Stress Hardiness, Optimizing Stress, Being Fully Alive

cheerfulmonk. Creative Commons license.

That red almond-shaped spot in the diagram is our amygdala…from the Greek word for almond…the part of the brain that can send us into the fight-or-flight reaction. When it believes we’re in danger it shuts down the thinking part of the brain and orders the body to take action. Clearly in some situations that mechanism can save our lives. If we’re crossing a street, say, and a car suddenly comes barreling down on us, we don’t need to contemplate the situation, we need to get the heck out of there.

On the other hand, it can cause us no end of grief if we explode in anger when our emotional buttons get pushed. We need to understand what’s going on.

How It Works

How does it work? The above graphic and the following information is courtesy of changingminds.org.

1. Sensory data is sent to the thalamus, which
2. Sends the data to the amygdala and to
3. The cortex (the thinking part of the brain).
4. The amygdala does a quick assessment, based on what information we’ve stored about danger, to see if the danger is immediate.
5. If it decides the danger requires a rapid response, it shuts down the thinking part of the brain, and
6. Tells the body to take immediate action.

This system works great when the amygdala makes correct assessments. Unfortunately, in modern life going into the panic mode or exploding in anger is apt to make the situation a lot worse. So if our amygdala fires in the wrong situations, we need to retrain it. Jason Zweig at the Wall Street Journal just learned how to do this. He writes about his experience in How to Control our Fears in a Fearsome Market. (At this link he also talks about it in a video interview.) He spent an afternoon in a neuroscience lab practicing “cognitive reappraisal”. He learned to look at gruesome images, for instance a hand with the fingers chopped off, and change his reactions by questioning his thinking, by coming up with alternate ways of explaining the picture. For instance, it could have been modified in Photoshop, it could be a prop from a horror movie, etc.

Retraining Our Inner Nut

Being one who could never watch horror movies, I wouldn’t like to take that particular workshop, but I do something similar almost every day. When I look at our daily newspaper I don’t completely avoid distressing articles, but I do limit my time reading them. And I use them as chances to practice stress management. Mainly I slow down my breathing to relax my body, and I remind myself of the secret of happiness, which is simply to ask myself every day:

1. What’s good about my life?
2. What needs to be done?
3. How can I get this done and enjoy the process?

That puts the distressing news in perspective, and it keeps me from wasting time on things I have no control over. It also reminds me to live my life to the fullest, by enjoying what I do.

The Traits of Stress-Hardy, Resilient People is another powerful resource…we’re not helpless in the face of adversity. Our deepest fear is always that we won’t be able to handle what the future will bring. The only antidote for that is to keep learning and growing and developing our inner strength.

So that’s what I do to train my inner nut. What do you do? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

bikehikebabe sent me this picture from the internet. It’s too good not to share.

The baby being stepped on reminds me of a verse on a birthday card my daughter sent my husband years ago:

Oh, life is so like a bluebird
The poet Omar hath said.
Sometimes it sings at your window,
And sometimes it dumps on your head.

It pays to remember life won’t always go the way we would like, but that’s no reason to despair and give up. That’s why I review the Traits of Stress-Hardy, Resilient People from time to time. It’s a reminder to practice stress-hardiness in my everyday life. And living fully today is the best preparation for the future. As the ancient Sanskrit poem says,

Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the truths and realities of existence:
The bliss of growth,
The splendor of action,
The glory of power.
For yesterday is but a memory
And tomorrow is only a vision;
But today, well-lived, makes
Every yesterday a memory of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day!

What about you? What are you doing to increase your stress-hardiness? What are you doing to make the most of today? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

watsoninelgin. Creative Commons license.

 
This month the topic for Robert Hruzek’s group writing project is What I Learned From…Transportation. It reminds me of a rafting trip I took years ago. I was at a physics conference, and for the Wednesday afternoon entertainment/bonding experience the organizers took us on a white water rafting trip. It was fun…sufficiently splashy to feel adventuresome, but not enough to cause many casualties. As I recall they hauled one fellow off to the emergency room for a sprained ankle, but that was it. No, the raft itself was fun but the guide did all of the thinking, so we didn’t learn much there. It was when we got to the end that we had a choice. We could either stay in the raft and paddle to shore, or we could get into the water and swim there ourselves. That was a no-brainer for me…I love to swim. So I confidently jumped in, aimed for the landing spot and started swimming.

 
Yeah, sure. The current had other ideas:

Oops! As my GPS system would say, “Recalculating. Recalculating.” I quickly changed direction and did just fine:

How embarrassing. How funny. It was a physics conference, after all. And I did spend most of my time using doing vector calculus (more specifically, using Maxwell’s equations to simulate electromagnetic fields). And yet when it came to one of the simplest concepts in physics, vector addition, I had to think about it. Just because we know something in one part of our brain, it doesn’t mean it’s automatically available in a new situation.

I’ve taken that lesson to heart. That’s one reason I like independent study, learning things myself, rather than taking formal courses. I can focus on skill development rather than on book knowledge. I can learn a few concepts and practice them on projects I care about until they’re a part of me. Then I can add a few more concepts and digest them before I go further. It takes patience and persistence, but it sure beats information overload.

That’s what works for me. What works for you? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

I cheerfully admit, as artistic photographs the pictures in this post suck. But they’re great snapshots because they illustrate a misunderstood way of being in the world. In the picture above the adventuresome little girl is confidently standing by the cow, while her older brother is watching from a safe place, over by his father. The boy was shy and an introvert…which, contrary to popular belief, are not the same thing. (Extroverts can be shy, and introverts can be comfortable in social situations.) Anyway, the folks did their best to get the boy to be more sociable, but to no avail. One of his mother’s favorite stories was her attempt at psychology. She would send the two of them down to the corner grocery to buy an item or two. She hoped that he would take enough pride in being the big brother that it would give him the courage to handle the shopping. Yeah, sure. He would safely escort his sister to and from the store, but when they got there, he would wait outside and send her in to do the buying.

The folks also made him go to some parties and dances when he got older, but it never caught on with him. He was more interested in projects than in socializing. But he had no problem dealing with people when he wanted to get something done. When he and a friend…across the street and a few houses down… connected their bedrooms by a homemade telegraph, they had no trouble getting permission to string the wire through their neighbors’ trees. And he had no trouble doing his paper route and getting other jobs to earn money.

Also, when he and his friend built a motorized raft in a mountain lake (his folks had a cabin there, which he had helped build),

they had no problem finding friends to share it with:

 
(The finished craft had a sun deck as well as a diving board.)

And that’s pretty much how his life went…he worked hard and success came to him. He had a double major in physics and math in college and applied to one graduate school…Stanford University. He was accepted, but when asked what he would have done if he had been rejected, he shrugged and said, “I would have done something else.”

Once he received his Ph.D. he never had to look for another job. People came to him. His first position was in France for 13 months, which he and his wife used as a home base while they traveled around Europe on weekends and holidays. Then they took two months to come back to the states …via the Mideast, East Africa, India, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand.

But, you might ask, if you don’t go to parties, how do you find a mate? That part turned out to be easy. When he was psychologically ready, a gal recognized him for the gem that he was and snatched him up.

Did his shyness hold him back? In the fullness of time that went away by itself. He eventually wound up as a technical adviser/leader. He refused to go into management, but he was not allowed to do things himself…his expertise was too valuable…so his job was to walk around, see where the problems were and help people solve them. Working with people all day was no problem because the job was a great match for his abilities. He was well-liked and highly respected.

We hear a lot of advice now-a-days about the importance of networking and self-promotion. No doubt, in general, that advice is sound. But I personally am pleased to know that there are other paths to a successful life. Hard work and competence is a winning combination.

What about you? What path have you taken? Do feel it has been successful? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

The Daily Puppy

All men should strive
to learn before they die
what they are running from, and to, and why.
—James Thurber

I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
—Michel de Montaigne

Do either of those quotes resonate with you? They do with me because I was lucky enough to be depressed when I was a child…I was bored out of my mind and decided there must be a better way to live. I didn’t know what my new life would look like, but I was committed to finding it.

Among other things I read a lot of self-improvement books, attended some personal growth workshops and tested the various suggestions. Some of the material was helpful, but most of it was too “success”-oriented for me. In one workshop we were supposed to envision our goals…for instance writing a book…and imagine what it would be like when the goal was achieved…the sense of accomplishment, the feel of the completed book in our hands, the financial and social rewards, etc. I essentially flunked the workshop because I didn’t want those external rewards. I wanted to enjoy writing the book. So what if I finished one, big deal. Life wouldn’t end there…I would simply start on the next goal, so why not figure out how to enjoy the process? The workshop leader was visibly upset that I didn’t “get it”, but it was well worth the money to find that out about myself.

I’ve been thinking of that a lot the past few weeks as I tackle learning about CSS, HTML and WordPress. I’ve been spending long hours on it and…for the most part… having a good time. I refuse to get frustrated when things go wrong because I’m doing it for the sake of learning, not for the end result. When I find myself pushing to get things to work I consciously relax and take one step at a time. This method seems to be the opposite of what our fast-paced culture values, but it doesn’t matter. One size doesn’t fit all, and I believe the best gift we can give ourselves and others is to find what works for us and to have the courage to pursue it.

What about you? What lights your fire? Are you motivated more by goals than by the process itself? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

bikehikbabe sent me these pictures from the internet:

According to a letter written to Snopes, the parents had built the colorful playground for their two boys but the bears tried it out first. When the mother saw the bears playing in it the next morning, she watched them for a while…and took pictures… before chasing them off. She didn’t want them to think the playground was theirs. Then the father installed an air horn just in case the bears or other unwanted guests came too close for safety.

It’s just another example of life’s unpredictability. Things don’t always go the way we expect…so it’s best to be resourceful.

What about you? Do you have any resourcefulness stories? If so, please share them in the comments section.

Thanks to Robert, bikehikebabe, Bamboo Forest and Lisa for comments on last week’s post.

And thanks to bikehikebabe for sending me the pictures.

 
 
19melissa68. Creative Commons license.

When I tackle a specific problem, such as revising my WordPress themes, I can be like a dog gnawing on a bone. But as I was learning my way around my first Mac and the new version of WordPress, I noticed that I was spending a lot of time looking at a picture in my head of where things are now. Often pushing to get things done wasn’t as effective as taking a moment or two out to look and get oriented. It reminded me of rats in a maze, trying different paths and making a mental map of their new surroundings.

In a classic study of latent learning researchers let a group of hungry rats explore a maze for ten days with no food rewards. When those rats were rewarded with food on the eleventh day, they quickly negotiated the maze as rapidly as rats who had been rewarded from the start. They had learned a great deal during their period of unrewarded exploration.

I can learn from that. Becoming proficient in CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is going to take a long time. The rules are complicated, and trying to rush will be counterproductive. So I’m doing a lot of time exploring, seeing how different authors have done their WordPress themes and noticing similarities and differences. It doesn’t matter that I don’t always understand what they’re doing…I am starting to recognize patterns. I’m also reading some books on the subject, and parts are becoming more clear. The important thing is not to feel frustrated by what I don’t understand. Latent learning is going on…I can trust the process. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

What about you? What are you learning? What have you learned that you weren’t aware of at the time? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Thanks to David, bikehikebabe and Robert for commenting on last week’s post.

 
This month the topic for Robert Hruzek’s group writing project is What I Learned From…Animals. That’s an easy one for me because my two granddogs, Sammy and Banshee, are my role models for blogging. They were taken aback by the size when we gave them two huge bones a couple of years ago, but then they dove right in, had a good time and never looked back.

 

I thought of them a lot the past two weeks as I made major modifications to my blogging theme. It was a big stretch for me, but I kept my granddogs’ lessons firmly in mind:

• Don’t be intimidated,
• Have a good time, and
• Hang in there.

As you can see, Banshee did a great job with that bone.

It’s been a great two weeks for me, too. I still have some fine tuning to do, but I finished the most important modifications. I also learned a lot…there’s a noticeable increase in my skill level. So thank you, Sammy and Banshee!

What about you? Do you have any role models? Have you tackled any challenges recently? Please share your ideas in the comments section.
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Thanks to bikehikebabe for commenting on last week’s post.

 
 
19melissa68. Creative Commons license.

I’ve never been lost, but I was mighty turned around for three days once.
—Daniel Boone

At the moment I can identify with this rat in the maze…I’m exploring new territory and expanding my mental map of the world of blogging. In the process I’m going through a period of confusion. But like Daniel Boone I’m not lost…I’m just a bit “turned around” for a while.

Why the confusion? I just switched to a MacBook from the PCs I’ve been using for years. I also installed a more recent version of WordPress, which has a different interface from the old one. Neither of those changes are difficult, but it takes some practice to be able to work without having to think of the mechanics.

And if that weren’t enough to keep me amused, I decided to change my blog themes from three columns to two. That means going into the inner workings of my WordPress files and learning something about PHP (a scripting language for building web sites) and becoming more adept at CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). When I developed my sites last year, I took an open source theme and hacked around until my site looked the way I wanted it to. The resulting coding wasn’t very elegant, and I knew someday I would have to spend a lot of time understanding how to do it correctly. That time is now. It’s a big job, but I’m breaking it down into bite-sized pieces and am learning a lot. Being confused in the process is a small price to pay for a bit more mastery. All it takes is the courage to be confused and the courage to be patient.

What about you? Are you trying something new at the moment? How do you feel about it? Please share your experience in the comments section.

Thanks to bikehikebabe for commenting on last week’s post.

Elizabeth Thomsen. Creative Commons license.

If you do a Google search on mindful eating, you will find quite a few links. I recently did the search because I read a Wall Street Journal article entitled Putting an End to Mindless Munching. It’s an intriguing idea…many people who are overweight don’t enjoy their food…they’re often thinking about the next mouthful rather than savoring the present bite. I’ve noticed that I do that at times, and the easiest way for me is to slow down is to think of this delightful picture by the constant skeptic

the constant skeptic. All rights reserved by owner.

 
This picture tickles my funny bone and encourages me to wake up to the present moment. I mean, if a squirrel can do it, why can’t I?

So, that works for me. What about you? Do you savor your food or do you rush through it? What works for you? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Thanks to bikehikebabe, Robert and Tracy for commenting on last week’s post.

Thanks also to the constant skeptic for permission to use the picture.