Take a breather…..

July 23rd, 2009

Its been a couple of months since my last blog/newsletter, if you have followed my recent set of  newsletters, you will be aware that I have been focussing each month on a useful technique for helping you respond better to something/someone that causes you to become stressed.

For a recap of these, you can go to http://www.nickmeredith.co.uk/blog (or if you are already here, simply see articles lower down the page)

Now, of course, I am not saying that every technique will work for everyone every time, but I do urge you to try each one out and see whether it does work for you in different situations.

This month, I am going to focus on a technique that that is very easy, very effective and costs nothing (until somebody finds a way of installing an oxygen meter between our mouth, nose and lungs, that is!) – You’ve guessed it, its called breathing properly.

Any clients that have been to see me for help with stress, anxiety, drepression, panic, phobias etc. will know that I almost always teach a powerful technique called “7-11 breathing”, which is very effective at “in the moment” management of stress. More about that later….

If you want to skip the facts, and move straight to the “how to do it”  bit, then click here, otherwise, sit back, slow down your breathing and read on.

Firstly, here are some interesting “facts” about breathing (based on some quick web research)

  • The average person only uses around 20% of their lung capacity
  • Breathing correctly is critical for maintaining the level of oxygen (O2) for energy, keeping the correct levels of Acid/Alkaline in the body, and enough Carbon Dioxide (CO2) for bodily functions
  • Healthy people make 93% of their energy aerobically (in presence of O2) but poor breathing can reduce this to 84%
  • 70% of body waste is elimited through breathing
  • A well known clinical study (Framlingham) over 30 years, provided convincing evidence that the most significant factor in peak health and longevity is how well you breathe

reference : http://breathing.com/articles/clinical-studies.htm#Clinical%20studies%20i

What is “bad” breathing?

Typically this is when you are delivering less air per breath (than normal) into the lungs, especially through shallow (chest) breathing. It seems common sense then that less air per breath requires more breaths per minute to take in the required amount. This in turn causes a cascade of physiological changes that include

  • constricted blood vessels (by not breathing in properly)
  • an imbalance of CO2 and O2 in the blood. CO2 is a vital byproduct of our metabolism and is important in helping to maintain the balance between acid and alkaline in the body
  • an adverse effect on the body’s ability to eliminate toxins (by not breathing out properly)

What happens if there is an imbalance of CO2 and O2?

Too much CO2  and not enough O2 can amongst other things create low feelings feelings and fatigue.

Too much O2 and not enough CO2 can lead to an agitated state, however a restricted supply of oxygen can also contribute to panic attacks, anxiety and sometimes phobic responses.

Conversely, stress, anxiety and emotions can also adversely affect your breathing – your natural fight or flight response increases respiration which is more likely to result in faster chest breathing (as above) and once breathing has led you  into an aroused state, the physiological effects on the body remain until the stressor has gone.

Bad breathing is more likely to be conducted through the mouth (rather than the nose) which means that you could exhale large volumes of air quickly, leading to symptoms of hyper ventilation.

As a demonstration of some of the above points (strictly only for those of you who don’t have problems with panic attacks), just spend 10-20 seconds breathing in really quickly and shallower than you normally would – notice what happens! When I do this, within seconds I feel an immediate rush of adrenaline into my legs  and my hands start to sweat (as my brain starts to activate the fight or flight response).

Telling somebody who is feeling anxious, to breathe in deeply could make them feel worse. A person feeling anxious will already probably have exceeded their optimal CO2 levels, and deep breathing may cause them to breathe faster or hyperventilate (as the body speeds the breathing up to redress to CO2 and O2 balance) . It is more helpful to get them to breathe slowly. (see 7-11 breathing later)

What is “good” breathing?

Think about the opposite of bad breathing and you have pretty much got it. We all know how to breathe, and we all do it automatically (unconsciously) without even thinking about it (apparently over 17000 times per day!). With good breathing, you are aiming to redress and keep the O2 and CO2 levels at an optimum balance. In the beginning, you will need to consciously focus on your breathing to help change the habit.

The key point is to breathe as SLOWLY as possible, with the out breath longer than the in breath using the the diaphragm rather than the chest. Ultimately you want to get from an average of 12 breaths per minute to just 4 breaths per minute.

To help with this, there is a useful technique called 7-11 breathing, and this aims to achieve the above. It goes like this,

  • breathe in for a count of 7, hold for a short while
  • then breathe out for a count of 11
  • It can help to imagine that you have got a balloon (choose a calming colour for it) under your diaphragm and you are using the breathing to fill it and exhale it (count for 7 and out for 11 )

Make sure that when you are breathing in, you are doing deep ‘diaphragmatic breathing’ (your diaphragm moves down and pushes your stomach out as you take in a breath) rather than shallower higher lung breathing. If you find that it’s difficult to lengthen your breaths to a count of 7 or 11, then reduce the count to breathing in for 3 and out to 5, or whatever suits you best, as long as the out-breath is longer than the in-breath. Continue in this way for 5-10 minutes or longer if you have time – and enjoy the calming effect it will have on your mind and body. I would also suggest using your nose unless you find it too uncomfortable.

There is also another way to remember it, called 4-7-8 breathing (breathe in for a count of 4, hold for a count of 7, out for a count of 8)

The technique is effective because out-breaths stimulate what is called the Parasympathetic Nervous System, a natural bodily response that enables you to ‘rest and digest’ as opposed to ‘fight or flight’ (the Sympathetic Nervous System). Slow out-breaths decrease your blood pressure, dilate your pupils and slows your heart rate – lowering emotional arousal in the process.

reference:  Human Givens: A New Approach to Emotional Health and Clear Thinking (Paperback) , by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell

Don’t give up

Now, its almost certain that when you first try this, it will seem both unnatural and uncomfortable. That is because you will have years of practice of shallow, chest breathing. Lots of us (particularly blokes) are used to sucking our stomachs in to hide our middle age spread (obviously not me), and this means that we have unwittingly forced ourselves into chest breathing.

Finally, you will probably have to remind yourself to breathe in this way quite often in the beginning (before it becomes a habit). You will no doubt be aware of those times if you sit in front of a computer and TV for hours on end, deep in concentration, that you may have even even stopped breathing altogether at certain points! – it is therefore useful to have a reminder in your line of site telling you to “breathe properly”. Over time, like any habit, good breathing will become a natural function for you which you don’t even have to think about.

I have many emails and testimonials from clients telling me how useful 7-11 breathing has been for them with issues such as depression, anxiety, managing a panic attack, managing a phobic response or a fear of something, meeting nerves, exam nerves, driving test nerves, stress, calming down, public speaking, fear of flying, relaxing, dealing with anger, reducing fear in birth and labour and many more. So what are you waiting for, close this web page, start breathing properly and notice immediate and permanent benefits!!

Think about it, why is breathing so integral to most preparation/training routines for athletes, musicians, vocalists, public speakers and actors, and why it is so integral to practices like yoga, meditation and martial arts.

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Are you an imposter?

April 29th, 2009
  • Do you ever feel like you are an imposter in your own job; waiting to be found out for the fraud that you are?
  • Do you often think that you are fooling your peers that you are more competent than you are?
  • Do you often think that your success is mostly down to luck and not your ability?
  • Do you normally brush off any personal successes as not a big deal and can’t accept praise for your success?

The label for this kind of thinking is “Imposter Syndrome” and it was recently featured on a Radio 4 documentary. Now you might be wondering what this has got to do with stress, and my opinion is “quite a lot!”. See my article from last month on “mind reading” to found out why (go to http://www.nickmeredith.co.uk/blog)

The good news is that “imposter thinking” is a lot more prevalent than you think and surprisingly, it seems to occur more often in high achieving and successful people (people across all professions who are normally regarded as very successful by their peers). In fact, the radio 4 programme revealed many well known and successful people who admit to regularly having such thoughts. I too recognise this as a common theme with some clients I have coached with self esteem, confidence and anxiety issues.

Research claims that many factors seem to contribute to this kind of thinking, including family situation and dynamics, early upbringing, harbouring a fear and negative beliefs about success and experiencing pressure not to fail. People will often exhibit behaviours which perpetuate this thinking, often leading to stress, including:

  • Being overly diligent because you perceive that you need to work harder and harder to avoid being “discovered” as an imposter [a sure way to increase chances of becoming stressed]
  • Brushing off compliments as a way of deflecting being “found out”
  • Avoiding showing any confidence in your abilities in ways such as not accepting promotions or opportunities to stand out in front of your peers [leading to frustration and stress because you are holding yourself back]

5 Tips to help you to respond better to this kind of thinking

v Remind yourself that if or when you are doing it, research says that several of your respected peers will be doing it at the same time.

v Find somebody that you can talk to about it. Get a reality check and realise that you are not alone!

v Identify how you think in this way i.e. what do you say or imagine to yourself when doing this? Gaining conscious awareness of what and how you do it is an important first step to stop it happening automatically. How would you teach somebody else to think in the same way? – it will help you bring all of the steps into your conscious awareness.

v Challenge your belief that just because it feels right to you that it is. Find contradictions from your past that challenge your belief. E.g. “I feel I don’t deserve to be here” can be challenged by “Just because I feel this, doesn’t mean it is true”.

v Apply the approaches from my previous article “What other people think about you is none of your business”.

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It’s none of your business!

March 12th, 2009

“What people think about you is none of your business”

I first heard Jamie Smart use the above phrase, and he also told a story about the Buddha which went something like this…

Buddha was travelling in the company of several other people. One of the travellers begins to test Buddha by responding to anything he has to say with disparaging, insulting, hurtful remarks. Every day for the next three days, this traveller keeps verbally abusing Buddha, calling him a fool, arrogantly ridiculing him in any way he can.

Finally, after three days of this, the rude traveller can stand it no longer! He asks Buddha, “How can you continue to be so kind and loving when all I’ve done for the last three days is dishonour, offend and try to find ways to hurt you? Each time I try to hurt you, you respond in a kind manner? How can this be?!”

The Buddha responded with a question for his fellow traveller, “If someone offers you a gift, and you do not accept that gift, to whom does the gift belong?”

The common thread though my recent articles is about learning to take responsibility for your stress and improving your ability to respond to things happening in your life in a calmer way. To access the previous articles you can go to http://www.nickmeredith.co.uk/blog . In continuing this theme, I would like to cover a common issue that I deal with a lot in private client sessions.

A number of the clients coming to see me with stress or even self-esteem issues regularly torture themselves by imagining and believing what they think or perceive other people are thinking or saying about them. This is often called “mind reading” and can be a key contributor to creating unnecessary stress and misery (which is often a contributing source of insomnia, anxiety or panic attacks)

Examples of what mind readers might think or say are …

“When my back is turned, they start to talk about me” or

“Although she said X, I know she really meant Y and it was directed at me” or

“I could see by the way he looked at me that he thought I was stupid” or

“It wasn’t what she said, it was the way she said it…”.

Left unchallenged by you, these often quickly spiral into a cycle of feeling bad followed by more mind reading and then feeling even worse.

If you are one of these people,  stop it! Or at least ask yourself these questions before you choose to do it.

v How sure am I that I can truly know anything about what other people are thinking?

If you are very sure, then it might be worth considering how you can profit from your psychic skills

 

v How can I possibly know that the person meant it in that way?

Irrespective of whether the person intentionally meant a comment in a negative, positive or indifferent way towards you, it’s down to you to choose to interpret it in a negative, positive or indifferent way. Think about why, in a group of people, you will observe a full range of positive to negative responses o the same news story. In most cases, people are too busy in their own thoughts, getting on with their own lives, to be using their time to think or say negative things about you! This point is particularly important

 

v How sure am I that when another person makes a certain gesture or looks at me in a certain way, that he/she was intentionally being hurtful towards me?

Contrary to what you think, people don’t always all mean the same thing by using familiar looks or gestures, there is a lot more going on inside them that you don’t know about.

You might initially think you are very sure about your answers to these questions, but how can you really be? The only person who can be close to sure is the person who said the comment or made the look or gesture; and even that is debatable sometimes.

Take a few moments to re-read this article and think about it ! You might start to realise that all of the put downs and insults eventually come from within you rather than from outside you. Owen Fitzpatrick once said to me that “being put down presupposes you must have been up on the first place which seems to me a useful way of looking at things!

If any of this kind of thinking is something that you recognise in yourself then why not liberate yourself from it by politely refusing to accept the “gifts” offered to you – and repeat to yourself: “What other people think about me is none of my business!”

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Are you getting enough sleep in the Credit Crunch?

January 30th, 2009

Welcome to my January 2009 newsletter! I’ll jump straight in today…

IMPORTANT: Do you want to get more sleep? Do want to fall asleep and stay asleep?

If you are too tired to read on, but curious about how I can help then just click here.

In the last 3 months, the number of people clicking on my “insomnia” and “sleep” web pages has gone through the roof. For me, this comes as no surprise considering what is happening in the economy plus taking into account the current theme of my newsletters i.e. “surviving stress in the credit crunch”. Now here’s the thing, it is well known that when stress and anxiety is more prevalent in your daily life, your sleep patterns can be greatly disturbed. Sleep is one of your basic needs as a human being. Without adequate sleep, you can soon descend into walking zombies with increased grumpiness, anxiety, inability to cope with daily routine and in extreme cases … depression. The opposite also applies, not enough sleep might be the biggest contributor to being stressed.

I am currently in the process of finalising my next hypnosis product, which is specifically designed to help you fall asleep and stay asleep. I have been testing it with a group of my clients, and am getting very positive feedback. It uses some powerful hypnosis techniques to imitate the way in which the mind and body bring about the onset of sleep. In fact, the producer in the recording studio said that he was struggling to stay awake while we recorded it.

If you want to be kept in the loop for when I release this (which is soon), then let me know as soon as possible by clicking on thisweb link and entering your email address in the fields provided. That way, if you are not interested then I don’t need to bother you anymore.

Here’s the link again http://www.nickmeredith.co.uk/insomnia.html

What are you going to do today?

Following on from my last newsletter “taking stock of your things to do”, this month I want to focus on a pragmatic way to choose what you do on a daily and weekly basis in order to be more in control of things (and reduce your stress levels). If you haven’t yet done so, I recommend going back over the last newsletter and completing the “things to do stock take”. This will give you a good, realistic and solid to do list from which to start.

What you place your attention on gets done. Each new day finds many things competing for your attention so it is important to choose wisely how you will use your time. This means purposefully choosing and prioritising what you do.

To get a sense of what I mean, think about what would happen if there was a “free for all” or “first come first served” policy in a queue for the hospital A&E unit. It would lead to total disarray for both patients and staff, and even unnecessary death. It would be the people in the queue who pushed, shoved and shouted the loudest that got served first – and probably not the right people. Instead, the hospitals use a triage system which is based on a few key criteria (like who is closest to death) to decide who gets helped first. And although the odd patient might be left waiting for hours with a painful sprained ankle, he/she will survive and a few people’s lives may have been saved during that time.

I urge you to apply parts of this approach to your own queue of things to do. Here is a good way to do it. The advantage you have over the hospital A&E department is that you have a better idea of the tasks in your queue and therefore you can do your triage proactively.

These 5 steps will help you choose and prioritise your tasks. Do this comprehensively once a week, then review and adjust daily.

  1. Decide quickly what you will NOT do this week (What’s NOTIMPORTANT and NOT URGENT?) and put them somewhereso that they can’t compete for your attention. This is very liberating.
  2. What items are IMPORTANT and URGENT? Do these FIRST.This will normally help you feel more relaxed because these are generally the pressing actions that are causing your some of your stress.
  3. What items are IMPORTANT and NOT URGENT? Do these NEXT and spread them over the coming week. According to Steven Covey (author of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) IMPORTANT and NOT URGENT actions are the most important actions on your to do list and he suggests that this is where you spend most of your time. These are typically the ones that you tend to just keep putting off until it is too late and then cause unnecessary stress again. The more time you focus here in the medium to long term, the less stressful actions you will end up with. Having adopted this approach for a long time myself, I can attest that it works
  4. ALWAYS assign slots of time for each task upfront – this helps to form a simple weekly & daily plan – Remember to leave sufficient space for surprise UGRENT unplanned tasks (you will generally always have something that crops up out of nowhere) – but remember to prioritise in the same way before just blindly doing it. Remember the quote from the last newsletter ”every time you say yes to something/someone, you say no to everything/everyone else” [Owen Fitzpatrick]
  5. Before starting each task, think about good feeling you will have once you have completed it. This helps create motivation for the tasks (especially mundane ones!). A common reason for not doing something is that you dwell on the need for starting or doing the task rather than what the outcome achieves for you, and this puts you off.

My advice to you is to choose to make a habit of this behaviour and notice how much more in control you feel!

Finally, just to let you know, I have also noticed an increase in the number of people contacting me for driving test nerves and post natal depression issues.

If you know anybody who is suffering with either of these, please direct them to the following pages where they can find out some useful information.

For driving test nerves,

Tell them to go to http://www.nickmeredith.co.uk/driving-test-nerves.htmlor even http://www.drive-test-nerves-away.com . I have been getting some good feedback on this product, and have even sold it to some driving instructors in other parts of England. The product is cheap and designed to appeal to people’s common sense. Here are examples of the feedback…

“i was very nervous about my driving test and hoped it would calm me down for the build up . i passed my test because i was so much calmer and relaxed after using the cd a week before and even the morning before my test .. it was excellent”

“It me think about my driving difficulties in a new conscious way, followed by hypnosis”

“My daughter used it and she found it very useful”

“It made me look at the driving test in a way I never had before….. it was really common sense, but before using your product, I never thought to think of it in that way. up till then I had always found myself thinking about failing the test and it never dawned on me to imagine what would happen if I passed the test… i would definitely recommend this to other people”

For Post Natal Depression

Tell them to go to http://www.nickmeredith.com/post-natal-depression.html . I have spent a lot of time creating a web page with useful information about post natal depression and tips on how to deal with it. I want to get the message to women that “it doesn’t have to be this way forever” and “its not your fault” and “you can do something about it”.

Until next time

Nick

PS. You might find these web sites useful;

http://www.nickmeredith.co.uk [My general website for therapy and coaching]

http://www.hypnobirthing-peterborough.co.uk [a powerful ante natal programme for teaching mothers to experience comfortable birth without fear]

http://www.drive-test-nerves-away.co.uk [a cheap hypnosis programme to help remove driving test nerves]

http://www.experience-your-birthright.co.uk [a cheap hypnosis programme to help mothers build the right state of mind to have the most comfortable birth]

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Are your new year’s resolutions something that go in one year and out the other?

December 10th, 2008

January can be a busy time for therapists and coaches, and I personally receive many enquiries for help with anything from stopping smoking, motivation to exercise or weight loss. I also sometimes work with people who want to make a change in their life such as changing career or getting a pay rise or even finally deciding to get rid of that phobia for good. Now, it certainly isn’t crucial that you seek assistance from a coach or a therapist to help you with your new year’s resolutions, but it is definitely worth taking into consideration some general coaching principles to help you to set more achievable goals.

As the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, millions of people throughout the world will be setting themselves one or more goals to achieve in the next year (and beyond). The reality is that by mid-day the next day, many of them will have already failed. A lot of the time, this is because they are not following some basic tried and tested techniques for goal setting.

I was recently listening to Raymond Blanc (the celebrity chef) on the radio talking about why he no longer makes New Year’s resolutions. Instead now, he makes resolutions whenever he thinks it is appropriate during any part of the year. This makes a lot of sense to me! This is a much more successful strategy for creating a long lasting habit for continuously setting and achieving smaller and more achievable goals. With this in mind, why wait until New Year, get thinking about one or two goals now, write them down using the process below and then you can enjoy your New Year celebrations even more.

Here is a useful little sequence of steps for you to apply to the creation of each resolution. It is based around the word C.R.E.A.T.E. Each letter refers to a particular aspect of the goal setting process. This technique was originated by Christopher Howard, author of Turning Passions Into Profits.

Let’s say your New Year’s resolution is “I want to lose weight”; a common new year’s resolution! Here is how you would apply it to the CREATE process.

C – CLEAR AND CONCISE

  • Make sure you goal is not worded ambiguously – be very specific – Example: “I want to lose weight” is too ambiguous and woolly and needs to be more specific, saying exactly what you will do. It would be better to write “I am going to lose 1 stone”. In fact this is still not the best way to word the goal as you will see later on!

R-REALISTIC

  • Always be realistic. Don’t set yourself up to fail by creating unrealistic, unachievable goals ending in unnecessary guilt or stress. Rather, start with a smaller goal as a means to achieving a higher one. In this example you may be better to set yourself a smaller interim goal of losing some of the 1 stone first, and then setting another similar goal after that: Example: “I am going to lose 6 pounds”. Henry Ford once said “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs”
  • Success breeds success, and having a goal which you know you can achieve will help your motivation immensely. Once you have created a list of successes then think about stretching yourself more as your confidence and experience has increased.

E-ECOLOGICAL

  • Simply put, “Is the goal worth doing?”. This is not about being “environmental”, it is deciding whether achieving the goal beneficial for you, for others and the planet?. If you can answer yes to these questions, then you are creating a situation which is ultimately better for everyone.

A-AS IF NOW

  • Always write the goal in the present tense. The mind works better when it has fully imagined something already having happened. In fact your unconscious mind at some level doesn’t recognise the difference between really doing something and imagining having done it? So when you write it in the present tense, you have at some unconscious level already achieved it, and this helps to set a strong mental direction towards the goal. (See a future newsletter for how this works in goal setting)

T-TIMED and TOWARDS what you want

  • It is always important to put a future date or time on your goal - even if it is written in the present tense. Example: “It is 2 months from now, and I have lost 6 pounds….”
  • It is very important to choose the wording for the goal as something that you can move TOWARDS rather than away from. To find the right wording for this it helps to ask yourself why you are setting this goal in the first place. For this example, it might be that you ultimately want to drop 3 dress sizes or 3 belt notches on your waist in order to buy a specific clothing item. With the smaller, more realistic goal, this can better just be reduced to first dropping one dress size. In the case, the goal can be reworded as “it is 2 months from now, and I can fit into a new dress which is 1 size smaller than before”.
  • Avoid words like “NOT”, “WON’T”, “DON’T”, “STOP”, “TRY” – these just simply keep your mind focussed on the problem. Too understand this, try not thinking about a pink elephant.

E-END STEP / EVIDENCE PROCEDURE

  • This is VERY IMPORTANT. It lets you know when you have actually achieved your goal. It can be easily answered by answering the question “How will I know when I have reached my goal?”
  • It helps to use the following questions to get the full detail here:

“When I achieve this goal,”

  • o “What am I doing? What am I feeling, hearing and seeing? Who is with me? What are they saying? Or thinking?”
  • o “How do know I have achieved the goal?”
  • o “What is the first thing I will do after I have achieved the goal that I couldn’t do before?”
  • o “What did I do to get to this point?”, “What are the 5 key steps I took that made the difference?”
  • So an example could be…

“It is 3 months from now, and I am wearing a size X dress / waist. I feel healthier and more confident. I can see myself looking good in the changing room mirror and the clothes fit me better. I hear people that I know complimenting me on how well I have done. I am buying clothes from this shop that I have not been able to buy before. I feel really proud and elated that I have accomplished this and look forward to my next clothing purchase.”

So there you go, what started off as an idea of “I want to lose weight” has now been made more specific and realistic. In addition, you have imagined what it will be like when you achieve the goal and have worded it so as to ensure that you are motivated towards it rather than away from something. A little extra time spent going through this process will pay dividends.

Whether you decide to make New Year’s resolutions or not, you can always use this technique to help you set any goals related to any aspect of your life at any time and notice how it works for you. Have a great Christmas and New Year!

Covered in next newsletter

In the next newsletter I will address Tip 3: Improve the way in which you choose what to do each day/week/month through prioritisation and delegation – to help you kick start the new year.

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Tip 2: Take stock of your “things to do”

December 10th, 2008

The current set of blogs is dealing with stress management during the credit crunch.

Last time I covered what stress really is, i.e. your individual response to something that you perceive is happening in your environment. You make this perception through things that you are exposed to (see or hear or feel) or even things that you play out in your mind which are unlikely to happen in reality. When eventually the perception of “too much is happening for me to cope with” is reached, then the fight or flight response is activated and this is when you start to notice unpleasant physiological symptoms such as feeling on edge, churning stomach, negative thoughts and the inability to concentrate, and in some cases illness (eg. frequent colds and flu) as the immune system is compromised.
Start by taking response-ability for stress

Once you accept that stress is your response to things rather than something that happens to you from the outside, you can begin to have “response–ability” and then can learn the ability to respond appropriately.
Learn to relax and take some daily time out to do it

I started last time by talking about the most important way to start to change your response, i.e. taking the time out and learning to relax. There are many ways to do this and many benefits to be achieved from doing it (other than noticing how it reduces stress). To find out more of the detail, please refer to my previous newsletter (Tip 1: Taking time out to relax) at www.mindsigh.wordpress.com. My website provides some additional ideas about learning to relax at http://www.nickmeredith.co.uk/page_1210623551920.html. This newsletter focuses on the ability to cut down your inputs (or perceived inputs), giving you a quick and handy overview of where things really are at.

Tip 2: Cut down the number of “things to do” in your life

One of the thinking styles often associated with stress is to perceive things as being worse than they are and in this case I am talking specifically about the number of things you think you have got going on in your life. It is very important to objectively sit down and take a reality check to see just how true this perception is. I can’t tell you how important it is to do this, in most cases; my clients find themselves feeling a lot better once they have completed the exercise (explained next)

The “things to do” stock take!

How many things have you got outstanding on your “to do list” at the moment? Do you even have a “to do list”? Either way, write down all the things you have got to get done, remember to include all aspects of your life, not just work! and then do the following exercise. To help you, I have created a worksheet that you can use as a guide/template for doing this, you can download it here: -

For each entry on the sheet provided, put down your “thing to do” and then answer the rest of the appropriate blocks in the worksheet HONESTLY. Get everything down to start with, no matter howbig or small it might seeem to you (include home, work, hobbies, finances, community, spiritual, health etc)Having completed this exercise and worksheet, you should have noticed one or more of the following things:-
up to my newsletter at www.mind-sigh.co.uk ior www.nickmeredith.co.uk to obtain access to a free relaxation hypnosis download.

  • When you get it all down on paper, you have go a clear idea of what is really going on in your life

    [Normally you find that perception isn't reality and that reality is not as bad as you first thought. From here you can start to take response-ability for what really needs to be done]

  • There will be things on the list that you should scrap immediately or give to somebody else

    [Be merciless here! if you haven't done them and 1 month has passed, how likely are you to do them in the future? they will just stay on the list and continue make you feel bad for not doing them. If they are just not important or urgent, then scrap them as well, otherwise you may end up doing them instead of something that is important – a common avoidance strategy!!]

  • You will notice that a percentage of your tasks are for other people (and are based on their own criteria of urgency and importance)

    [With these tasks it is very important to consider this: every time you say Yes to someone, you are saying No to everything else. (Owen Fitzpatrick). For each task, go back to the person, and assess whether they are still important/urgent or even relevant to him/her. Quite often you find that the task no longer applies because things have changed. If you have multiple tasks from the same person, then ask them to prioritise between their own tasks or accept that one will be impacted by another. You may be surprised that these people will be sympathetic to your situation. This topic is covered in more detail in a future newsletter]

  • There will be things on the list that you must do immediately because they are important and urgent and will make your life better (in your honest opinion!)

    [If they are both important and urgent for you, or you have checked with the "other person" that this is still the case; and that they are aware of the consequences of doing this task instead of something else, then do immediately (or as soon as possible). These tasks are the ones that will make the quickest and biggest difference to your situation and will help you feel better about things]

When you have got a clear picture, scrapped or handed over as many unimportant/non-urgent tasks and completed the important/urgent ones, then you will need to start to prioritise properly and regularly in order to stay in control of things again – this will be covered next time. In the mean time, please, please complete the above exercise and notice how therapeutic it is for you. It helps to do this exercise every few months as a way of keeping things relevant to what is happening in your life.

This, combined with the relaxation techniques from the last blog will already start to make a difference in your life. Sign

In the next blog I will address Tip 3: Improve the way in which you choose what to do each day/week/month through prioritisation and delegation.

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Avoiding unnecessary stress during the credit crunch

December 10th, 2008

Tips for surviving the “stresses” of the “credit crunch” or anything else

Now we all know how very much the media love to hype things up, mixing in as much doom and gloom to the picture as possible! It’s amazing, I have even noticed the voice and demeanour of the newsreader assumes a depressing manner while reading the news out. It is very important during these times to ensure that you do not allowing yourself to be worn down by the endless assault of negative messages hitting you from every angle!

Recently I have noticed an increase in the number of enquiries coming in to me asking for help with coping with stress or anxiety. Quite often it is because people have succumbed to the above. When I actually dig into their specific circumstances, they find that things are actually okay, realising that they have been infected by the endless negative press around them. Read on to find out why this happens and how you can prevent it.

What is stress?

· Stress is a person’s response to a situation, a person, an object or a thought, it is not a disease, or genetic, it is a response to what is happening around you

· It can also be thought of as a mind/body state that arises when the demands placed on the individual are perceived to exceed (or threaten to exceed) your ability to cope. This can result in a range of issues including headaches, migraines, insomnia, depression, drug and alcohol abuse and skin complaints. Long term stress can lead to increased risk of major illnesses, bowel disorders like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and anxiety disorders.

· Stress is a result of the fight or flight response (click to read more about it) being triggered and this can be for several reasons, including

    1. You are not taking time out to relax regularly, and so your mind/body is not working at its best to be able to cope normally
    2. You have too much going on around you (too many inputs) and you need to prioritise or find ways to reduce the perceived workload (covered in a future newsletter)
    3. You are allowing your thoughts to get the better of you and they spiral into unnecessary worrying about stuff that may not happen – I call this the “What if?” syndrome, or “misusing your imagination”.(covered in a future newsletter)
    4. You are trying to fight the anxiety instead of accepting it and then working with it to shut down the fight or flight response (covered in a future newsletter)

· All of these things can be perceived by your mind as a “threat” to your well being, hence the fight or flight response gets triggered. It is important to realise that stress is a triggering of the fight or flight response because it firstly allows you to recognise the symptoms and secondly to realise that you can reverse them.

Over the coming set of newsletters, I will talk through simple ways of managing each one of the 4 points above. I have addressed them in an order that I think will be most effective

Tip 1 -Taking time out to relax

Take regular breaks

· It sounds obvious, but I am surprised at how few people take any breaks in the day or evening, and then wonder why their mind/body feels overloaded. Animals rest, even machinery needs to rest, why do we think we are any different?

· In fact we are designed to take short breaks every ninety minutes to be most effective – read this important information about ultradian rhythms to find out more

· Contrary to what you think, when you make the time to take breaks and relax, you can get more done in the remaining time. The best way to believe me is to try it for yourself.

Incorporate daily relaxation time into your schedule

There are many ways to relax properly, some discussed on my website. Having a daily practice of 20 minutes relaxation, contributes to

· Feeling more calm about things that would normally get you wound up (reducing the onset of stress)

· Thinking more clearly and getting more things done, quicker (reducing your inputs and the likelihood of stress)

· Release of endorphines. Relaxing in this way releases endorphins, the body’s natural feel good hormones, which make you feel more positive about yourself and the environment (reducing the unnecessary worrying). This process also promotes healing as the immune system is bolstered.

· Increases creativity and breaks down black and white thinking, allowing you to find new perspectives on issues and discover new ways to do things (reducing the unnecessary worrying)

· Improves sleep because you go to bed with fewer worries on your mind. Having a good night’s sleep allows you to be better able to cope with things in general(reducing the onset of stress)

To help you with this , download “Release the day…enjoy the rest…” available to you to help you relax, feel calmer, release worries from the day and experience the benefits of doing this regularly. (it only takes 25 minutes to listen to). You can access it on my website products page – At the moment, if you sign up to my newsletter on that page, you can download it free.

Here is the link again – http://www.nickmeredith.co.uk/page_1216986644916.html

In the next issue I will address Tip 2: Ways to reduce your perceived number of inputs with some useful methods for prioritising and delegating.

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