Finding Calm

I don’t know about you, but there are a million things that come up every day to pull me out of calm and into stress and anxiety.

Sometimes it even feels easier to just stay switched ‘on’ in busy ‘go mode’ rather than making the effort to really wind down.

And it’s so easy to get sucked into thinking that high stress and ‘white knuckling it’ through life is just how things have to be.

But I’m convinced it’s worth the effort to go against the tide and keep making shifts back towards calm.

Why Be Calm?

1. How we feel is contagious.

When we’re calm, it rubs off on those around us, making us a helpful influence on the mood and wellbeing of our people. It also helps make our job of managing our homes and family routines easier - especially if our kids tend to be anxious.

2. When we’re calm, we’re at our most creative and productive.

We’re more able to think of creative solutions, be flexible and cope with the unexpected things that crop up. By comparison, when we’re anxious, our thinking is narrow, black and white and rigid.

3. Being calm is kind to our bodies.

Being calm provides health benefits including reduced fatigue, anger, frustration, muscle tension and mental health problems. When we’re running on anxious all the time it keeps our body’s stress responses switched on in a way that they’re not intended. This taxes things like our blood pressure, hormones and our immune system.

Using the Built-In Systems in Your Body to Create Calm.

The good news is that our bodies have built in systems to help us find calm.

One of the best books I’ve read about this is Replenish by Lisa Grace Byrne. She talks about ‘the master calm switch’ – a back door way to shift our brains into a calm state.

In short, when we’re stressed, we can send a signal directly to our limbic brain (which controls things like heart rate, blood pressure, memory and stress levels) to calm our bodies.

This does two things. First, it’s a way of reverse engineering how we feel – a calm body leads to calmer emotions and thoughts. Second, once our stress response is lowered, we have better access to our thinking brain to problem solve and make constructive choices.

Byrne says this approach can be far more effective than ‘trying to bulldoze your way through the front door with your thoughts. Once you’re in the front door you can effortlessly turn the knob of the front door from within.’

This has been a real eye opener for me, and will no doubt resonate if you experience strong, heightened emotions.

Here are some of Byrne’s suggestions for using the built-in systems in our bodies to create calm.

1. Breathe

When we’re anxious we tend to take small, shallow breaths using our shoulders to move the air around.

The kind of breathing that produces calm goes in through the nose and deep into the abdomen. This stimulates the Vagus nerve, triggering the release oxytocin (the feel-good hormone). This in turn creates feelings of calm and relaxation.

Sit with a straight posture, put one hand on your belly, relax your shoulders and breath in through your nose for a count of 4. Breath out calmly, aiming to empty all the air in your lungs by contracting the belly at the end of the out breath. Slow down your breathing gradually so you don’t find yourself short of breath.

Note: The key is to make your out breath longer than your in breath. This really does make a difference.

2. The Olfactory Nerve

Our olfactory nerve in the nose is wired directly to the limbic brain and can easily stimulate the brain to shift into calm. There are certain essential oils (like lavender and chamomile) that are recommended. You can rub these on your hands and cup your hands around your nose to enjoy the aroma.

3. The Nervous System

The largest organ of your nervous system is your skin. Things like warm water, touch, and moisturising can soothe the nervous system and create feelings of calm.

4. Nature

Research shows that exposure to nature (even through photos) has a calming effect. Getting fresh air outside, looking at the green and blue of nature, and looking at open spaces all signal calm. (My personal favourite is taking my shoes off on the grass!)

Calming Your Thoughts

Once you’ve wound down your stress response using the built-in systems in your body, you can work on using your thoughts to generate more calm feelings.

Here are 5 questions we can ask–

1. What’s wrong right now? 

A lot of our anxious thoughts come from what may happen in the future. If we bring our focus back to the present moment, we can find calm in the fact that we are most likely safe and that what we fear is not imminent right now.

2. What’s important right now? 

And, how can I let it be easy? We can shift our focus to what is necessary or important in the moment, and how we can navigate that with as much ease and self-kindness as possible.

3. What's the best possible outcome, what is the worst possible outcome, and what is the most likely outcome? 

When we’re anxious about how something will work out, we can reality check the facts, including what has happened in the past and how you would assess the situation if it involved a friend rather than you. It’s a way of cultivating some more balanced, realistic thinking.

4. What am I resisting? 

If there something in a situation that we aren’t wanting to accept, this can create a loop of churning thoughts about how circumstances (or a person!) could or should be different. More calm comes when we choose to let that go.

5. What am I appreciating and what’s going well? 

The more we ask ourselves these questions, the more we’re training our brains to find the positive, and the more likely we are to generate calm, peaceful thoughts. The more bandwidth we take up with what’s going well and what we’re thankful for, the less room there is for anxious, churning and unhelpful thoughts.

Finally, I find it really helpful to remind myself that everyone (including me) is doing the best they can, and that I have faced difficult things before and I have been ok. I will able to cope if what I fear comes to pass.

Being calm, sets us up to be and do our best.

Modern life doesn’t support us to live calm and grounded lives, but we can make small shifts that helps us cultivate calm and live well.