Written by: Dr. Adriana Popescu, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If you’re like so many of my clients these days, you are under a bit of stress. Perhaps that is a massive understatement. I get it. Stress, anxiety, and depression are everywhere these days. We are subjected to stressful and fear-provoking images, ideas, and information at every turn. Our world has changed so much so quickly and it has impacted our bodies, homes, businesses, and relationships in challenging ways.
Many people are turning to unhealthy and often counterproductive ways to cope with this increase in stress such as drinking, distractions, and addictive behaviors. These behaviors and habits can often create detrimental effects for the body and mind and even more stress and overwhelm.
When we get really stressed out, a whole cascade of biochemical reactions occurs in our body, and the fight-flight-freeze response gets activated. Our brain tells us something threatening is happening, and it signals our body to prepare to fight, run, or play dead, as if we were encountering a predator in the woods. Adrenaline and cortisol get released, our heart rate increases, breathing becomes more rapid, and the blood flow moves to our extremities. In fact, 70% of the blood flow leaves the prefrontal cortex, or human part of our brain, which makes it difficult to access logic and reason and we end up feeling anxious and panicked, not able to think clearly.
We’re all biologically wired this way for survival. The problem is that nowadays this survival mechanism gets activated in situations that are not actually life-or-death, and many of us live in a chronic state of stress activation.
What are some empowering ways to handle these stressful and negative energies in a different and greater way?
As a licensed clinical psychologist and empowerment coach who is an expert in the field of addiction and trauma, I use some simple yet powerful techniques to help people calm their nervous systems. These techniques invite more peace, relaxation, and a greater sense of hope and positivity. My clients find that with regular use of these tools, they have a greater sense of themselves and more ease in handling the stresses of everyday life.
1. Grounding Techniques
When we get stressed out, we tend to disconnect from our bodies. Grounding techniques help us to reconnect to our bodies and get grounded to the earth. For example, you can use the power of visualization. I like to imagine that I’m like a huge redwood tree, strong and solid, with my roots extending deep down into the earth. I find that this calms me down and reminds me that I too am strong and can get through whatever challenges I may be experiencing in the moment.
You can also tune into your five senses. There’s an exercise called 5-4-3-2-1 that has you identify 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. This helps you get back in your body and pulls you out of the anxious thoughts and feelings that have been activated.
A variation on this is to count or name the things you see around you. For example, count how many green things you see in your vicinity, or name all the square objects in the room, etc.
Splashing cold water on your face or holding ice cubes in your hand also helps to calm the nervous system down by activating the vagus nerve to get you out of sympathetic nervous system arousal and into parasympathetic nervous system relaxation. In fact, many of the techniques listed here are working with the vagus nerve, which can be further explored by checking out Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory.
2. The Power of the Breath
Another way to activate the vagus nerve to create a calming response is to practice specific breathing techniques. Most of these involve allowing the exhalation to be as long or even longer than the inhalation since when we’re stressed we tend to breathe shallowly or hyperventilate.
I like Four Square Breathing. Breathe in for the count of 4, hold the breath for 4, exhale for 4 and hold again for 4. This slows the whole breathing process down, gets your mind distracted from the stressors, and allows your nervous system to reset itself to a calmer state. When I use this with my clients, I notice an immediate reduction in the symptoms of panic and overwhelm and a greater sense of safety and presence.
3. Tapping
Meridian tapping, which encompasses many variations such as TFT (Thought Field Therapy), EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) and TTT (Trauma Tapping Technique), involves stimulating acupuncture points on the body with your fingers to balance the energy flow. It also sends a deactivating signal to the amygdala, the emotional part of your brain responsible for initiating the fight-flight-freeze response.
There have been over 250 studies published on these and similar techniques that fall under the umbrella of Energy Psychology. The research has shown that when the acupoints are stimulated, cortisol and adrenaline levels come down, and the feel-good chemicals (such as dopamine, serotonin, GABA, endorphins, etc.) get released; again getting us into a calmer, less emotionally distressed state.
Tapping can be used in a variety of ways: to release negative thoughts, emotions and physical sensations; to increase positive emotions such as happiness and confidence; and to improve performance for athletes, public speakers, actors, etc. It has become increasingly popularized in the last few years, and there is a free online annual Tapping World Summit that offers hours of expert talks on how to apply the tool to various issues and conditions.
4. Challenging Your Thoughts and Beliefs
Once you get out of a more activated, panicked state and your logical brain comes back online, you can start to challenge the thoughts and beliefs that create stress and overwhelm. This is known as CBT, or Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.
The CBT approach involves asking questions to clarify and challenge what you are thinking that is creating the upsetting feeling and problematic behaviors; e.g., “What is the thought that I am having that is creating this overwhelm? Is it actually real or true? What evidence do I have to support this thought?” and “What evidence do I have that doesn’t support this thought? Is there another, more realistic way to see this?”
You might find in this process that you have patterns of negative thinking, or cognitive distortions, that are creating the stress you are having. An example of this is catastrophic thinking, when you are always imagining the worst case scenario, even when it’s highly unlikely to occur.
You may also discover that at the root of the upset are automatic thoughts, which can be below our conscious awareness and show up as core limiting beliefs, such as, “I’m not enough. I can’t handle things, I’m a failure.”
Realistically challenging and reframing these kinds of beliefs can help you to calm down in the moment as well as permanently change the way you think and feel, bringing your overall level of stress down significantly.
5. Prioritization and Organization
Something easy and straightforward that we often don’t recognize is that we can create more of sense of space and ease for ourselves by simply addressing the tasks we have at hand in a different way.
What would you have to handle or work on today to make your life easier? What have you been resisting or procrastinating on? What 3 items are the most important for you to handle today?
Often a sense of stress and overwhelm is created when we don’t do the things we know we have to do. These incomplete tasks fester in the background of our minds and manifest a sense of dis-ease and anxiety. This only grows the longer these projects go unaccomplished.
That’s why I recommend making a list of all of your to-dos, prioritize that list in order of importance or deadline, and commit to handling three things a day. What would bring you the greatest relief if you just looked at it, dealt with it, or started addressing it?
If this still seems overwhelming, you can break the tasks down into smaller-sized chunks such as working on them for just 20 minutes at a time, or making an outline of each step involved in the process and tackling them one by one. Sometimes even just taking a small step toward finishing the project can be a tremendous relief.
These techniques are all very simple yet powerful and a great way to invite more clarity and peace into your life. Hundreds of thousands of people all over the world have changed their lives for the greater with these tools.
What would it be like if you would experiment with some of these approaches? What can they contribute to you, your body, and your wellbeing? What have you got to lose except your stress and anxiety?
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Dr. Adriana Popescu, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dr. Adriana Popescu is a licensed clinical psychologist and empowerment coach with over 25 years of experience in the mental health field. She specializes in treating addiction, co-occurring disorders, and trauma, and has directed a number of treatment programs in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Adriana has a private practice in San Francisco and travels around the world coaching and facilitating transformational and empowering workshops. She coauthored the Conscious Being, Conscious Recovery, and Conscious Creation Workbooks, and she hosts a fascinating podcast called Kaleidoscope of Possibilities – Alternative Perspectives on Mental Health.
She loves to empower people to overcome their imagined limitations, release their self-judgments, and discover the brilliance within – creating a life of infinite possibilities.
