How to become mentally strong
Make stress your friend
The approach to health and wellbeing we will review comprises of 5 pillars namely Nutrition, Physical training, Sleep, Mindfulness and Varying External stress factors as specified tools.
“Stress the plague of the 21st century” boy if we had a penny for every time we heard that statement. Someone said “shout a lie as loud and frequently as possible and it will eventually come to be accepted as the truth”, that was Hitler.
Is Stress the plague? This is a fundamental question we should be asking ourselves when taking into consideration that never before had mankind ever reached higher levels of scientific knowledge and technology and yet there was never in our history a generation as prone to anxiety and depression. In the modern world, no other civilization had ever boasted the advancements in communication, transports, housing, health care and food availability than our civilization.
Why are sick then? Why are our children suffering? Why are we plagued with disease?
There are two types of stress I will refer to. There is stress in the form of an external controlled factor such as heat, cold, intense physical training, food and water deprivation or hypoxia. These forms of stress on the body are tools which I use on a regular basis for performance enhancement. These are positive and extremely powerful stimulants for our physical wellbeing. Tom Bileuy said that “Knowing you have potential is not the same thing as actually doing something with it”, I say “What is the point of having any potential if you never get to explore how far you can go with it?”
The stress we will be talking about here is psychological stress. It is defined as “a feeling of emotional strain and pressure”. There are three types of stress; acute, episodic acute and chronic.
Main stream media has contributed highly to make us fear stress and avoid it at all cost. We all know clearly the number of afflictions engendered by stress. The health devastation created by chronic stress are a reality. The inner inflammation caused, affects all aspects of our internal digestive organs, immunity, hormones and brain function. The body under stress releases a cocktail of hormones disrupting our ability to sleep, digest and heal. Researches have shown the correlation between waist size, depression and stress to be directly linked. Is your expanding waist size causing you to be stressed and depressed? For most of us the answer is “Yes Sir”. Is the piling weight a result of depression and stress? And the answer is “Guaranteed” Welcome to the circle of stress. The higher the cortisol production the higher the storage of fat. In the journey to weight loss, to ignore the element of stress levels on an individual is a losing battle in advance. In my case looking back at my fluctuation in weight, I can now ascertain that it was largely caused by the amount of unreleased stressed I experienced at the time. Undealt with stress is like a virus infection which damages in silence.
The higher the levels of stress, the higher glucose dense food our bodies crave therefore setting us in a vicious circle of weight gain.
How I see it. Stress and such unpleasant emotions are all natural manifestations of the inner self which serves a specific purpose. These emotions are like alarm signals indicating that something is wrong or a potential risk is perceived in the outside environment and could result as a threat to our wellbeing or our life. It is at its root a lifesaving mechanism but turned chronic becomes the perpetrator.
The body creates a pain response to indicate bodily harm or dysfunction. Babies cry to communicate all sorts of information and in the same way the body may not cry but it simply generates pain. For example the pain of a burn when our skin is in contact with fire or the pain of breathlessness when we are drowning or choking. This pain serves as a protective mechanism of self-preservation. It is the body sending out a strong self-preservative signal to a situation or outside threat. Failure to read the bodies signals is a matter of life and death. The pain along with the stress hormones released sends a shock to the system and forces us in what is known as the sympathetic mode, better known as the “fight or flight syndrome”
When the brain perceives potential threat, it creates emotions. The body creates pain and the brain creates emotions similarly as a service to the cause of self-preservation. Emotions have no meaning but the meaning we assign to them and so does the events in our lives. Emotions are not us either. They are guidelines, data and chemical signals created by the brain. I see the mind as an infinite blue sky and emotions the passing clouds. They come and they go, the clouds are not the sky and the sky is not the clouds. We are not our emotions, we are the silent entity that perceives them and assigns a meaning to them. The one that decides if the information receive is true or is false. The ones we consider as truth reinforces our inner programming in other words our pattern of thoughts and so does the information we consider as false. We make thousands such choices in a day which as mentioned before reinforces our beliefs about ourselves and the world.
In an interview between Tony Robbins and world first Artificial Intelligence Humanoid Sofia, Tony asked Sophia what she believed was the differences between humans and robots. She replied that from her observations of humans she realized that there were in fact very little difference between the two. As an A.I she explained that she was programmed to follow a certain number of programs involving mostly observation, learning and copying humans. She went along in describing human habits as inner programs causing them to have a repeated strings of behaviors and thoughts for most automated.
You wake up in the morning, check your mobile phone, walk to the toilet, wash your face, go to the kitchen, prepare a coffee, switch on the tv just as you did the day before. The action is effortless because you have repeated it so many times previously that the body has become extremely effective at it and the actions are imprinted in the brain as a program on auto pilot. You repeat the same action which you did the day before and before that seamlessly while your mind is actively operating the similar pattern of thoughts you had on the previous day and the day before not because you chose to but because the brain with time and repetition is designed to be extremely good at repeating patterns of actions and thoughts. If 90% of our actions and thoughts are self-manufactured internal programs then which percentage of free will are we exercising in our lives? Are we free at all or are we stuck in that system?
I believe animal experience emotions just as we do. Fear, Anger, Excitement, love and more. Acting appropriately to those cues or triggers if you will under the right circumstances will have a direct impact of the animal’s life span. For example when being chased by a predator if the fight and flight mode is not activated in time, chances of survival are reduced to none.
After a chase by a cat for example and once the mouse has found hiding into safety or once the cat has left the house, the mouse can resume its daily activities and return into a parasympathetic mode. Being the opposite of the sympathetic mode, the parasympathetic is a calmer state of being promoting rest, recovery and growth. And thus the mouse continues its life switching in between these two in times of danger and in times of peace.
Life resumes normally, caring for its progenies, food gathering, eating, mating and sleeping. All is well and ends well until the next threat encounter arises. The distinct switch between the two nervous systems are what makes animals superior to humans in my opinion. Humans often dwell in their past experiences. How can someone be afflicted by the past? We relive the experience over and over again accompanied by feelings of regret and anxiety. Our level of mental stress should not come with any surprises taking into consideration that our minds are trapped in regretting the past and in fearing for the future. Our ability to be in the present has been highly infringed by the constant looking back with sadness and worrying for what is to come. The mouse does not go into an analysis frenzy trying to make sense of what happened after a chase. Why did this happened to me? Were the cat’s intentions harmful towards me or was it a misunderstanding? I think it was. Why did he try to hurt me? Did I misjudge his intentions? What if he comes for the kids when am not around? Who would save the kids? Why is the cat an asshole? Would he like to be treated in that way? Am so lucky am alive. But what if I had died? Who would have taken care of the kids? Their Dad is never home. I wonder if he seeing someone else. What if he not attracted to me anymore? My parents were right about him. He can never be counted on. Why is my husband an asshole?
And on and on would go the mental chatter if the mouse was to behave as a modern human. And on and on would the stress mode be extended and sometimes become part of an individual’s permanent state of experiencing life.
While animals require to be faced with a physical event to go into a stress response, humans have the capacity of triggering a stress response by mere thought. The memory of a negative event is enough to create a stress response in the body and the mind. The problem is that the brain has no distinction in between an event of the past and the thought of it. So much so that it believes it is reliving the whole experience each time one thinks about it over and over again. We know that physiological stress engendered by negative thoughts has detrimental effect on our health. The thoughts active stress hormones and the chronic stress created inflammation resulting into an array of dysfunction and diseases. Therefore if our thoughts alone have the power to cause disease, is it correct to assume that our thoughts could in reverse cause healing to take place?
The law in our society is this invisible force that protects the weak in our society and prevents the wicked from going on a rampage. We are taught as children to behave, to conduct ourselves as good law abiding citizens by following the rules through our actions. It is no surprise that our justice systems has failed us because instead on focusing on the outcome, we really ought to teach our children how to control their thoughts. Criminal actions are the final outcomes of a mind untamed.
After an unpleasant event sets a stress response, we are guilty of dwelling on it the next day or two, the anxiety may cause a poor mood for a couple of days. If the event is recalled for the next weeks, then we might see the formation of a moody temperament; extended for a few months the temperament may become embossed as a character trait. Forward a couple of years of indulging this character trait our trait becomes our personalities and identity. I am always surprised at how certain people hold on to their depression or addictions as a part of their identity. The program has run for so long, that they do not know how to be or experience life otherwise. They are convinced that they are one with the depression and one with the addictions that afflicts them into suffering. They have chosen and accepted it as the truth in their body, mind and soul.
Stuck in the sympathetic mode is where the modern man dwells to his detriment. The inability to switch; the inability to relax and move on is the root cause of many self-inflicted suffering.
Many of us are victim of a dysfunctional safety and security alarm mechanism. One that will not shut off or shuts down the whole engine room upon activation. While the mechanism is not bad in itself, the failure to calibrate and regulate it is what has detrimental side effects.
To understand that happiness can only be found in the present moment is invaluable. To understand that the “now” is all we truly have; everything else is within the realm of our imaginations. What tragedy is it to live a life of dwelling in between past and future and never getting to experience the present time. It is like living life in a permanent illusion, stuck in a dream that one cannot wake up from.
Another analogy I like in thinking of stress is remember the days when you’d be sleeping in bed and late for school. I see the stress mechanism as your mother’s voice trying to wake you up, calling and repeating and nagging, “get up, you will be late for school!”
Like your mother, the stress we experience has all but good intentions. It is a call for action! It is a call to wake up!
It would be detrimental if the call for action was ignored and if your mother decided to start calling your mobile and text you nonstop all along the way to school and all day while at school to check whether you were really there and what you were doing. Therefore creating an interference with you actually getting on with your day. Imagine being in a constant mobile phone with your mum, hearing her warnings and recommendations endlessly. How effective would one be at any other activity in one’s life? How flawed would our focus be? How flawed would our perceptions and management be?
Therefore one should trust that the desire to understand and learn to regulate the functions of this mechanism should be most beneficial. No, we are widely encouraged to shut the stress down, medicate or muffle it down through other substances. We treat it as a disease.
The quick fixes. The right here, right now solutions are never lasting. It is the resolution of one problem through the creation of another. Out with stress and in with substance dependence.
The concept of a perfect design, is something I will be repeating. We are extremely sophisticated pieces of technologies in the form or our bodies and minds which we have been given minus the operational manual. To learn how it works, to learn how to operate it is at most the most important lesson you will ever learn. It is a matter of life or death. If is a matter of success or failure and will most definitely determine the levels of happiness one will reach.
Now while we all share the same DNA, it is also true that we are all created uniquely. It is not one size fits all solution. Each individual ought to do due diligence in experimenting and learning about the gift provided to them in the form of the body and mind. In the end the most valuable things you will ever receive in life are the ones you receive for free. The care for your being is not just a personal responsibility but a duty.
“See something as your enemy, and expand its power over you. Make it your friend and see the grip of fear release its hold over you, for you do not fear what you understand.”
My approach to mental stress or any form of stress is largely in line with Buddhist philosophy.
First to recognize that the fundamental basis for life is change, loss and pain. This alone has come as extreme relief and liberation to me. Therefore every bit of good fortune and joy I encounter is so much more valuable because I see it as a small fresh water oasis on which to quench my thirst in an infinite desert. I think this sentence describes perfectly what I am trying to say and how I feel about life overall.
Because change is constant, we are bound to experience loss and the thus resulting in some degree of pain over the perceived loss. Yes “all loss is perceived!” because nothing is ever lost, it is transformed into something else. Think of the last form of emotional pain you experienced, or the last argument and you will see that there is some form of fear of loss. Anger and hurt are also derivatives of a loss. Ask yourself what did I fear of losing in my moment? Or what did I feel I had loss?
Is it trust? Respect? Love? What did I fear? Being judge? Being taken for granted? Ingratitude maybe?
Because I recognize that pain is a fundamental part of life. I recognize that being be faced with a measure of the above fears and loses to some extent is unavoidable.
When faced with it, instead of fighting the feelings and thus expanding its hold over me, I welcome it as a school of life experience. Like a fish caught in a net, the more energy spent for breaking free, the more you entangle yourself in the trap. But if you pause, patiently examine and study the trap meticulously only by understanding how it works can you find a way out with the end result being liberation.
It is in our human nature to kick and fight back in threatening situations but isn’t it also in our nature to enjoy difficult puzzles and crosswords as a playful activity?
To engage in difficulty is an inbuilt core part of being human. The reward mechanism produced by hormones in our brains from completing a difficult task is real and addictive. I sometimes find that I cannot experience any reward unless I have completed something with some level of difficulty. If it is out of reach is it for me. If it is there for the taking, for free, no challenge, then where is the value? This is how I have reprogrammed my mind.
The importance of outlook is crucial. I chose to believe that Life happens for me not to me. Carefully pick your outlook on life, your storyline largely depend on it.
What I mean my making stress your friend, is really understand it. You cannot fear that which what you understand. See it for what it is, go with it. Do not resist it for what you resist will persist.
Our brains have mechanism and patterns which are different form each other. To learn its distinctive ways is a must. It is almost a personality within a personality. Like any individual, its perception and interpretations are sometimes accurate and sometimes flawed. The selected data is sometimes exaggerated or undermined.
When you come to recognize your mind and emotions as inner cues only then will great freedom follow.
My interest in meditation and mindfulness came in the way life naturally brings to you tools and people that reinforces the goal you are striving for. Like pieces of puzzles which you had no clue where to place before find their place almost on their own at the right time as you get closer to the big picture.
I find it interesting to begin writing about my last acquired tool to wellness and also the one in which I am least experience in the first chapters.
As we say in French “beat the Iron while it is still hot” It is becoming clear to me how close the topic is to my heart and how much excitement I feel about it that I cannot wait to share my short experience.
It is not something I have practiced for many years but nonetheless its results have been so real and profound from day one.
A fractured mind is a life fractured. It is a given that the topic of mindfulness should precede “Make stress your friend” for it is in the challenge of taming my overactive mind that I naturally came across the concept of mindfulness.
I had been familiar with the power of now concept through the work of Ekart Tolle and although it was something I felt I understood, I never succeeded in its practical application.
When my training routine became part of my life style, I began hitting my physical goals more often than not and I reached a confidence level I had never experience before. Then something interesting happened.
I found that making the time for training was something which did not require mental effort anymore. Gone was the time of the dreaded session accompanied by the tedious pulling back and forth, negotiating with myself and struggling with procrastination. Not only did it become automatic but it was a time of my day which I looked forward to. I began feeling a strong pull towards my training sessions and was surprised to hear myself describing them as the favorite part of my day.
Why favorite? Because I found myself experiencing some sort of rather profound happiness during the training. I use the word happiness because I am not talking about the serotonin rush athletes are accustomed to experience. I knew how that felt. This was something new. I found that as my mind would come into complete focus and as I became fully immersed in each training movement, I experienced a profound contentment.
If I could describe it in three words, it would be; Purpose, Concentration and Completeness. I overheard myself saying the following words in a conversation: “I do not know if the workout I follow is a training of my body as much as it is a training of my mind”
I had no idea where that came from and I realized that the concept of training the mind was totally foreign to my life. After all wasn’t the mind part of the body? If id invest so much time and effort in the training of my body why wouldn’t I do the same for my mind? Was the mind another muscle to be trained? Yes, yes, yes and you bet yes to all the above.
Was the training of the mind really a byproduct of my workouts or was this an unknown frontier I was yet to explore altogether.
Performance wise and result wise it was long established in the world of bodybuilding “bro-science” the concept of “body mind connection”. Although the words seem self-explanatory, all its adepts had failed to explain it to me with clearly.
The sense of completeness I felt was derived from purpose and concentration at will. How amazing was that. “Happiness on demand” As far as I know I was always taught that happiness was illusive. The minute you feel it and try to hold on to it the faster in dissipates. But what if I could create it at will?
I was already. During each session, sometimes better than others but maybe all I needed was to train in the skill.
I became obsessed by the idea. I googled it. I You Tube it and it came to my attention that I suddenly received messages from long lost friends about guided meditation.
A bit like an answer from the universe, I felt I was directed in the direction of mindful meditation. Documentaries, articles and scientific online journals opened a whole new world to me.
When I read that some of the benefits of meditation included reduction in wrinkles and skin improvement I was sitting in the lotus position before one had time to say “Om-Shanti”
The Application. As my journey and experience are growing each day, I have come to stick to the following techniques.
Sit in a comfortable position. Trying to sit in extended times in the crossed leg lotus position was not easy for me. I would end up with pain in my limbs due to lack of flexibility and strains as well which would distract me during I time I was meant to remain still both physically and mentally.
Laying down on a bed would put me to sleep and therefore I chose to sit on a chair. After being comfortable begin set an alarm on your mobile so as to avoid the constant temptation to check on the time. When the alarm goes off the session will cease.
Close your eyes.
Take 3 deep breathes is the norm. Personally I found that 2 was more than enough. Be mindful that there are no rules written set in stones and feel free to test and try what works best for you.
Try to remain as still as possible with an extended straight spine.
Focus on your breathing, specifically the airflow sensation coming in and out of the nostrils. Breathe normally and feel the breath. All that matters is the breathing, concentrate on it alone.
The aim is not to be thoughtless nor is it to go to sleep.
Be full aware and observe the thoughts, the feelings and emotions if any.
Remember what you resist, persist. So if a thought crosses your mind, observe and listen without judgment.
If the mind wonders, gently bring back the concentration to the breath. The pulling back of the wondrous mind to a focal point of concentration of the breath is the training exercise of the mind until you may reach undisturbed concentration.
In this practice the mind aligns consciously with the body. You are aware and in complete oneness during the time of the session. The meditation is the meeting point of the inner self and outer shell.
The singularity in the act of being is where I experience the highest sense of completeness. Happiness, contentment and acceptance are yours for the taking. A line which I particularly love about meditation is “The biggest enemy of meditation is not thoughts, it is effort”
As I practice every day, I have since learned to enter the deeper levels at will with my thoughts or without.
I have since practiced meditation for just 10 minutes every morning after waking up. When I learned that all it took was as long as a 10 minute session to reap benefits, I was sold. As said by Tony Robbins “I you don’t have 10 minutes your don’t have a life”
For the first week and first sessions, I saw such as improvement in my capability at falling asleep that I was baffled. My continuous sleep quality also improved, I did not wake up as much and sometimes not at all until the next morning.
So like all eager beginners I decided to try a meditation session right before going to sleep. I had read somewhere that Arnold Shwazeneger was an adept of mediating both morning and night so I decided to add a second session. After all the more the better? Isn’t it. The additional session before sleep had quite an unusual result for me. I experienced that night very violent and disturbing dreams. I drifted throughout the night between a state of half consciousness and sleep. The nightmares were very graphic and stressful. I do not quite remember the story line now because I try not hold on to negative experiences but I remember waking feeling tired like I had been in a fight. I decided not to repeat the experience.
The second benefit I experienced was an improvement in my bowel movement. I struggled with constipation for as long as I can remember. Sometimes the very thought of going to the toilet would upset me even before I got there. But since I have started the meditations, I have never again struggled with bowel movement. I used to send hours on the toilet. If I were to add up the amount of hours I personally spent on the toilet, I am quite sure I could minus a few yearly from my life span.
We are well known in my family for being hot blooded. Every neighborhood we have ever lived in will sadly agree. While I saw my temper largely as a family trait, I never believed that it was detrimental to my wellbeing. I also perceived being trampled upon by anyone as the worst thing that could happen to me. And so I never missed a confrontation, walking away is something that was alien to me. If I may say at some point in my life, my motto was to strike back at every single confrontation and offense. I did not know how to be any other way. From the marvels comic’s the character I playfully identified with was the hulk. The green monster’s outburst of the defenseless Dr Banner was in my point of view completely justified. After all it meant life or death in most circumstance for the weak Dr Banner but in my case it wasn’t. Very similar to the character, the emotions took a grasp over me and I had no control over what I did or said. The physical feeling was very intense and unpleasant but nowhere near as unpleasant for the one at the receiving end of my attacks.
The people of the world did not change after I began meditating. The offenses, insults and disrespects did not disappear. Neither did my emotions. Although I must say that I went through a phase of emotional numbness in the beginning, I was quite certain that they were still there somewhere.
In times of threat, I’d still feel the emotions rising, look at it like I’d pick up an item from a shelf, feel it, put it back on the shelf and carry on my shopping. I created a ‘pause’ button, got a chance to choose my reaction and then carry on as Dr Banner. I had gained control. The reason why I did though my surprise you. The enjoyment I derived from being in this new sense of quiet control peace was enough to deter any monstrous emotional outburst. My new piece became my new “precious”, something valuable that I cared to guard and cherish at all cost. I recognized the effort it took to achieve it and I did not want to lose it over something insignificant.
Choice was a new found benefit I derived for the first time in my life.
I researched the work of authors like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to learn more about the power of the present mind. He describes beautifully the concept of “Flow” as a state of mindfulness and optimum performance in athletes, artists and different individual. Where the mind is highly focused on the task at hand, when every fiber of the mind and body aligns effortlessly in creating or performing the highest quality on work. In Hollywood the best visual representation of the Flow experience is when “Neo” realized that he does not need to dodge the bullets and stops them by sheer will power.
Yes Flow begins in the mind. Flow described best what I had begun to experience in my life and was a byproduct I became adept of.
Many people differentiate in between Meditation and Mindfulness. While I do not care to get into debates, I can confirm that the experiences have similarities.
At first I would think, that the flow concept might not apply to me as I was neither an athlete, composer or performance artist. Yet the concept made so much sense to me that there ought to be some practical daily life application for it.
I talked about similarities earlier and I noticed that like meditation, mindfulness had the effect of causing a disruption to the endless mind chatter. The disruption cause in one session was generally enough to reduce the inner noise considerably. Through the use of mindfulness I decided to add a couple more disruption to my overactive brain throughout the day.
So simple, not so easy and yet so powerful. Example take the action of washing your hands. In any normal times the auto pilot mode of the brain would take over while the consciousness would go on a thought rampage. But in a mindful state you would focus on every little detail of the activity. The sound of the running water, the feeling on your hands, the texture of the soap, the foaming of the soap, the feeling of your hands and fingers, the rubbing motions in all corners and different direction. A short time meaningless action yet extremely meaningful for creating a moment of oneness between the mind and the body. A disruption to the monkey mind, a moment of Flow.
I knew that this was something I experienced during my weight lifting sessions and sometimes during my walks. Times I felt extremely focused and content.
Soon, I began practicing mindfulness almost everywhere. A metro ride, a walk in the city, shopping for my groceries and oh cleaning my apartment. There is no word to describe the dislike I had for any cleaning activity. But with mindfulness, I found that the most painfully boring of tasks could become the most enjoyable tasks of all.
To live a life filled with these small moments of happiness in my opinion results in an overall happy living experience. How could I fail to see the value in this? I have become since then the collector of small mindful moments. My overall quality of living has improved to say the least, I have never lived in perpetual cleanliness before and procrastination is something which I rarely struggle with. Because of the focus I have the quality of training I have is way higher and the physical results are faster. The enjoyment I derive from my tasks make me more effective and I complete them faster. Major gains in time, effectiveness and more results. If you’d ask me at any given time of the day to rate my happiness level, I guarantee the result would be pretty consistent ranging to the higher levels as opposed to the lower ones.
I know that our experiences differ from each other. Here is just a mere account of my personal experience. Embark in making mindfulness and meditation your friends and discover for yourself what blessings you may be surprised with.
