Tag Archives: Stress

Stress isn’t something that happens to us

Stress is often talked about as if it’s something that happens to us, like the weather. But a more accurate description is that stress is our reaction to the events around us. Realizing this is the first step in addressing it.

Stressful events occur all through our lives, no matter where we live or what we do.

It’s the individual’s responsibility to learn how to respond in a healthy way to these events. And as parents, teachers and mentors, we need to teach these skills to those around us.

An article earlier this month in the Wall Street Journal surveys a variety of companies and their strategies for helping workers manage or alleviate stress. Mindfulness-based stress reduction, meditation rooms, cognitive training, and plant-filled spaces are strategies that work.

 

What could be more important than learning how to enjoy life— no matter what stressful events come out way — and passing this knowledge on to others? Kudos to companies that realize this is perfectly aligned with their mission.

Give up the “need to know” …making Chuseok and other holidays enjoyable again

Sharing about your life is giving a gift you. Making a healthy connection between your life and someone else’s takes finesse.

When you are interacting with others, be sensitive to the difference between expressing interest in someone’s life and demanding to know every detail. Done carelessly, our questions can make the other person feel like they are being interrogated for a crime. This is known as simply, “Questioning”.

Here’s an insightful story about how a family holiday time has become stressful, due to prying questions and judgment.

Let’s remember that holidays and family gatherings are first and foremost meant to strengthen and help us. When the adults give up the need to know, and instead focus on improving relationships, get-togethers can again be enjoyable!

Chuseok holiday stress (29-September-2012)

Ch19 Meditation: A Powerful Change Agent

Sitting down alone for a few minutes is the last thing we think to do, and the easiest, most powerful thing we can do.

For the first forty years of my life, I never really argued. But, in a post-divorce relationship, I found myself in intense arguments, every week or so. We argued about everything and nothing: economics, politics, rainbows, and relationships. Most times when the arguing subsided, I didn’t know what happened. It was like when you get tossed upside down by a wave. You’re struggling and swimming for air, but don’t know which way is up. When you make it up for air, that world of tumult is a scary dream, that has no relationship to your normal reality as you bob along the surface and breathe.

He suggested, maybe we should try meditation.

“What?! Are you saying that an hour forced saying nothing would be better than being together naturally?”

“Yeah, maybe,” he replied.

For once, I couldn’t argue. (I tried.)

I picked up guided meditation courses from Pema Chodron that advised to watch your thoughts with an amused chuckle, but not attach to them. I loved listening to her and got a taste of the power of meditation. I was curious but I didn’t stick with it long enough to jar me out of my well-worn ways.

I tried a Zen meditation class, but it wasn’t for me. If my thoughts were a sometimes a problem, they definitely were when I was trying to sit motionless for 20 minutes with a slightly itchy nose. When a monk pulled me out of the class to correct my posture, so I could sit longer, again, my thoughts definitely didn’t quiet down or become more compassionate.

A few months later I saw a sign for a Sahaja Yoga Meditation Class at my local YMCA. I like yoga! And if it’s yoga-meditation, maybe I can handle that. So, I put on my yoga pants and showed up.

Just for clarification, Yoga in the title of that class reflected the meaning: yoga = connection to the divine.  So, to my surprise, I found myself sitting in a 90-minute meditation class. The class itself was a combination of discussion, guided meditation, silent meditation, and/or meditating to music.

Sitting there doing nothing, things changed. Getting dinged with nuggets like “Thinking is limited” and “thoughtless awareness”, I was changed. From the first week, I knew I had experienced a subtle, but definite shift in my world.

I wasn’t sure what all was happening to me. Primarily, I just liked it. I felt good during and after class. My research-based mind could not deny that on the days I meditated, my behavior was better. That is, at the end of the day, I just had fewer things to beat myself up about.

Meditation is simply taking a break from the arguing in your head, and realizing there’s nothing to argue about anyway.

Slow-mo

When I started meditating, I started watching my thoughts. For the first time ever, I had a way to get out of the argument with myself. I was able to step back and be the audience, chuckling at the antics as you would observe toddlers bickering over a toy.

By that time, I wasn’t dating the original reason I got into the class, but he and I remained friends. I noticed in the relationship with him, my family members and at work, things changed.

If I was at peace, really solidly grounded, before meeting with someone, I wouldn’t slip into arguments. Instead of immediately reacting to something I heard, with an onslaught of thinking, accusations, and analysis, I could stop. I would set thinking aside for a bit and start with the truth of the situation. That is, you and I are more alike than different. We are connected and I admire you. The words you are saying don’t define our relationship.

Family relationships are the hardest to evolve, because like magnets, we keep snapping back into the original pattern. And so it was with me and several family members. I could head out with the best intentions, but within a few minutes of contact, I’d be complaining, gossiping and talking about people who I had no business talking about. I’d leave and feel terrible.

Once, I was on my way out the door. I had my purse over my shoulder and keys in hand. But I’d felt scattered and uneasy and didn’t want to meet anyone in that condition.

So, I ran back in and plopped down on the floor and set down my keys. Sitting there, I did my grounding meditation. Two hands on the floor, letting the earth (or floor of my third-floor apartment) accept all the negativity. I did a kundalini raising motion. I said affirmations, moving my hand to different locations as I’d been taught. I ended with a protective shielding ritual, moving my hand like a rainbow from side, over the top, down to the other side.

I felt better. I walked out the door and had an easy meeting. Things were said, but my slow-mo response would kick in. I’d hear the words, but I wouldn’t accept them as truth. And I would watch the fury going off in my head too, but I wouldn’t accept that as truth either. Instead, I felt the simple, unarguable deeper truth of love.

I developed a new response. I would sit silently, smiling. It sounds innocent enough, but it’s actually pretty awkward. If you’ve been a partner in gossip and complaining for decades, to simply leave your cohort hanging without reinforcement is noticeable. They are definitely going to think you didn’t hear, and after they repeat it and get the same response, they are going to think you are rude and probably mentally slow.

The other person is going to feel a bit awkward, but it is indeed the best option. This magical combination of slow-mo, silence and smile let me float about the murky knee-jerk habits that had been ingrained forever.

By trial-and-error, I did the research. I learned that making sure I was totally grounded and at peace before I encountered someone was the key to a successful interaction. Then I could grab that split-second of pause, that allowed me to walk a new, wonderful path in my relationships.

Aha, is that what the smile on the seated Buddha statues is all about? Serenity.

Peaceful, Powerful

When I read a fitness book once, they said, do whatever combination you want, but if you just want immediate results, go running!

Meditation has a similarly powerful effect. You can do all kinds of things, but if you just want to cut to the chase, meditate. Or, as my Buddhist friend says they say jokingly, “Sit Down and Shut Up!”

Meditation changed my life for the better, in a profound way. Simply sitting down with the many sides of yourself and making peace, is a surprisingly powerful act.

When you do this, though, you’ll also feel like you are a bit lost and could use a mentor. That’s where audio books, online podcasts or in-person classes come in. Search and keep trying various types. Little by little, you’ll learn more and find one or more that you like.

What is so scary about sitting down doing absolutely nothing for five minutes? Nothing. Try it!

Meditation Research

Since my childhood, much of the advice about health has evolved. While there are many differences of opinion, most converge with some basic advice: Get regular exercise. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. Limit processed foods.

Many now espouse that meditation, or mindfulness, should be a basic part of the recipe for good health. And that within a decade, it will be a commonly accepted fact.

A cursory search shows dozens of applications of meditation for improved health. Meditation has been shown in some cases to improve irritable bowel syndrome, lung cancer, acute respiratory infections, sleep disorders and stress in teenagers.

Are you struggling with an addiction or a chronic health condition? Meditation could help! Certainly, it is less expensive and has no side effects, thus making it an attractive alternative to prescriptions or surgery. If you’ve tried everything else, or aren’t sure what to do next, try meditation.

Eastern philosophy often considers a physical illness to be a manifestation of an emotional or spiritual inner conflict that has festered. Meditation is a way to address these conflicts, thus limiting or healing the physical damage. Skeptical? No problem. You don’t have to believe anything about a mind-body-spirit connection. Just act as a scientist. Try meditating and see how you feel.

“Silence is the

language of God.

All else is

poor translation.”

- Rumi

 


 

Exercises

  • First, meditate for a few minutes so you will get over any fear or mystery. Sit down for five minutes with no agenda. Set a timer. Don’t get up until the time is up. Sit eyes open, eyes closed, think whatever thoughts you want. Just let five minutes pass. “Nowhere to go. Nothing to do.” Okay. Good!
  • Next, start learning about meditation by doing it. This week, go to the library and check out an audio or go online and find a guided meditation. There are many free resources. Look for a guided meditation specifically for beginner’s. I like authors: Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jack Kornfield, Pema Chodron, and the online course of freemeditation.org from Sahaja Meditation but there are dozens to choose from!
  • Okay, so now you know that there are many styles of meditation, just as you’d find variety in yoga or other exercise classes! It’s time to go sit with others. Search for a meditation group in your area. Try meetup.com, Buddhist centers, or yoga centers. You might find a Zen Buddhist Center, a Transcendental Meditation class or a meditative yoga class. Many religions have a meditative practice. You just may have to search a bit to find them. Sitting around with people doing absolutely nothing is a bit wacky to our Western mind. But, it’s a quick way to balance yourself, feel better and simply live better. You owe it to yourself to try it!
  • Anytime you’re feeling ‘off’, take a few minutes to become still. Don’t call it meditation if that sounds too serious! Just take a break from what you’re in the middle of. Allow yourself to relax and get centered before you interact with someone or return to your work.
  • Meditate for improved health. Is there a physical condition or addiction you are battling? Research online to find out if there is a link between meditation and solving that condition. If so, read about it and allow yourself the option that meditation could help you overcome or lessen that issue in your life.
  • As with all changes, use your state of inner peace to guide you. Get still and see how you honestly feel. Do you like the meditation class? Do you feel comfortable? Do you feel better? Do you admire the teachers? Do they ‘have something you want’, as in, do they practice something you want to learn?

 

Meditation is simply taking a break from the arguing in your head, and realizing there’s nothing to argue about anyway.

It clears the way for an easy connection with pure creativity and divine energy.

Ch12 Meet Your Parasympathetic System

If you’re stressed out, your parasympathetic system is out of shape.

 

Most of Western physical education is directed to our sympathetic nervous system: the fight-or-flight abilities. If you can run fast and jump high, you’re great at sports and thus, you appear healthy. Being able to go, go, go is due to the abilities of your Sympathetic Nervous System. When you’re running down the basketball court, digestion, defecation, urination, sexual arousal and sleep are (hopefully) not the body’s top priority.

 

But there are two parts to your Autonomic Nervous System. The complement to the sympathetic nervous system is the Parasympathetic Nervous System. If you’re like me, you might think, I remember something about that from biology class, but had no clue how it related to my quality of life.

 

The parasympathetic system is responsible for the part of your body that stimulates the rest-and-digest activities in your body.

 

And like the yin and yang of any situation, it’s great to be able to go, go, go, but we also need to be able to stop.  A healthy body goes back to a low resting heart rate, and works on those important tasks of maintaining and recharging our bodies.

 

If you are having problems with digestion, gas, sleeping, sexual arousal, defecation or urination, the problem is some aspect of the parasympathetic system. You’ve got a flabby, out-of-shape parasympathetic system.

 

Not knowing how to calm your mind and body down so you can sleep or digest will manifest health problems, similar to how a lack of physical exercise manifests the inability to move with agility or speed.

 

My parent’s generation didn’t talk about working on their triceps, lats or abductors. But we do. And we learned the specific exercises to strengthen and tone our bodies. Weightlifting, stretching, running, dancing or playing sports are all options we know and use.

 

It’s worth learning a similar regimen of exercises to ensure that the other half: the parasympathetic system is cared for. Breathing exercises, guided meditation, tai chi or dozens of other approaches can be used.

 

If we as a society knew how to maintain our parasympathetic systems, could we eliminate or reduce ‘stress-related disease’? That would be huge, right?

 

Enjoying life to the fullest happens when we are in balance. Knowing how to maintain our bodies sympathetic and parasympathetic systems are foundational techniques. Let’s learn these, teach our kids and practice them. We’re worth it!

 

Peace in Every Bite

When I was in Korea once, I stayed overnight at Buddhist Temple. There we got a glimpse of the monastic life, living by their rules for a day.

 

In order to eat with the monks, we were first trained on the detailed mealtime ritual. We unwrapped our chopsticks, placed bowls carefully, were served, ate and cleaned up in a prescribed, quiet manner.

 

By not talking during the mealtime, our sense of appreciation for the meal itself was heightened. I noticed the texture of the handmade bowl, the way our rice was scooped onto our plates, the small piece of radish I used to clean my bowl when I was done. We were also instructed to eat every morsel we took, so we were careful to not take more than we were actually hungry for.

 

With all the talking gone, the meal itself became a wonderfully soothing way to recharge body and spirit.

 

Rest and digest

Knowing that the parasympathetic system has two big jobs of resting and digesting, it makes sense to figure out how to improve the quality of these two functions.

  • Just as you would think about and take proactive steps to help the rest and digestion for a small child, take the same steps for yourself.
  • Make mealtimes a nurturing, soothing time.
  • If you have to discuss something contentious, choose a time other than mealtimes to hash it out.
  • Consider the surroundings. Arrange chairs, table and the setting to have a refreshing view.
  • Choose healthy, colorful, beautiful food to make mealtimes a healing time.
  • At night, notice the stream of thoughts. If you’ve forgotten to do something or are procrastinating about something, write it down and make a plan for tomorrow.
  • If your mind is racing, develop a practice to calm down. Sit on the floor for 5-10 minutes before bedtime, or distract the worrying mind with a quick gratitude list.
  • If your body is fidgety, develop a new nighttime ritual. Try a few things and see what works: Take a walk an hour or two before bed. Eliminate caffeine late in the day. Do some stretching or listen to some sweet music.
  • If you’re having serious symptoms with your resting or digesting, begin research and commit to trying various solutions to improve your health.

 

 

Learn how to provide

peaceful states for your body so it can properly rest and digest.

 


 

Instant Relief

Throughout the day, notice your stress level. When it peaks, try a quick calming technique:

  • Gaze at the sky, a natural scene, puppies or babies.
  • Laugh!
  • Make a gratitude list.
  • Step away from your work. Stretch.
  • Share an encouraging message with a friend. (text, social media, letter)
  • Take care of a niggling detail of life, instead of putting it off one more day.

 

Calming your mind supports the parasympathetic system  functions. Learning how to manage stress will improve your behavior and inner peace, as well as your physical condition.


Exercises

  • Does your fitness routine include any training for calming your parasympathetic system? Do you already have some techniques you use: deep breathing, massage, walking, meditation or prayer to calm your body down?
  • Do you have any troubles with falling asleep at night? Does your mind race or your body twitch? Do you have techniques for calming down so you can sleep well?
  • How is your digestion? Do you have indigestion or feel bloated or uncomfortable? What are your mealtimes like? Are they a nurturing, soothing time or are they argumentative and rushed?
  • What are the physical symptoms you notice that remind you you’re getting stressed out, as you move through your day? What quick fix techniques work for you? Develop a list of five techniques and use them proactively when you detect a hint of stress. Change your top five techniques over time to keep it fresh and effective.
  • Change your fitness routine to include calming exercises, weekly or daily. Give them the same importance as your other fitness activities. Re-evaluate, revise and deepen every month.

 

 

 

 

Ch20 Live Lightly, Live Deeply

Flowers

In meditation class once, I remarked that I was perceived as too intense at work. People had told me that I made them nervous by running too fast, asking too many questions and being too demanding.

“I guess I should drink a little less coffee,” I joked.

“Yes,” my instructor replied, “and there are other things you can do to tone that down.”

 

Funny, but before he said that, I’d always thought it was just a personality thing and that was that. After that insight, I realized that when people perceive me as too intense, I can take that as constructive criticism and act to moderate that.

 

To live lightly is to be able to turn down our own intensity level so we can enjoy life and each other. “Live lightly” is a motto we can benefit from in all areas of our life. We can live lightly by:

  • Staying positive and trusting in a relationship, even if there is no communication for extended periods
  • Letting go of possessions that no longer serve you
  • Giving up beliefs that don’t feel true anymore
  • Being content whether you have a lot of money or a little
  • Letting go of a “this has to happen for me to be happy” belief
  • Judging less
  • Trying something new
  • Being able to laugh at yourself when you fail or fall
  • Giving up the need to know
  • Resisting the urge to ask every question that pops in your head
  • Resisting the urge to complain or boast
  • Worrying less about others
  • Being more patient and content waiting for others or for circumstances to change
  • Playing with kids on the floor or in the playground
  • Being able to enjoy a picnic in the park as much as a fancy dinner out
  • Walking instead of driving
  • Using less electricity, gas or water
  • Painting without a prior plan of what you’ll paint
  • Singing and dancing
  • Asking for help
  • Being amazed instead of outraged
  • Savoring a walk in the neighborhood or a hike in the woods
  • Camping
  • Not worrying about what other people will think of you
  • Seeing the funny side of any situation
  • Losing weight
  • Eating simple, delicious foods like a slice of watermelon
  • Wearing a completely different style of clothing
  • Improving your balance and flexibility
  • Doing a fitness activity that is fun (not merely functional): Capoeira, NIA, or skateboarding
  • Laughing more

 

By keeping it light, we don’t get distracted by the details of the current situation. Instead, we can stay deeply in love with other, with ourselves, and with life!

 

Exercises

  • Peruse the list above. Check off which you have done in the past month. How did you feel doing these activities? Does living lightly allow you a freedom to experience life more deeply?
  • Select three more living lightly activitie to try in the coming month.
  • If “Live Lightly” rings true for you, make a notecard or write it on a sticky note for your wallet, purse or mirror.

 

To live lightly is to stay deeply in love with each other, with ourselves and with life!

 

Stress-free

The first class I taught in Saudi had an activity that was a quiz, like the personality tests you take in a women’s magazine.

This one was a Stress Test. Students had to answer, then score their quiz to determine their stress levels. 

The questions were topics such as:

- Do you ever rush through dinner? 

- Do you take time to meet with friends often?

- Do you get 7-8 hours of sleep every night? 

- Do you have time to have enjoyable conversations with your family? 

- Do you worry about your future?

Not a single girl scored in the “Stressed Out” category. All my students scored well in the “Stress Free” category.

Had this test been given in Korea, it’s my bet that the results would have been reversed. 

Koreans justify their go-go mentality with the reasoning, “We have to study because we have to compete. We have no resources here, only people.”

Saudi Arabia does have a lot of resources, and they are definitely more relaxed. 

Luxury of wasting time

Today I turned 51. For those of us born in places like the US, Korea or Saudi Arabia, the life expectancy for a woman is about 80, so I’m thinking about 30 years would be typical.

But when I was in Ghana, I learned that the life expectancy is a good 20 years less. Ghana women average age: 60. Ethiopia: 53   (life expectancy by country)

Does having an extra 20 years to live make you careless with time, the same way we are with money?

Seeing Korean kids getting shuttled from academy to academy, pushed to excel at any cost, it makes me think that here, people are bogged down under the luxury of wasting time when measured on the grand scale. Koreans are so hard-working they are wasting their lives away at schools and offices, leaving little time for being loving family and friends. If 50 year olds thought they had only another 3 to 10 more years alive, would they still continue with this focus?

My birthday wish is that we all find ways to savor our time here. US, Korean and many cultures may not value the time spent developing loving relationships, so you’re probably gonna be bucking the trend.

And your time may be  20 years more or less than that of friends born in another country. One can never know. Until it’s too late.

Maybe this sounds like a depressing message, but I’m hoping for the opposite effect. I wake up and whoop with joy pretty much daily, with the realization that it looks like I probably got myself another day on the planet.

Like a lot of luxuries that seem great but quickly feel ridiculous and weighty, who really wants the luxury of wasting time?

Happy birthday to you …today and every day

Hollow win

Well, I won the song battle with my students. I learned Someday by IU, I’m the Best by 2NE1, and Love in the Milky Way by 10cm.

But, they didn’t have time to do it. The three of them, fifth and sixth graders, they were staying up until midnight to complete their ‘vacation homework’. After their rounds studying flute, piano. calligraphy, abacus, science, math and more, they were exhausted. During that week, for the first time ever, I saw these students struggling to keep their eyes open in class.

So, I didn’t have the heart to extract my payment of pizza from them, if they failed to learn the three songs they chose: Lemon Tree (done), You Are My Sunshine (done), Puff the Magic Dragon (fail).

Think it’s easy? Try singing along with this one: Someday by IU. (It’s the easiest of the three.)

It took me roughly 100-200 listens to get each song down, plus lots of writing down the pronunciation so I could do it. Then, it took multiple tries to get a song down, as I recorded my singing track on top of the original using the free audio program, Audacity.

Still a Beginner …Leaving Seven Months Later

This morning, I’m leaving my guesthouse room in Seoul for the Incheon Seoul International Airport.

It’s the end of a 7.5 month stay here, and I’m happy to be going home.

It would be hard to summarize myexperience. I feel like the more I know about Korea, the less I can conclude. I am fortunate to have made some very wonderful friends here.

I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to spend so many hours in the company of wonderful, funny, open, caring Koreans who were my students. What a cool way to learn about a culture …not from generalizations but building my concepts from opinions, experiences and words of students …one by one, hour by hour, day by day.

I think I underestimated how difficult it would be to learn the language. And I’m still puzzling over the distance I felt in many relationships here. So unlike the feelings of Ghana, West Africa or Latin America.

I think there are many ways to live. And I never want to judge one way as better than another.

But, the facts about the suicide rate having tripled in the past 20 years, and the stress that I saw in many of my students’ lives, leaves me wondering. Will things change for the better?

When I learned about the suicide rate, I tried to teach that topic in any class that it would fit. If we teach about seatbelts, I think people should know about the risks and ways to prevent suicide.

What is the best way to respect a culture you know little about? Where you know that your friends and theirs are more stressed out and more at risk for suicide than we are, that previous generations of Koreans weren’t either.

What can I do? Speak honestly, optimistically, openly and humbly about what little I know. And hope and pray for the best.

Suicide rate in Korea tripled in past 20 years

 

It was during my preparation for a hot topics class, that I came across this insightful article in the Washington Post, In Prosperous South Korea, a troubling increase in suicide rate (17 April 2010)  (pdf)

Korea feels stressful to me. And my students are always saying that it is.

But, reading this article brought it home to me and made it real. Too real.

The main findings stunned me:

  • Suicide is the leading cause of death among South Koreans in their 20s and 30s.
  • The suicide rate has doubled in the past decade and is now the highest in the industrialized world.
  • The suicide rate has tripled in the past two decades and is now 2.5 times that of the US.

And a bit of an excerpt to try to explain…

Before South Korea got rich, wired and worried, its suicide rate was among the lowest in the industrialized world. But modernity has spawned inordinate levels of stress. People here work more, sleep less and spend more money per capita on cram schools than residents of the 29 other industrialized countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Still, it remains a taboo here to admit to feeling overwhelmed by stress. The word “psychiatry” has such a negative connotation that many leading hospitals have created departments of “neuro-psychiatry,” in the hope that people perceive care as medical treatment and not as a public admission of character failure.

Women in Korea: prevent suicide, then fasten seatbelt

You wouldn’t go in a car without wearing a seatbelt? Well, if you’re a woman in South Korea, that’s great, but maybe you should be concerned about something else.

Women in South Korea are now more likely to die of suicide, than they are of auto accidents. Suicide is the third most likely cause of death for women.

The rates for men are also high, and rising rapidly. 

Why?  

Family conflict was the biggest factor behind suicides, followed by financial difficulties, divorce or separation, and disease, according to researchers at Samsung Seoul Hospital and Seoul National University (SNU) Hospital, Thursday.

Korea Times, 8 July 2010, One in Six Adults Considered Suicide