Stay calm to be successful

How you manage your emotions and stay calm in stressful situations has a direct link to your performance. Research has found that 90% of good performers are extremely skilled at managing emotions.
Stress is very detrimental to your mental health. When you expose yourself to prolonged stress, the cells in your brain that are responsible for self-control get damaged.

The most important point here to keep in mind is that anxiety and stress are necessary emotions as you will never take action under zero stress. Hence, when you are under moderate levels of stress, you perform best; but if you prolong that it could be fatal for you. Studies have shown that intermittent stress makes your brain more alert and results in the development of new cells.

Prolonged stress can lead to heart disease, depression, obesity to name a few. If you sit back and think about it you will notice the majority of the stress that you experience is subjective and under your control. You just have to manage it well.

Here are a few things what you can do to manage stressful situations:

Appreciate whatever you have:

Take time to appreciate whatever good things you have in your life, it will reduce your stress hormone cortisol in the body. If you cultivate an attitude of gratitude you will experience an improvement in your mood, energy levels, and physical well being.

Don’t ask yourself ” what if “

Throwing yourself with questions like ‘what if’ will only fuel your worry. Everything in your life can go in numerous different directions hence focus on taking necessary action in all situations rather than worrying about what could go wrong.’ What if ‘questions will only make you anxious and that is not the place where you want to be.

Try to stay positive

Focus your attention on something that is completely stress-free, which will make your stress intermittent. Help your monkey brain to focus on something that is positive by selecting productive thoughts. This will help refocus your attention. Although when things go wrong it is difficult as the mind is busy processing negative thoughts. Identify one positive thought that happened during the day, yesterday, or last week and focus on it. You can also focus on some exciting event that you have planned for yourself. It is important to shift your attention.

Disconnect for a while

Technology has made our life easier but also made disconnecting a challenging task. Notifications, messages and Whatsapp will follow you even during your vacations. It is difficult to ignore messages from work on weekdays but you can start with weekends. Keep blocks of time when you cut all connections and go offline. Start with timings when you are unlikely to be contacted and gradually expand the amount of time.

Limit your caffeine intake

Caffeine triggers the release of ‘Adrenaline’ which is a source of “flight or fight” response. It forces you to stand up and take action when there is a threat. When you are on a “flight or fight”, your rationality goes for a toss in order to give a faster response. This is not a response that you need when you have to answer your boss’s email. When You take caffeine, your emotions overpower your actions. The life of caffeine in your body is long and hence it is far from the intermittent stress that we are talking about.

Sleep well

Take your sleep time seriously. When you sleep your brain recharges and you wake up alert and clear in thoughts. When you deprive yourself of sleep the stress hormone levels in your body increase even without a stressor.

Prevent negative self-talk

The more you talk negatively to yourself the more power you give to them. Most of the thoughts that go through your head throughout the day are just thoughts, not facts. Beat thoughts that consist of “always”,” never”, “ever” etc. When you are thinking negative just write them down literally and retrain your brain with a more rational alternative.

Breathe

The best way to make your stress intermittent is by breathing. Focus on “breathing in” and “breathing out” to stay in the moment. This will prevent your Mind from wandering. Count each breath till you reach 50. Don’t worry if you get lost in the middle but always try to come back.

Last, of all take support from your family friends colleagues and offload your work.