I once lived on a farm and when I drove to work, the first part of my drive was on a dirt road on the farm that had a fence on the right side of it and some dense bushes on the left of it so there was only enough room for my car to fit through. One day there was a chicken on the road, so I drove slowly so that I wouldn’t run over the chicken. The chicken didn’t see it that way, though. As I went along at 5 miles per hour, the chicken was freaking out and running for its life. Finally, when the bushes on the left side ended, the chicken ran to the left, escaping the wrath of the car that seemed to be chasing it. It reminded me of that scene in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark where he takes the golden idol and then it triggers a booby trap that sends a giant boulder down the tunnel rolling towards him. Indiana Jones sprints to the end of the tunnel and barely makes it out before the boulder, narrowly escaping being crushed to death by the boulder. This is stress.
Stress is meant for life or death situations like this. It’s very helpful to recognize that these situations are matters of life or death because this will trigger the fight-or-flight response in the body, stressing you out and making you more prepared to run from your attacker or to fight it off. Unfortunately, our world seems to have changed faster than our bodies and stress response system could change or have changed. We are rarely running away from bears anymore but we still get stressed all the time, like when we watch a movie about someone running away from a bear or when we’re running late for an appointment.
As I drove slowly and watched that poor chicken freak out and run for its life, I thought, “That’s too bad, it’s so stressed out and I’m not even chasing it. I don’t want it to die. I’m not trying to kill it. But it’s running for its life. How inefficient.” Then I realized that I was the chicken and the car was stress. Many of the things that stressed me out were impersonal forces that did not want to make me stressed out but I felt stressed nonetheless. I had even brought many of them upon myself. For example, if I park in metered space for 5 minutes without putting money in the meter and then run into the store and buy something really quickly, then I am a little stressed out for 5 minutes while I wonder and worry that a meter maid will come by and ticket my car. The reason that I sometimes don’t put money in the meter is that I don’t like to spend money unnecessarily. When I told this story to my wise friend, he said, “How much money would you have to put in the meter?” I said, “Probably 25 cents.” He said, “You know what you would be getting for 25 cents? Peace of mind.” I told you he was wise. Peace of mind is worth 25 cents.
I also used to catch myself driving too close to the car in front of me and I noticed that it sort of stressed me out. Of course it stressed me out! Traveling at high speed towards another object that’s very close to you and that you might collide with if it braked suddenly is very stressful. That one comes closer to being a life or death situation than getting a parking ticket but it is also completely avoidable. All I have to do is not worry about going as fast as I absolutely can and not care if a car moves into my lane in front of me. If I drive a little slower, I can avoid all this. I should care more about arriving safely and not being stressed.
You can sidestep a lot of your stress. You are like the chicken. Stress is not chasing you. And you are like Indiana Jones in the tunnel running from a huge boulder that will crush you except that you’re not in a tunnel—you’re just on a hillside. That boulder is still big and scary and it can crush you but you don’t have to run right in front of it. You can just step to the side and watch it roll on by. It’s a much better life.
Here are some tips for coping with stress that I hope help you.
Remind yourself that you probably won’t die from whatever is stressing you out.
The stress reaction is meant to be only for things that will kill you. If it won’t kill you, then don’t let it have so much power over you. Remember that there is no bear chasing you. Be as relaxed as you would be if you just found out that it was a false alarm: There is no bear chasing you.
Exercise.
Stressful situations will arise but they probably aren’t life or death situations. When your body has been tricked into thinking that it is in a life or death situation and is stressing out, then you can undo the stress by tricking your body into thinking that it is dealing with that life-threatening situation by running for its life or fighting for its life. Go for a run. Or hit a punching bag. The body will naturally release the stress. Swimming makes me feel the best even though it’s not much like running or fighting. I feel like I’ve had a massage after I go swimming. And I breathe better too.
Take a deep breath.
As soon as you start to notice the biological signs that you are stressed (shorter breaths, tense shoulders, tight face, etc.), try to reverse them. Take a deep breath, drop your shoulders, relax your face. You can trick your body into being calm. Take a deep breath, sit down and eat a sandwich. Your body will think, “Well, there’s no way I’d be breathing so calmly and sitting down eating a sandwich if I were being chased by a bear right now, therefore I must not be being chased by a bear right now. Whew.”
Stop defending your ego. Your ego isn’t you.
Sticks and stones will break your bones and words will bruise your ego. But egos don’t exist like your bones do. You don’t get rushed to the hospital because of a broken ego. If your ego were to die, you could still go play tennis. Your ego does not need to be defended or need to fight in the way that your body does when it is attacked. You can choose to not feel insulted by words. You can retain your opinion of yourself in spite of what anyone else says about you. If you’re doing the right thing, then relax. Your good karma will take care of you. You don’t need to win every argument, always have the last word, or always have someone acknowledge that you are in the right and they are in the wrong. The best strategy is to not fight. There is room for a thousand flowers to bloom. If there is someone who is constantly trying to make you feel bad about yourself, stand farther away from them. Life is short. Go for the good stuff.
Start talking back to the voice in your head.
We all have voices in our heads, the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening in our world. Sometimes this voice can stress us out. A man steps in front of you in line. The voice says, “That guy has some nerve cutting in front of me in line. Who does he think he is?” It can make you angry. Or the voice can be understanding and say, “I don’t think that guy saw me. I’d better let him know that I was here first.” Start listening to what the voice is saying when it’s stressing you out and replace those stress-inducing thoughts with positive thoughts.
Avoid stressful situations.
This one seems like a no-brainer but many people choose to stay in very stressful jobs or very stressful relationships. Money comes at a price. And your love life should make you happier, not stressed. It’s not always the best idea to stay and try to work through the stress. Sometimes it’s best just to leave the stressful situation.
Don’t create stressful situations for yourself.
Often, my stress is my own doing. Sometimes I get stressed out rushing to be somewhere on time. This can be avoided by leaving earlier. And if I bring a book to read with me so that I have something to do when I get there early, then I won’t feel like I wasted any time by getting there early. Sometimes I get stressed out trying to make a yellow light and worrying that it will turn red on me before I get there. This can be avoided by stopping earlier and not trying to make every single yellow light. Sometimes I get stressed out trying to finish all the food in my fridge before it goes bad because if it goes bad, then I’ll have to throw it away and since I paid for it, I end up feeling like I’m throwing away my money. This could be avoided by buying less food when I go grocery shopping.
Remember that it will pass.
When things are bad, it helps to remember that the situation is temporary and that things will get better at some point. Even if the bad situation cannot reverse itself, the low that you’re feeling at that moment will not stay with you forever. You will not always feel so low. It’s hard to remember spring in the middle of winter, but try.
Do all that you can.
Thinking about bad imaginary situations can be stressful. If you go on vacation and then you realize that you left your front door unlocked, then you might stress out thinking about a thief who might walk into your house and steal all your things. The realization that you left the front door unlocked should stress you out only for a moment. After that, you just have to do something about it, like call your neighbor and ask them to lock your door. Or, if there isn’t anything that you can do about it because your neighbors are on vacation too, then just stop worrying about it. Worrying about it won’t solve your problem. Once worrying has stopped suggesting actions to solve your problem, that’s when you should stop worrying. Once you have fixed your problem or tried to fix your problem, then you can be at peace knowing that you have done all that you can. Move on to the next moment.
Go to a relaxing place.
Nietzsche said that “if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” I think this is also true of Hawaii. And every other relaxing place. When I described the tropical island where I once lived to people, I told them that no matter how low your shoulders are, they drop when you get to Molokai. Find a relaxing place and go there. Look at trees and mountains instead of concrete and steel. Hear the birds and the river instead of the honking and the sirens. Relaxing places will relax you.
Meditate.
On cold days, if I exercise in the morning, then the exercise keeps me warm the whole day, even several hours after I have exercised. In a similar way, I have found that if I meditate in the morning, the calmness stays with me throughout the day. The same events of someone cutting me off while driving, for example, don’t bother me as much on the days that I’ve meditated in the morning.
Sleep.
When you don’t get enough sleep, you are tired and your life quickly becomes worse. You don’t have enough energy for people and tasks. You make poor decisions. You have a shorter amount of patience and reach your wit’s end more quickly than you would otherwise. So make sure you get enough sleep. And help yourself get good sleep. Buy a nice mattress, pillow, blackout curtains, whatever you need.
Get a massage.
Everyone knows that massages make them feel more relaxed but not everyone gets massages or gets them as often as they would like because they treat them as a luxury. Don’t treat them as a luxury. Treat them as a basic need that promotes good health. Get them as often as you can. Treat them like much needed doctor’s appointments. Because they are.
Be in the moment.
Life comes to you in moments. Stay in the moment and dealing with stress will be easier. Stress tries to hog all of the moments. It often pretends to be bigger than one moment. Your test scores come back in a moment but if they are bad, then stress says, “Now you won’t get into your first choice college and you’ll end up with a second rate job and only be able to afford to live in a poor neighborhood with bad schools and your kids will be exposed to greater crime and drugs in the poor neighborhood and…blahblah blahblah blahblah blahblah.” Stress often exaggerates. There is a tale of an old man saying, “I have had a great deal of trouble in my life, but most of it never happened.” Don’t let things that haven’t happened yet stress you out. Wait until they happen. Because they might never happen. Stay in the moment. It’s the only thing that really exists. The rest is imagined. This is not to say that you shouldn’t take precautions. You should take precautions but live in the world that you’re in, the one where nothing bad has happened yet.
Do one thing at a time.
It’s stressful trying to do many things at once and impossible to be in many places at the same time. Commit to doing only one thing at a time. If your desk always had only the one that you were working on on it, then you would be more relaxed and it would be easier to focus on the one task at hand.
Do yoga.
Yoga is great for reducing stress for several reasons. First, there are the physical benefits of becoming stronger and more flexible. This will make you more prepared to fight off and escape from a bear should you ever need to. Second, there is the one-thing-at-a-time mindfulness the comes from concentrating on doing the poses. And third, your brain gets a nice break as it shuts off and does whatever the instructor says for an hour. I’ve never really enjoyed being told what to do but I’m always amazed at how much I enjoy that part of yoga and how relaxing it is to shut my mind off and follow simple directions.
Set a routine.
Super busy people like the President of the United States wear the same thing everyday because it’s one less decision that they have to make. If you set a routine and make some decisions ahead of time, then you don’t have to worry about the stress of making a decision on the fly and things are more predictable. For example, if you leave for work at the same time everyday, then you know what kind of traffic to expect and how long it will take you to get to work. But if you leave for work at a different time everyday, then you will have a harder time figuring out what time you will arrive at work because of the varying traffic patterns and this might be stressful when you are trying to get to work in time for a meeting. A routine also helps you focus. If you have committed the first hour of your day to exercise, then that is just what you do, there’s no question about it. There’s no chance to think maybe you should be doing something else. You can of course set aside time to reevaluate your routine if your values start to change, but once your routine reflects your values, following your routine will feel as relaxing as sitting on a train compared to driving a car yourself. Making decisions is stressful, so try to limit the number of decisions that you have to make.
Think positive thoughts.
I was in the ocean spearfishing once and I started thinking about sharks and getting stressed. What would I do if I saw a shark? I started looking for sharks. I didn’t see any. Then I got back to hunting and I realized that you can only ever be either the hunter or the hunted. You can’t be both at the same time. When I was looking for fish, I was in hunter mode. It was impossible to be worried about sharks. Impossible. So I kept looking for fish. I would have had to see a shark in order to think about a shark. Which is kind of how it should be.
Make it easy for yourself.
There are easy ways to do things and hard ways to do things. You should learn to swim by starting in the shallow end of the pool not the deep end. You should learn to juggle with handkerchiefs not chainsaws. If something is stressing you out, then see if there’s a way that you can dial it down a bit and make it less stressful for yourself.
Take a break.
Stress is go, go, go. To shut down the stress, pause. Stop. Spin. Go backwards instead of forwards. Take a time out. Do a cartwheel. Regroup. Then start again. If you want to.
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