Under pressure? Combat stress with these (I stress tested these strategies already).
I woke up this morning around 3:33 AM.
How did I remember this?
Because for the past few weeks, it’s the same. That’s why I remembered it. The bad part is that I can’t sleep until like 6 AM, when I need to wake up. From 3 AM, I would ruminate in my mind the things that can happen or what I should have done differently to prevent it. My mind reeling 100 miles per hour, and it’s time to settle down, it’s already time to go.
Stress.
That’s what’s happening to me.
Why? Because I’m losing my job and I don’t have something in the line-up. I’m scared.
But then I figured out how to combat pressure.
It’s not perfect. But a start. I stressed tested it for myself (did you see what I did there?)
Perspective — I am only human…
When I look at the situation in a different light and angle, it’s different when I acknowledged that I am only human. It can happen to anybody.
How I looked my stresses is that in life, there are winning seasons and losing seasons, so buckle up my friend.
Today, I may be in a slump, but continue to push forward, I will be out from the quicksand or mud.
So, here’s what I been doing lately in addition to applying for jobs and hitting my network:
I continue working on my email marketing and affiliate marketing business.
I write a lot of emails.
I write on Medium.
Study email marketing and affiliate marketing again in depth.
Move, hit the gym and shout…
This was a cliche to me before, to move when you are stress out. I dug deep on the science of this, and I was convinced why we need to move that feet and dance when we are under pressure.
Here’s what I found out.
When stress out, what happens is that your body and mind is hypervigilant. Just like our ancestors, when we encounter saber tooth tiger and is ready to attack, our blood pressure goes up, heart rate rises, and the whole shebang happens.
Chemically, there’s a rush of chemicals (testosterone), because we are ready to fight aggressively.
This is the reason we have to move: to use up that biochemicals in our blood.
I hit the gym, jog or walk (I don’t run yet). But moving uses up the “fight” chemicals in our body, so you don’t feel sluggish. When you are primed or pumped, and you just sit, it’s not a good feeling, so move.
A story of myself when I felt a slump in my life when I lost my job too several years ago (I work with start-up companies so there’s a huge possibility that these companies go belly up. But on the other hand, I was hoping sometimes these companies will be the next Facebook that I can cash up on IPO, but I digress).
When you are out of work, you don’t have a schedule. So every morning, instead of feeling sorry for myself, I would run in the morning and then do some incantations.
I shout or tell myself “Money flows through me easily and continuously. Wealth and abundance circulate through me in avalanche of abundance”.
I was incanting that money flows through me as I start up my business during that time.
This time, I’m still with a business, so I start incanting while I walk (I should run though).
Meditate
One of the best things that happened to me in terms of stress reduction was understanding that we are not our thoughts.
One of the teachers I was following told us that we should separate our thoughts from us.
What does that mean?
It means that you can watch your thoughts go by, just like a watcher watch a cloud. So, when I meditate, I watch myself thinking about these thoughts.
I started labeling the thoughts: worrying, wandering, worrying, etc.
The meditation that I described above is called diffuse. Which only means that I just watch my thoughts as it goes by, like watching the traffic of cars in front of you and labeling the cars. But you need to be aware that you are labeling the cars. Here’s the key word here: aware.
Another meditation that I do is focus meditation. I usually do this in the morning. In focus meditation, unlike diffuse, I focus my attention on something. In my case, I focus my attention on the sensation of my breathing. I focus on how the air flows through my nose, the ins and outs of my nose.
When meditating, it calms me down and put my mind not in overdrive.
Then after meditation, I “prime” myself for the day, and that’s next.
Prime yourself in the morning…and gratitude!
There’s a study that is widely accepted about priming. The study goes like this:
In a math test, if the paper asks participant to check a box to indicate their gender, female test takers have significantly lowered their score compared to a test that doesn’t indicate gender.
Why?
Because in or society, at least in the U.S., females are stereotypically outcast as not good in math.
The study has been replicated and time and time again, and it showed that the study was true.
Instead of your environment priming you, you deliberately prime yourself.
That’s what I do by recalling things that I am thankful for. There’s a good video by Tony Robbins in his seminars on the practice of priming. Search it online and follow it.
Game changer.
Debrief
The last one is to debrief yourself with somebody. This is equivalent to talking your problem to somebody, it could be your best friend, your spouse or husband.
Every weekend, write the things that worried you the past days and just look at it. This exercise is also useful in diffusing the tension on yourself.
