How to stay calm in the storm
9 simple strategies to swim while others are sinking by Vikas Malkani
T
he storm arrives. A deadly virus spreads. People start dying. Borders don’t matter. Armies are helpless. Stock-markets plunge. Economies around the world tumble. Thousands lose their jobs. Relationships break up under stress. News of doom and gloom is the flavour of the day, every day. Depression skyrockets. A mental health tsunami is at hand! Welcome to the world we live in. Disruption is the new normal. This is a time of many inner and outer changes; changes that will lead to great stress and unhappiness if left un-managed. This stress can lead to toxic build-up within that creates immense mental health problems and can sabotage the happiness, health and harmony we enjoy in our day to day life. Neuroscientists have found that chronic stress shrinks the area of the brain responsible for memory, learning, and decision making, which can lead to impaired cognition. Chronic stress can also contribute to significant health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, auto-immune diseases, anxiety, depression, and more. How do we handle this storm that has come upon us? How do we stay centred even as the world shakes? How do we swim while others are sinking? How do we manage our mind to continue to enjoy peace, stability and calmness even as the external storm rages outside?
“Wisdom is the stabilizer of life” - Vikas Wisdom is the stabilizer of Life. Wisdom teaches that we live in two worlds simultaneously, the inner and the outer world. Our external world is not always in our control, but our inner world can always be in our control. To become joyful and experience happiness in our daily life it is necessary that we maintain awareness of both these worlds. Awareness is the practice of staying
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awake moment to moment; to be fully present, to choose deliberately. The more aware we become, the greater our control over our life grows, and vice-versa. Here are 9 powerful solutions to a time of crisis, guaranteed to keep you calm in the storm of life. 1. Have a willingness to make and follow hard choices – Crisis forces you to take a realistic look at the bigger picture of your life and make some hard choices to move forward. Be willing to do this rather than resist it. Make difficult choices if you need to and demonstrate a whatever-it-takes attitude. Remember, it takes less energy to get an unpleasant task done “right now” than to worry about it all day. 2. Have a personal vision – Having a personal goal of getting out of the crisis, as it will become the light that guides you forward. A goal will motivate you and make it easier to take corrective measures while having no goal will just make you drift and lose direction through the crisis. Goals give you power. Choose not to waste your precious present life on guilt about the past or concern for the future. 3. Set a clear strategy – To reach the goal, plan a clear strategy, and communicate it to others who are a part of it. Plan your journey forward and walk the plan. It is a truth that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Simplify your life! Start eliminating the trivial things. Eliminate unnecessary commitments. 4. Focus - Avoid multi-tasking; it is tiring for your brain. When you have many things to do, multi-tasking may look like a good idea at first. But our brain cannot multi-task; it quickly switches between tasks so it appears to us that we are multi-tasking. In fact, it only adds to your stress. It is more efficient to do one thing at a time and with focus, so that you increase your performance and finish the task earlier with less stress.
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