In Time of Crisis

” A time of crisis is not just a time of anxiety and worry.  It gives a chance, an opportunity, to choose well or to choose badly.”–Desmond Tutu

How do you react in a time of crisis?  How do you handle the worry and the anxiety? 

I see people all the time in different states of crisis that has no idea how to resolve, repair, start again, or even be able to cope.  We have this innate fight or flight response that is in each of us and in a state of heightened stress that response automatically takes over.  We can’t help it but we can learn to control what we do with that auto-response. 

Awareness of what is happening in your body is the first thing to acknowledge.  I’m I wanting to run?  I’m I feeling fear and want to defend myself?  Where is my body do I feel the discomfort?  Is my chest tight? My stomach hurting?  My hands sweating?  The list can go on and on. 

When these feeling become so strong, STOP.  Breathe, re-focus on what is REALLY happening at the time of crisis.  So often when we don’t know what to do we just keep doing!  The lesson is in stopping!  If you are overwhelmed, feeling out of control,  struggling with the crisis at hand then by all means call a time-out.  STOP. 

Ask for help, call a friend, sit quietly in the moment of just that present minute.  One at a time, minute by minute, until you feel solid in your ability to handle the situation with a clear direction and mind. 

We, as a society, are so busy doing, doing, doing.  That we forget it is ok to not know what to do and stop.   In crisis doing nothing is better than doing something that creates further stress because we don’t know how to quit running or fight. 

Think about it.  How can you better handle the crisis in your life?

Stress in the last 50 years

I was doing a video recently for my website about stress. In doing some research the term “stress” had none of its current general senses before the 1950s. It simply was not used. In the 1960s and early 1970′s a large amount of research was undertaken to examine links between stress and disease of all kinds. By the late 1970s stress had become the medical area of greatest concern to the general population. The 1990s developed stress management techniques. In the last fifty years we have gone from a word that was not even consider to be a part of life to a word that we use daily to describe life!

How is stress affecting your life?

• Find out what is causing stress in your life.
• Look for ways to reduce the amount of stress in your life.
• Learn healthy ways to relieve stress or reduce its harmful effects.

Sometimes it is clear where stress is coming from. You can count on stress during a major life change such as the death of a loved one, getting married, or having a baby. But other times it may not be so clear why you feel stressed.

It’s important to figure out what causes stress for you. Everyone feels and responds to stress differently. Keeping a stress journal may help. Get a notebook, and write down when something makes you feel stressed. Then write how you reacted and what you did to deal with the stress. Keeping a stress journal can help you find out what is causing you stress.

How can you avoid stress?

Stress is a fact of life for most people. You may not be able to get rid of stress, but you can look for ways to lower it.

You might try some of these ideas:

•  learn better ways to manage your time. Make a schedule of priorities
• Take good care of yourself. Get plenty of rest. Eat well.
• Try out new ways of thinking.When you find yourself starting to worry, try to stop the thoughts. Work on letting go of things you cannot change. Learn to say “no.” 
• Speak up!  Not being able to talk about your needs and concerns creates stress and can make negative feelings worse. Assertive communication can help you express how you feel in a thoughtful, tactful way. 

Ask for help. People who have a strong network of family and friends manage stress much better than trying to manage it by yourself.

Stress Management

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, “ how heavy is this glass of water?” 

Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.

The lecturer replies, “the absolute weight doesn’t matter. 

It depends on how long you try to hold it. 

If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem.  If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance. 

In each case, it’s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”

How heavy is your glass of water?