Feeling Stressed?

Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes with me in the past month or so has probably heard me raving about two books that I’ve found illuminating and inspiring.

• The Stress-Proof Brain: Master Your Emotional Response to Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity by Melanie Greenberg, PhD

• A Love Affair with the Unknown: Leaning into the Uncertainty of Modern Life by Gillian Deacon

Two very different books, both of which provide science-based insights into how our brains work and practical tools that have significantly increased my confidence in my ability to manage stressful situations better than I’ve been doing lately — stressors related to my self and my own small world, and to the larger world we’re all living in.

The Stress-Proof Brain suggests exercises or practices in each chapter. In the past I would read such a book, read through those pages and think, ‘Yep I can try that,’ or ‘Yeah, I know the answers to those questions,’ and read on. This time when it suggested writing something down, answering certain questions, or imagining something, I actually did it. Doing so has made a difference to how I’ve handled some of the stressful situations that have arisen, making life more pleasant for me and those around me.

In A Love Affair with the Unknown, Gill Deacon described a fascinating experiment in which subjects were told to study a picture, and that when the picture was taken away, they would be asked to name as many red things in the picture as they could remember seeing. Subjects did very well on this test. They were then asked to name the blue things they saw in the picture. They couldn’t do it! I leave you to consider the implications.

Not all the ideas in this book were new to me.

• What you pay attention to, you see more of.
• Use your energy on what you can control; don’t waste it on what you can’t.
• Live in the present; the past is over and the future isn’t here yet.

They were expressed in less clichéd ways than this, and they were explored, as I said, in ways I found illuminating and inspiring. Not that I will always respond with perfect equanimity in stressful moments. I won’t; I’m human. But I have tools in my tool-belt to forgive myself and get back on track.

What’s stressing you out these days? Is how you’re responding to what’s stressing you causing you to feel even more stressed?

Unless your answer to the first question is  ‘Not a thing! Life’s a dream!’ I urge you to check out The Stress-Proof Brain and A Love Affair with the Unknown!