra moments to bask in its warmth, knowing that it won’t last forever?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Why You Should Ignore Your Competition

Posted on August 20, 2012 | 4 Comments

Bobby McFerrin is a musician; a vocalist. But Bobby is different from any musician you’ve ever heard before. He can’t be defined by traditional styles, and he uses a lot of techniques that you simply don’t see anyone else using. He is a master of improvisation, and provides audiences with mind-blowing performances. If you ever get a chance to see him on stage, please do – you won’t be sorry.

Is he talented? Yes. Has he spent hundreds of hours practicing? Yes. But there is something else that makes Bobby McFerrin special – something totally unrelated to his skill. It’s rumored that he avoided hearing any music for 5 years, in order to forget everything he had learned about the craft and develop his own style. And boy, did he ever.

Bobby McFerrin developed into a completely unique performer and attracted widespread renown and recognition. How can you do the same with your craft?

Competition is everywhere. Whether you’re an artist or a salesperson, a business owner or an academic, your field is filled with peers who are doing basically the same things you are doing, and everyone is trying to get ahead.

I remember back when I first dreamed of being a writer. When I was alone, I’d feel excited about writing and I’d brainstorm novel ideas for hours. Then I’d stop by the library to get some reading material and I’d stare at the shelves with dismay. There were so many books! I’d think to myself that with so much competition, I didn’t have a chance. Why would anyone read my books when there were so many others available? Why would anyone read my work when I wasn’t nearly as good a writer as many of those whose books packed the library shelves?

A tricky thing happens when we start to think that way. We get stuck in a competition frame of mind. We get stuck thinking in terms of better than /worse than. I remember reading a book by Annie Proulx and feeling terribly depressed afterward. There is no way I could ever write with the pure poetry and essential elegance of which Proulx is capable. Maybe you’ve felt the same way when you see the work of the masters in your field, or see how many other people you’re up against.

If you’re constantly ranking yourself on the spectrum of worst to best, chances are you’ll never be the best at something. Some of you will – and the more obscure your niche (the smaller your field), the better your chances of being the best. But most of us will never be the best writer or the best photographer or the best cook. There is simply too much competition.

Some of you might not care about being the best. Others might wonder what’s the point in trying if there are so many people out there with so much talent? If your craft is inherently fulfilling to you, that’s grand. But what if you want more? What if you want to be noticed? How can you make an impression?

In reality, you don’t have to be the best. You don’t even have to be great.

What you need is a voice.

Every one of us is different. Talk to fifty different artists about a painting, and every single one will have a different perspective. Ask fifty farmers to write a poem about corn and you’ll get fifty very different poems, expressing the interpretations of fifty very different people.

You have a voice, and so does your craft. If you own a business, everything your customers see in your store is your voice. Every interaction they have with your employees, every advertisement you display, and every decision you make – every element of your craft is part of your voice.

If you’re a photographer, the way you see light is part of your voice, along with the proportions that catch your eye and the meaning you find in your subjects. An office worker’s voice might include the way he never uses the florescent lights in his office, and how he can explain technical problems to laypeople without confusing anyone.

No matter what you do, your voice is the one thing you have that nobody else can compete with, because every voice is completely unique.

But.

Many of us spend our time trying to imitate those we admire, or those we view as rivals in our field. Personally, I’d give a limb to be able to write like Stephen King, but that’s not going to happen. All I have is my own talent, my own brain, my own resources, my own experiences. All I have is my pen and my paper and my will to create.

We can spend our time trying to imitate, or we can spend our time trying to innovate. 

When you free yourself from the pressure of competing with those in your field, you open new possibilities for yourself. When you’re not worried about whether your work is as good as somebody else’s, you can allow your creativity to flourish. You don’t have to follow the same course as your competitors. You can run your own race.

Bobby McFerrin is talented, yes. But instead of being a very talented member of a traditional choral group, he ignored his competition and pursued his own voice. He nurtured his unique abilities instead of trying to follow the same path everyone else was on, and he created something that millions of people find compelling. 

Have you ever found yourself imitating instead of innovating? Share your story in the comments. 

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Your Brain, the Unreliable Narrator

Posted on August 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

The beliefs people hold don’t always match up with reality. You’ve talked to these people. They belong to another political party or religion. They misinterpret your child’s brilliance as insuboordination. They tell stories that are misremembered at best and pathologically false at worst. They are the receptionist at your dentist’s office. They are your neighbors. They are members of your family. They are me. They are you.

They are some of us more than others, but we all have beliefs we hold true whether they are reflected by reality or they aren’t. It’s a sticky wicket of human understanding: How can we find truth when our brains cling to inaccuracies? How can we be certain of anything when we are so prone to believing fully that which is not fully true?

I’m cursed with the very human tendency to think I’m right most of the time. I’ve had impassioned arguments with loved ones and gotten angry at their ignorance and unreasonableness… only to realize days later that they weren’t wrong after all, and that some of the things they said about me were true. I admit, with regret, that I have had to have the same realizations many times about the same truths before I began to accept them as part of my self-concept.

Why? People are invested in their own ideas. Our ideas, our concepts, and our understandings are not simply whims of mind. Our thoughts are expressions of self, so when people disagree with us they’re not just holding opinions different than ours – they’re threatening who we are… or who we believe ourselves to be. And our beliefs can be incredibly powerful.

I used to work at a children’s hospital, in the adolescent medicine wing, and I frequently saw patients admitted for seizure activity. Sometimes the seizures were due to epilepsy or some other neurological abnormality. Surprisingly often, however, children were having seizures without any medical reason. There was a very good psychological reason, though. In medical terms, they were experiencing a psychosomatic event. In layman’s terms, they were faking.

…Except they weren’t faking, not really. These patients truly believed they were having seizures. They couldn’t have prevented the seizures from happening or interrupted them while they were in progress. The seizures were simply caused by something other than a neurological issue. They were probably caused by emotional stress or trauma. Some part of their minds were convinced that seizures were the most reasonable action to take, and so they had seizures.

Belief can make children shake uncontrollably. It can transform a normally mild-mannered neighbor into a font of extremist political ideology. It can start wars, and it can stop them.

Your beliefs and mine might not be so extreme, but we still affect others with our ideas, so we are responsible for being as accurate as possible. We are obliged to seek the truth. But how can we do so, with our imperfect minds?

There is a concept in literature called the unreliable narrator. Usually stories are narrated by someone reliable, who reports the events of the plot and the emotions and actions of the characters accurately and objectively. Sometimes, however, the narrator is not reliable, and then it’s up to you as the reader to determine what is actually happening, what characters are actually thinking, and – this is key – why the narrator is lying to you.

Our brains work in much the same way. A lot of the time, they’re bang on the money. If your brain reports seeing a blue car, you probably really saw a blue car. If your brain reports feeling hungry, you’re probably really feeling hungry.

But maybe you’re not really hungry. Maybe you’re just seeking comfort, and your brain is being an unreliable narrator. Or maybe you’re arguing with someone and your brain is (unreliably) telling you that the person your’re arguing with is an imbecile. Maybe you’ve listened to the politician you support and your brain is (unreliably) telling you that the politician is telling the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

To even begin searching for truth in this world, you must accept that your brain can be an unreliable narrator. The story it tells you is not always the truth.

Accepting this is not an easy task, primarily because the narrator and the interpreter are, in this case, the same person. The same brain. The same mind. How are you supposed to recognize your own inaccuracies when you’re the one who formed them in the first place? Its tricky, and it’s the crux of self-understanding.

For now, the best thing you can do is realize that your brain is not always right. Start to ask yourself if you actually know things or if you just think you know (or if they’re even knowable). Begin to question your own thoughts the same way you question others’. Allow for uncertainty in your understanding of yourself and the world.

Do you trust your mind implicitly, or do you question everything? Share your story in the comments. 

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Fail-Proof Personal Development

Posted on August 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

We’ve all been there: You had plans to start exercising. Maybe you wanted to start running, so you bought running shoes and looked up some running tips for beginners. You thought about where you were going to run and you downloaded a mileage-tracking app. You developed a training plan, and daydreamed about how you’d get up early and run every morning, and eventually you’d run a marathon or something spectacular like that.

And then you went for a run. Once.

The next day, you were sore or tired or you had some other stuff to do, and you dropped the running habit before it had even begun. And there you were, back where you started, out of shape and feeling like a failure to boot.

Whether it’s a plan for exercise, dieting, learning a new skill, or any other self-improvement project, it’s much, much easier to fail than it is to succeed. How can you end the cycle of initiative and failure, and stick with a plan long enough to make a difference?

The root of the issue is an inability to embrace failure. Learning to love failure takes a long time, but it’s possible to circumvent the self-defeating reaction to failure that prevents you from sticking with the projects you plan. To be clear: Failure isn’t always a bad thing, but when the smallest failure completely derails your plans, that’s a problem you need to address. If one day of weakness or faltering resolve prevents you from reaching your goals (or even getting started), you need a different way of thinking.

I have quit countless projects in my life. Usually I have given up after only a few days, as soon as I realized that the project would be harder than I originally thought. I’ve abandoned one plan after another, from small self-improvement schemes to educational degrees and career paths.

I had two habits that consistently led to quitting projects or abandoning plans. The first was black-and-white thinking, and the second was biting off more than I could chew.

Thinking about things in black and white means there are no shades of grey. You’re either failing or succeeding, fat or thin, happy or sad. Things are good or they’re bad. Thinking in terms of true or false (with no middle ground) is problematic, because the world simply doesn’t work that way. Sure, a lot of things can be categorized into “opposite” categories, but there are almost always variants. Nearly everything happens on a spectrum. When you’re feeling like a failure, there are a lot of emotions in the mix. You’re more complicated than that. You might be hopeful, and frightened, and eager, and self-conscious, and discouraged, all at the same time… and those emotions don’t add up to failure, even if that’s what it feels like in the moment.

I never used to consider all of the complicated emotions I might be experiencing at the moment I “failed” at a plan for self-improvement. When I missed a run, I dumped myself into the “failure” category, and that was that. I didn’t give myself room to experience other emotions. I didn’t allow myself to be complex. I was thinking in black and white.

The other habit is biting off more than you can chew. I have tried to start a running routine at least 15 times, and I have never managed to stick with it more than a few days (until about a year ago). Why? I’m built like a runner, I’m relatively fit, I have enough time… I have a lot of advantages as a potential runner, but I still couldn’t get into the habit. Why could I never manage to go for more than a couple of runs before giving up completely?

Here is what I would do: I’d come up with the idea to start running. I’d plan to start the coming Monday, before work. I’d buy running shoes, and shorts, and a shirt, and a watch with a timer. I’d do research on injury prevention. And then (this is the kicker) I’d daydream about maybe eventually running a marathon, or beating my high school mile time, or just running every day for the rest of my life, even in the snow, even on vacation. I’d build up the idea of myself as a runner until there was no way I could live up to the daydream. I wasn’t just a guy going out for a run – I was a potential winner of the Boston Marathon. When a potential marathoner can’t even run three days in a row, what does that make him?

Some people have the drive and resiliency to push through failure again and again until they find success. Some people can overcome black-or-white thinking and can set lofty goals for themselves without risking discouragement. Others have to chip away at it, and find their way around the mental and physical roadblocks they set for themselves. If you’re one of the latter (like I am), how can you bypass failure and find your own way to success?

There is a way for people like us to succeed at self-improvement. You have to prevent failure from occurring in the first place. You have to ensure success by setting fail-proof goals (or better yet, not setting goals at all – just getting started, without a plan).

When you resolve to start running for exercise, don’t plan any further than that. Don’t buy equipment, don’t think about how far you’ll go or how long you’ll run. Don’t guess at how much progress you might make in a week or a month or a year. Just go for a run.

Grab the shoes you wear to mow the lawn. Find an old t-shirt – doesn’t matter if it has wicking properties or it fits just right. Wear sweatpants and tube socks. It doesn’t matter. Just go for a run.

It doesn’t matter how far you go today. Up the block and back? Fine. You have to stop and walk because you’re out of breath? Fine. Don’t worry about it. Don’t think about it. Concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. Just go for a run.

If you’re dieting, just eat half of that cupcake. If you’re learning a language, just watch a video on YouTube in that language. If you’re building something, just gather the tools. If you’re trying to be nicer, just smile at yourself once in the mirror. Do something, anything – just keep it small enough that you can’t fail. Push yourself a little bit every day, but keep it small enough that failure is impossible. If that means all you do is think about your plan, then that’s all you do today. Then you pat yourself on the back for being successful. Tomorrow, you’ll do it again.

Now, you might be wondering how much progress you’ll make if all you do is jog once around the block. Not much… today. Not much tomorrow, either. But after 30 days maybe you’ll jog twice around the block, and in a year you’ll be running a few miles. It will probably happen even more quickly, if you can stick with it – if you don’t defeat yourself with old ways of thinking. You’ll keep making progress day after day after day. By bypassing the self-defeating mindset you’ve always had, you accomplish more than you every could before.

What are your goals? Have you experienced the cycle of lofty aspirations and perpetual failure? Did you find a way around it? Share your story in the comments.

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Feeling Anxious? Attain Zen Calm in Under Two Minutes.

Posted on July 31, 2012 | 2 Comments

Your heart is racing, your palms are sweaty, and you can’t stop worrying. Maybe you’re about to give a presentation to the manager who will decide whether or not you’re going to get a promotion. Maybe you’re about to kiss someone for the first time. Maybe you’re about to take a test that’s worth 50% of your grade. Maybe you’re just exhausted but you can’t sleep because your brain is going a mile a minute, thinking of all the things you have to do tomorrow.

You need to relax, focus, and clear your mind of all its jumbled thoughts. What can you do to calm down?

There are so many things in this world that can cause anxiety. Whether it’s an imminent performance, fretting about the past, or fears of future events, we all have times in our lives when we could benefit by relaxing and focusing on the present moment.

The body and brain don’t always operate on pure reason. The body reacts to perceived stressors by going into fight-or-flight mode, which fires up the sympathetic nervous system. You might start sweating, and your hands might feel cold. You might shiver uncontrollably, or have trouble forming words. You might simply have trouble concentrating or falling asleep. If you’re about to take a test, give a speech, perform an important function, or just keep on with your day, your body starts to stress. Your brain is filled with the myriad forms that failure might take.

The problem stems from the distant past, when fight-or-flight was literally a matter of life or death. If you were an early hunter/gatherer and you spent your days tromping around the woods looking for food, it paid to be vigilant. It paid to be anxious, because your life was constantly in jeopardy. You might stumble across a bear who woke up on the wrong side of the raspberry patch. You might be surprised by a wild boar with tusks like knives and an attitude to match. You might be caught unaware by a rival tribe and have to defend yourself from flying rocks or swinging clubs at a moment’s notice.

In those days, fight-or-flight made a lot of sense. If something scary happened, your blood was boosted with adrenaline. Your senses were sharpened. Your heart beat faster, and your body moved blood from the internal organs to the larger muscles in the body, preparing you to kick that bear in the face, or sidestep the charging warthog, or run screaming from the attacking horde. Fight-or-flight is a very powerful state to be in, but it also consumes fuel incredibly quickly. That’s why, after a frightening event, you feel weak and shaky. Your body just burned through a massive amount of fuel, and now you’re at even greater risk from the terrors of the world.

Fight-or-flight might be well and good in the distant past, but society has evolved quite a bit since then. We’re rarely surpised by wild animals these days. With rare exceptions, nobody gets attacked on the way to work. I don’t remember the last time I got in a fight or had to run for my life.

That’s not to say the sympathetic nervous system is no longer useful – We still use it when someone has an accident or when we catch a vase before it hits the floor. But it doesn’t make sense to enter fight-or-flight mode when we’re about to speak in a meeting or when we’re trying to go to sleep at night. There is no real danger in these situations, but our nervous systems haven’t adapted to modern life yet. They’re still jumpy. They still think a bear might appear unexpectedly.

How should we counteract this deep-seated biological response? Simply trying not to be nervous doesn’t work, because we keep thinking about how nervous we are and that just makes things worse. Telling ourselves that everything will be fine is shallow comfort. Running away might still be an option, unless we want to lead functional lives which, if you’re reading this, you probably do.

The most effective method I’ve found to counteract my fight-or-flight response is following the breath, with a couple of tweaks. In Zen tradition, following the breath is the most basic instruction for meditation. Just sit, and follow the breath to enlightenment. Well, enlightenment might take a few years, but the calmness of Zen meditation can be attained in under two minutes with the following exercise:

  1. Close your eyes.
  2. Breathe in through your nose, slowly and deeply.
  3. Breathe out through your nose. As you do, count “one” silently and visualize the number 1 on the inside of your eyelids. Keep breathing out until you can see the number clearly.
  4. Breathe in again, slowly and deeply. Let your body relax.
  5. Breathe out again. This time, count “two” and visualize the number 2.
  6. Keep breathing and visualizing the numbers, all the way up to 10.
  7. At the end of the “ten” breath, open your eyes slowly.

How do you feel? If you’ve really focused, you should feel very calm. The world seems to be flowing around you while you remain still.

This excercise is particularly useful because it’s very quick – it should take under two minutes to count all the way from one to ten – and it can be done anytime, anywhere. It works in five ways:

  1. It distracts you from the anxiety-causing stimulus. When you’re not focused on your worries, your mind allows itself to relax. If you’re not thinking about something stressful, there’s no need to be stressed.
  2. It slows your heart rate and increases the oxygen in your blood. There are entire health disciplines built around breathing, like Pranayama yoga and Zen meditation. Fight-or-flight quickens the breath, while breathing deeply and slowly reduces stress automatically.
  3. It relaxes your body. Stress-tight muscles are prepared to fight or flee. Centering yourself allows these muscles to return to their relaxed state.
  4. It focuses the mind. Visualizing complex shapes like numbers requires concentration, and while you’re concentrating on forming numbers, you’re not concentrating on your fears and concerns.
  5. It provides feedback on your state of mind. When I’m very stressed, the numbers I visualize are jumpy and sharp. When I’m more relaxed, they’re softer, more curved, and easier to form.

I’ve used this exercise to prepare for presentations, to clear my mind before I go to sleep, to relax when I feel anxious, or any time I want to clear my mind and focus on the task at hand. It’s quick, simple, and effective.

What do you do to relax when you’re face-to-face with anxiety? Share your tips in the comments below.

 

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