How good are you at relieving stress in this hyper-informed, sensory-overloaded, frantically busy world? Your ability to relieve stress probably fluctuates with the type and frequency of the stressors (doesn’t it seem like everything comes at you all at once, sometimes?). So sometimes you may feel you’ve got it all under control, and other times you just want to run away and hide.
Escape Doesn’t Work
Think about how you normally relieve stress. Some people escape with drugs or alcohol. But this is a temporary and ultimately harmful way to deal with stress, and it’s only a band-aid approach, like the ostrich with its head in the sand. Others escape, in TV, video games, shopping and other temporary means. Exercise is a much better and more effective way to release stress… but even exercise is only a temporary relief! No matter what methods of escape you use to relieve the stresses of modern life, the underlying mental/ emotional state that cause the stress in the first place are still there. Really take that in…
It’s not the situations that cause you stress – it’s your mental/emotional interpretation of them that causes stress.
Laura Silva explains what stress is
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Permanent Stress Relief
If you want to relieve stress permanently, you have to go within.
You can apply several Silva Method exercises to permanently relieve stress. Yes, permanently. How is this possible, when stress is so prevalent? Because stress is a choice!
Yes, stress is a choice. It’s generally an unconscious choice, but a choice nonetheless. Here’s how to learn to become aware of your stress response, and make a conscious choice to not be stressed:
When you meditate, you enter the slower brain activity called alpha. In alpha, the brain releases substances that counter the effects of stress hormones such as adrenaline. Stress hormones cause you to be on alert: heart pumps faster, eyes dilate, breathing accelerates, muscles tense, digestion shuts down, and you’re on red alert. The problem is that the stress response happens for things in our daily lives that are not life-threatening: jobs, relationships, the little stuff we can’t control, other people’s perplexing behavior… so as you relax and go deeper into meditation, no matter what’s going on in your life, you begin to feel that everything is going to be okay. This isn’t escapism. It’s not denial, and it’s not a band-aid fix. Meditation is simply a preparation for making the mental/emotional shift to a stress-free way of perceiving the world.
Meditation physically relaxes your brain; then, you’re better able to see any situation from a different perspective, from a point of view that paints a different picture. For example, if you typically tense up and inwardly start seething anytime your boss criticizes you, you are reacting with negative emotion and end up stressed. But are you even aware you’re doing this? What if you could see your performance from your boss’s point of view; or from anybody else’s, since we are often blind to what others see in us? What if you were to see criticism as a benefit because your boss is pointing out ways you can improve yourself? Would you be stressed out then? Even if your boss’s delivery is unkind, it’s all in how you perceive the situation that determines your experience. If you have a negative experience, you’ll become stressed.
When you’re relaxed, you become aware of how you handle situations. You might find that your reactions are automatic and based on nothing more than habit! Once you are aware of the way you react to situations, you can choose to respond differently.
Learning to Respond Instead of React
There’s an important difference between ‘reacting’ and ‘responding’:
A reaction is based on emotion, and it’s largely unconscious. If your boss criticizes you and you are angry for days afterward, you reacted, and now you’re stressed.
A response is based on rational thought not ruled by emotion, and it’s a fully conscious choice. If you choose to not let the situation bother you – if you choose to look for the silver lining – then you can let the event go… and you’re not stressed. You chose to not let the situation bother you because you understand that your boss has a different perspective, and there may be just a teeny bit of truth (even if microscopic) in how your boss perceives your performance. If you focus on doing a better job, even if you feel your boss is wrong, you won’t be stressed and you’ll improve some aspect of yourself you may not have been aware of.
The way you handle any situation can be the same: you can choose to react with heightened emotion (usually highly negative, like anger or fear); or you can choose to respond with calm, rational behavior that is ultimately going to be more beneficial, and not cause the flood of stress hormones in your system.
Part of this involves monitoring your feelings and thoughts, and re-directing them when a potentially stressful situation arises.
The mental mastery that you learn with the Silva Method techniques will help you take charge of your automatic mental/emotional reactions and transform them into conscious responses.
Think about some of the things that are stressing you out. Feel the flood of emotions that go along with each thought. Awful, isn’t it? Then, get into the alpha brainwave state, calm down, and analyze your automatic reaction. While in alpha, you can reprogram yourself to avoid this automatic reaction.
You CAN say goodbye to stress. Being stress-free is all in how you perceive the situation, and whether you choose to allow yourself to get sucked into negativity, or if you choose to respond without heightened emotions. Even difficult situations like foreclosures, divorces and other major, frightening and life-changing events can be made far less stressful if you can master your mind. And the daily stresses, the little annoyances that wear us down little by little..? “What little annoyances?”
