We all have a lot of stress we’re carrying — here are some practices to help re-centre yourself after a stressful situation (or series of meetings that should have been memos).

First, I’m going to to what I normally hate, and begin with some important context and Theory. (Sorry, not sorry)

CONTEXT SWITCHING — Our brains don’t immediately jump from task to task like a computer. Some research has seen that it can take up to 9 and a half minutes to get back into a flow state after changing tasks. Like right now. My wife walked into my office to ask me some important questions about a trip we’re doing, and instead of writing immediately about context switching, I’m talking about being interrupted. It’s taking me time to get back into a writing flow.

What this has to do with recovery is: no matter what you “do”, it’s going to take at least a few minutes of effort because our Brains need time to adapt to changing circumstance.

Questions for you to consider: what are the contexts that help you get focused on a new task — do you need a clear desk? Silence? Noise? Music? Do you need a clear list of “to-dos” or just a vague understanding of the desired outcome? Knowing these things will help you create an environment that will better help with shifting attention.

SYMPATHETIC AND PARASYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEMS

The Sympathetic Nervous system is our “fight/flight” response system – adrenaline, gotta get moving. Our Parasympathetic Nervous system is the “Rest/Digest” system. There isn’t a “best” for work — sometimes stress is really powerful for helping us focus and take action on something difficult. Sometimes that stress causes us to fixate on a problem and not see any possibilities. Some of us are so habituated to stress, that when we try to relax our bodies don’t trust that we’re safe. Or, is that just me?

The important thing to know is that our Sympathetic nervous system is designed for immediate action, but the Parasympathetic nervous system can take a few minutes to come on line.

So, Jim, are you telling me that because of Context Switching and the delays in enabling the parasympathetic nervous system, I just have to take time away from work to recover? Are you telling me to take a vacation?

I’m sure that would be appreciated – but, the interesting thing to figure out for each of us is: what do we need to cultivate in our day-to-day so that we get more of our “best self”, and can identify when we’re switching into stress/panic/over-whelm mode. (Well, that’s my default, your default is likely different — what is the default emotional space that you habitually return to? We all have one).

WHAT CAN I DO?

From what I’ve studied and experienced, I find that I have to start with the body. Our body, by utilizing hormones to regulate our state (which is a very slow state-changing tool) are the most powerful tool to engage with to recover from stress. You may discover something different — what’s most important isn’t to “do what I suggest” here, but to create experiments for you to test and discover what works for you.

BREATHING EXERCISES

From within the “Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction” world, there have been many studies on how certain breathing practices can trigger our Parasympathetic Nervous System.

• Box Breathing: Breath in for 3 counts; Hold for 3; Release for 3; Hold for 3; REPEAT– this is a practice that is even utilized by Navy Seals, so that’s gotta count for something
• 4-7-8 Breath — This is a breath exercise of 4 seconds in, 7 seconds hold, 8 out, repeat. I find that this can be a good tool, but if I’m too stressed, I can’t hold my breath for 7 seconds — so consider this one as a potential tool to utilize later in the day when you’re really trying to slow down. But the reason why I have it so high here is that it has also been heavily studied and demonstrated to be effective at restoring stress hormones to relaxed levels
• 4-8 breathing — This is intended as a “circular” breathing exercise, where you’re breathing in for a certain count (say 4 seconds), and then immediately switching to breathing out for double the amount. When you finish the outbreath, immediately switch to the inbreath. This works best if you understand how to “belly breath” (i.e. breathe into your diaphragm). This is one that I turn to a lot — it’s useful to practice it, because even just 2-3 deep belly breaths with this ratio of 1:2 time can be a quick tool to calm yourself in the middle of a difficult conversation.

A few important things — based on the science I’ve seen, these practices are best done by breathing through the nose exclusively. During the first few breaths, if you wish to exhale through the mouth, that can work well if you are really activated/stressed — but the science I’ve seen shows that for relaxation and openness, we need nasal breaths. Mouth breathing seems to encourage stress. [if you have evidence to the contrary on this – great, use what’s right for you]

MOVEMENT EXERCISES:

Some folks will struggle with breathing exercises. My wife has ADHD — meditation/controlled breathing is something she just can’t connect with. Sometimes, despite having practiced meditation for over 10 years now, I struggle to “sit” when I’m really activated. Movement is a really useful tool for body awareness, which will help us reconnect to our centre and calm.

• Mindful stretching — If you’re ever done a Yin Yoga class, you’ll get a sense of what you might do here. The important thing is to pick an area of your body that’s tight — your neck, your shoulders, you legs, your hips — and to slowly breath in while stretching into that area, and then slowly breath out while releasing a gentle stretch. The point is to connect movement with your breath, and by lightly stretching a tight area, you’re creating some openness in your body. This sounds woo-woo, but trust me, there’s some solid science behind this. The point isn’t to do a full yoga class here — it’s to take 30 – 60 seconds to do some light stretching.
• Mindful Movement — instead of stretching the muscles, some folks benefit from intentional movement — a short walk at a slow pace; dancing; shadow boxing your boss; jumping on a piece of exercise equipment for few short minutes — the point isn’t to sweat, just to get the body flowing. Find what movement helps you FEEL a state of flow. This can be embarrassing to some folks – dancing is a huge tool for me that I feel like a total fool when I do (I’m every stereotype of white-man-dancing), but the playfulness, plus the movement in rhythm are powerful resetters for my brain.
• EFT/Tapping — “Emotional Freedom Techniques” are the most woo-woo topic I’ll share here (I’m not going to get into chakras in this piece…). I don’t understand the science behind it, but the theory is that when we gently tap/thump on certain areas of our body — our chest, our hands, our neck, our shoulders — we can create certain physiological responses to the rhythm and touch. I know some (very successful) folks that swear by this, and I’ve had some positive experiences with playing with this. It’s something to try out when you’re on your own, because I’m guessing you don’t want to pounding your chest like a gorilla in the middle of a challenging quarterly review. For those that connect with this practice, it’s really powerful.

TAKE AWAY –

I’ve shared some tools that you can try to help you connect into your body, which is often holding the bulk of our stress. By taking 3-5 minutes to connect with our bodies, we are helping ourselves calm, which will accelerate the task switch (because the whole point is to get into focused effort on what we want to be doing).

SOME OTHER TOOLS

What’s important here, is that you’re treating your body with compassion. We have 5 senses (some argue we have more, but I’m not equipped to make a rational statement either way). Each of those 5 sense are tools for helping us calm, get centred, and switch tasks.

LISTENING:

I’m a musician. Music has long been a great tool to help me prime myself for tasks. For example — if I have to review something, the best mood for reviewing is a lightly-sad state (sadness helps us pick up on differences/mistakes quicker) – so I have a sad-playlist that I’ll throw on (my favorite album for this is Our Love, by the Canadian musician Caribou). If I need to lead a meeting that I want to bring positive energy to, I have a playlist with some songs that just make me want to dance and move. I’ll play that for a few minutes before the meeting and it shifts my energy. I have a friend who’s finishing his PhD in Psychology who’s looked at the effects of lyrics on emotion — I geek over this type of stuff. What’s important is to think about – is music a tool for you? If so, what might you try to utilize music for shifting your energy? What songs help you feel the energy that you want to feel?

TOUCH:

I’ve already talked about EFT/Tapping, but some folks benefit from Fidget Toys, and others from soft and pleasant things to touch (example – a child’s stuffed animal). My wife keeps a small toy in her purse for School Board meetings, so that she has this as a tool to hold under the table to help her calm herself. By lightly rubbing the fur of the toy in her fingers, she’s able to calm herself when a fellow board member is saying something ignorant. This happens far more often that gets recorded in the meeting minutes.

The book Positive Intelligence, by Shirzad Chamine, proposes a tool of putting your thumb and fore-finger together lightly, and rubbing them to feel the ridges of your finger-prints.

I personally keep a few fidget toys at my work desk, things that enable “continuous movement” so that on days I’m feeling exceptionally distractible, I can have something in my hands that takes no focus, but that I can move.

What emotions do you feel when you hold a hot mug of coffee/tea? What emotions do you feel when you splash your face with cold water?

Does touch help you recover? What types of touch are important to you?

SCENT:

Smell is an often underutilized sense (or over utilized when considering teenaged boys). Certain scents are very powerful in evoking emotional responses. I find citrus-smells are really useful for me to feel lighter/more positive. Sweet and deep smells, like chocolate, help me feel a little more calm and want to move a little slower. Nature smells like sweet grass or cedar help me feel neutral and clean. If this is relevant for you, consider having a few very different things like scented candles, perfume/cologne, and scent defusers. The one caution around this tool is that there are plenty of folks who are “scent sensitive” — make sure you practice safe-scents.

SIGHT:

We live in a world saturated with images through TikToc, and Instagram — we are unconsciously aware of the importance of sight and our emotional state. Lets start creating some conscious competence around it. What are the colours that you find calming? Personally Blues and Greens are really important for me — I have a photo of palm trees with a blue sky background on my phone. It’s a photo that just looking at evokes a feeling of “beach” (now, I just think “Ken”, and I’m almost there). I have a 30 second video I took at an aquarium 5 years ago of jelly-fish swimming – blue water and orange jellyfish – this video is a great way for me to both calm and feel energized. If you are someone who’s visually minded (a closeted artist/photographer), utilizing sight cues can be a great recovery tool.

TASTE:

Chocolate.

That’s it

Well, maybe I’ll say a little more — specifically, are there tastes that create emotional reactions for you? This is part of the old appeal of a cigarette — you’re mindfully breathing, tasting something, and getting an energizing dose of a stimulant. Does coffee or tea do it for you? What is a taste that you enjoy enough to focus on for 10-15 seconds, just to be fully present to the taste? Gum? Sour-patch kids? Kombucha, you monster? (I can’t stand the stuff, but to each their own – oh, and don’t go for other Fermented beverages — I’m wanting to suggest things that are safe for work). The point isn’t “what you taste”, it’s “what emotion is evoked in me as I taste this”.

THAT’S IT

In summary — when we’re trying to recover from something difficult, before we step into focused work we need to acknowledge:

1. Context Switching (it’s going to take time)
2. Our nervous system will impact how fast we switch
3. We have the ability to leverage our nervous system through intentional tools to speed up activation of our Parasympathetic nervous system by connecting to the body.

So, if you have 30 minutes to do focused work, assume you can do something like the following timeline:

Minutes 0-5

• Breathing practice (2-Minutes)
• Physical embodiment practice (eg. moving/stretching for 3 minutes to music)

Minutes 5-8

• Setting clear goal for your time (what do you want to accomplish)
• What “energy” do you want to bring? (Calm, excited, curious, passionate, etc.)
• What do you need to remember from the last time you worked on this?

Minutes 9-25

• Do the work

Minutes 25-30

• Quick review of take-aways you want to remember
• Note Next-Steps
• Finish with short breathing practice to start transitioning to next task

CREATING YOUR PRACTICE

Information is cheap. Action/ritual is where the magic lives. What’s one thing you want to experiment with for the next week? What would you like to learn from the experiment? Go do it.