Where there is stress, there are worry lines

CALM & COMPOSED :  Learn how to turn your rage into a smile with help from Bharat & Shalan Savur.

Please don’t tag stress as ‘bad’. In reality, it’s a strong, positive force that made the still state of death come  alive. And life came into being. It’s a certain level of stress that keeps your heart beating. The secret is simply not to allow stress to become so burdensome that it turns into distress and then into disease.

How many times do you allow yourself to go through distress in one day: Do you get worked up if the vegetable vendor doesn’t show up? If the cabbie refuses to take you, do you shout at him, then mutter angrily while you look for another one? If somebody jumps the queue and stands in front of you, does your heart pound as you say angrily, “Hey!”

Consider this: If you get angry, will the other person definitely listen and do your bidding? Not necessarily. Your anger may not change the situation, but your anger can cause you distress.

You may argue,“But if I don’t yell…” Okay, now consider the alternative: If you don’t get angry, the other person may not listen to you, right? Your calmness may not change the situation, but your calmness definitely keeps you healthy.

Please understand why you react negatively. It is because your rigid ‘should’ is not met.

“This is how it should be. This is how a person should behave, should talk, should do.” In the previous sentence, substitute the ‘should’ with ‘may or may not’. “This is how it may or may not be, how a person may or may not behave, may or may not talk, may or may not do.” Feel the distress drain away. When the mind is flexible, you cannot get distressed.

The trick is to learn how to deal with life’s situations — with a light-hearted seriousness like a sportsman in a game, serious light-heartedness like an actor in a play or complete irreverence like the Laughing Buddha. Take your pick according to your personality.

One way to turn away from distress is to make every incident, every situation into an entertaining story. Something deep within, some hurt, sadness, distress, sense of rejection or being abandoned quietly heals when we narrate with interpretations, humour, hindsight. In sharing a story, the pain lessens, the perception widens, a smile breaks through the confusion and a potential disease is averted as the system experiences the ease of unburdening.

We must also understand that when we get angry, we activate our sympathetic autonomic nervous system which causes our heart to beat rapidly, arteries to constrict. In contrast, when we think with a calm mind, we activate our parasympathetic autonomic nervous system that calms the heart and expands our arteries.

To use this phenomenon to enhance health, psychologists have developed the ‘Freeze Frame’ technique. In the midst of anger or distress, stop and shift your attention, your thoughts to something you are grateful for. A grateful heart is literally a healthy heart.

Further, it has been found that a grateful smile re-sets the autonomic nervous system where it is less reactive to distress. A  face that glows with gratitude and happiness helps blood flow to the brain to stimulate happy neurotransmitters.
Indeed, some people are gifted with the rare ability to feel gratitude for life itself.

(The writers are authors of the book ‘Fitness for Life.)