Coping with anxiety
A big event coming, bills to pay, deadlines to meet, hiring a new employee, doing the job of others and things at home aren’t that calm either……, all of this leaves you with a lot of anxiety and pressure.
We do behave differently under pressure, however it has been observed that we can turn anxiety to our side and use the extra push that we receive from pressure to transform it into energy. First of all it is important to acknowledge the pressure and the stress we are facing, and that will be an easy step to do, because we all show signs of stress on two different levels: Physical and Behavioral.
Physical signs:
· General fatigue
· Sleeplessness
· Headaches
· Back or shoulder ache
· Upset stomach
Behavioral signs:
· Irritability
· Loss of concentration
· Depression
· Change in appetite ( eating more or less than usual)
· Drinking or smoking more
· Feelings of panic
Before you get too worried, there are effective ways of controlling all those stress symptoms. I use two very effects methods and those are Simple body relaxation and Visualization.
Simple body relaxation:
This method will help you relax your muscles, which in their turn will send signals to your brain.
This sequence is easy to remember and all you need is 10 minutes and a quiet room on your own.
Toes: Tense the muscles on your toes, and then relax;
Feet: Tense the muscles on your feet, and then relax;
Lower legs: Tense the muscles on your lower legs, and then relax;
Thighs: Tense the muscles on your thighs and then relax;
Stomach and lower back: Tense the muscle and then relax;
Continue the same technique on your:
Chest
Shoulders
Upper arms
Lower arms and hands
Neck
Head
If you follow that sequence, you will feel a warm wave of relaxation spreading up your body, it will help you feel comfortable and less anxious
If you only have time to follow a shorter sequence, just focus on your shoulders neck and head.
Visualization:
While the first technique works on your muscles, this one works on our motherboard our programming engine: our Mind.
Visualization is used by almost every winning sports achiever in the world, it’s also very common among successful entrepreneurs, and has the effect on focusing on the important task at hand. The idea is to put yourself in a daydream state and picture success. Scientifics have found through experiments, that repeatedly picturing something, clearly and vividly, acts on the unconscious mind. In fact the mind begins to believe the dream and starts to mobilize resources to make it a reality. In the same time because your mind is so focused on the successful income, you won’t have time to worry.
In order to use visualization you need to do the following:
· Make yourself comfortable: by using the relaxation technique, listening to music or going for a walk.
· Make sure that you are totally relaxed
· Think about a time when you were successful at something, a time when you achieved and were happy, imagine doing the same thing again and the feeling that comes with it.
· Now visualize yourself in the situation: whatever is the task you want to accomplish, try to record a mental movie of it in your mind with all the details.
Whenever I have a keynote with a big audience coming, I start using the treadmill, because running relaxes my body. After making sure that I have no tensed muscles I try to remember my last successful speech, and with the experience I simulate my next keynote and start visualizing all the details; what will I be wearing, how the conference room looks like, who are the people and what will they be wearing…. Strangely enough, because I imagine myself being on stage with a very fit body, I tend to lose weight every time I deliver a keynote or a speech without even changing my dietary habits, this is how powerful visualization is.
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