Dialogue at Humainologie 1514 Seventh Street SW this coming Wednesday and a book synopsis

Hello Dialogue Artists,

This coming Wednesday October 2 we’ll again be at the Humainologie Gallery & Store, 1514 Seventh Street SW, starting at 6 PM. A book synopsis is appended to this email.

Last Wednesday we covered two topics very productively: 1) How might a group of Calgarians in financial distress collaborate to solve the problem? 2) How do you set your priorities each day and then go about accomplishing them?

Here’s a short menu for this coming Wednesday:

1. (Your topic here)

2. If you had to choose one movie for our dialogue group to watch and discuss, which movie would you choose? Why that particular movie? How would you lead the discussion?

3. What are some brilliant ideas for enhancing the connections among Calgarians over the year ahead?

4. Should our dialogue group be paying more attention to local, national, and international news? If so, how might we use the newspapers (or other sources of “news”) to best advantage (to become more knowledgeable and more creative as global citizens)?

5. It’s been said that those who do not know the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them. Should we be paying more attention to “history”? If so, how might we approach our collaborative learning about and discussion of historical events and issues?

Book: (Elizabeth Anne Scott) 8 Keys to Stress Management (2013)

The author is a wellness coach. She introduces the book with a distinction between good stress (or “eustress”) and bad stress (distress). Your wedding day and various athletic activities are potential sources of good stress. Yet such experiences can also deplete your body’s reserve, so use them in balance. Stress can be acute (includes both good and bad stress experiences, from a basketball game to a flat tire on a dark night). Stress can be episodic or chronic. An occasional encounter with a relative who gets on your nerves is episodically stressful, usually easier to manage than chronic stress from such things as living with someone who belittles you constantly.

Stress can have physical effects such as lowered immunity, or cardiac or digestive tract dysfunction. It can have other kinds of effects such as impatience, frustration, or hostility. Managing your stress skillfully can make a big difference. “To adequately manage stress, we must…change the circumstances we can reasonably alter and adjust our ways of looking at and responding to the challenges that are left.”

The First Key: Become aware of your stressors. Being aware of our sources of stress is essential for managing them. If most of our lives are in equilibrium, we may quickly recognize a stressor. However, when we are chronically stressed from various sources, we may reach a state of learned helplessness, and give up efforts to change things. We may even fail to recognize sources of stress such as a work environment with low recognition. Suggesting possibilities for managing such stressors (e.g. building a network of supportive friendships outside work), the author then addresses others (e.g. toxic relationships or stressful caregiver situations; hectic schedules; and life adjustments like death of a spouse, divorce, incarceration). She mentions thinking patterns that undermine our resilience, such as rumination or cognitive distortions (addressed in detail in the Fourth Key). Journaling is one of her “activities to try” which she includes in several parts of the book, with various ways the journal can be used.

The Second Key: Learn to quickly reverse your stress response. One of the author’s clients was a man who was sometimes caught in a traffic jam after a stressful day at work, compounding his stress. After her counseling, he turned the traffic slow-down into an opportunity for listening to music he enjoyed and focusing on the present moment and his breathing. Scott explains that the fight-or-flight response that evolved to deal with real danger can also be triggered by the perception of a danger, even when none exists. She describes exercises such as short meditation breaks (5 or 10 minutes), progressive muscle relaxation, visualization, breathing exercises, and other activities to try. Finding support from a good friend (our empathic listening in Calgary) can help. She also suggests using a journal to evaluate the efficacy of each activity.

The Third Key: Take care of your body. An increase in workload at her job led one woman to stop going to the gym. Working with Elizabeth Scott, she was able to restore her exercise program and other self-care strategies. “Within a matter of days, she felt happier, more energetic, mentally sharper, more patient, and better able to take on the stresses of her new job responsibilities.” With increased demands on our time we may abandon healthy habits and begin eating more fast food, skipping exercise, and getting less sleep. Indeed, proper nutrition, exercise, and sleep are the major points of emphasis in this chapter, and it’s worth recalling that the books on preventing the onset of cognitive decline, The Alzheimer’s Solution (Sherzai) and The End of Alzheimer’s (Bredesen) both emphasize the same essentials. Small changes can make a big difference in your health and happiness.

The Fourth Key: Get into the right frame of mind. Two students get the same low grade on an exam. One is discouraged by it, the other is inspired to do better. We cannot eliminate all the stressors in our lives, but sometimes we can choose to think of them as challenges rather than threats. People differ in five personality factors: Openness to new experiences, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, and neuroticism. These traits are largely “inborn”; and yet we may be able to alter them by 40 -50% in a direction of our choice. An optimist can do this better than a pessimist. Cognitive distortions (overgeneralization, disqualifying the positive, jumping to conclusions, etc.) can undermine our resilience in the face of stress, as can rumination. An important caveat is that some situations will take a physical and psychological toll regardless of our frame of mind. Activities to try: Thought-stopping, journaling, and mindfulness. An example of a thought-stopping exercise is to visualize a STOP sign (in as much detail as possible) every time you catch yourself in one of the thought patterns you’re trying to modify. Control the old pattern of thought by automatically replacing it with a STOP sign visualized in beautiful detail.

The Fifth Key: Cut down on stressors when possible. The major stressors such as a lousy job or marriage may be extremely difficult to eliminate. So first turn your attention to the “small stuff” such as “the annoying friend who can’t take a hint, the messy desk…, the weekly commitment we always seem to dread.” Scott refers to these as tolerations – the small stuff we simply tolerate. If the big stressor is too big to tackle right now, work first on controlling the tolerations. Set boundaries for friends and co-workers; put your workspace in order; set aside time each day for a brisk walk and thinking about reasons for gratitude. Be proactive. If something must be done, do it in a timely series of steps. Even if the big stressor is still there, you’ll be strengthening your ability to manage it if you first clean up the small stuff.

The Sixth Key: Cultivate healthy relationships. This chapter begins with a Swedish proverb: “Shared joy is double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.” Supportive relationships “promote not only stress relief, but also physical health and longevity.” We have people in our lives who “take the wind out of our sails” and others who give us a high and a high five when we need one. Healthy relationships have been referred to as the “holy grail of happiness,” enriching our lives in many ways. “Healthy relationships deliver enhanced health, increased longevity, …and reduced levels of stress, while toxic relationships engender stress and can [damage] our health.” Yet even our best friends are imperfect. Developing relationship skills, for example polite yet firm communication of your boundaries, is essential. Learn to listen first, then speak; to cool down when necessary; and always be respectful of the other person. Sometimes it’s important to stop seeing an acquaintance, letting them know you still care about them but must bid farewell. Being in a lively social group can be valuable, not least because it’s a means of meeting new people. Try to contribute to the other person’s well-being at least as much as they contribute to yours.

The Seventh key: Put positive psychology into action. “Flow,” popularized by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is part of the Seventh Key. Flow happens in association with gratifications, i.e. “activities that employ our special skills and talents.” Gratifications produce eustress and build our self-esteem. They challenge us at just the right level, and we become totally absorbed. In this “near-meditative state,” we “lose track of time and self-consciousness, and we feel less stressed when we are finished.” Gratifications might come from gardening, games of strategy, or many other kinds of activities depending on who you are. Pleasures (vacations, desserts, movies, games, dining out) are also important in positive psychology, but differ from gratifications in several ways. Gratifications require more effort; their benefits increase over time (pleasures gradually lose their strength); and their benefits increase with repetition (as your skills in that activity increase). Alongside pleasures and gratifications, Scott recommends cultivating gratitude in various ways, including timely expressions of gratitude to other people.

The Eighth Key: Practice long-term resilience-forming habits. Here the author uses examples of meditation, exercise, and journaling, going into detail about each as a potentially valuable long-term habit to cultivate as a means of stress management.

This book is an excellent resource. I’d suggest coming up with one or two more “keys” of your own. Finding my purpose in life (as emphasized by psychiatrist Viktor Frankl and other authors) would be one of mine. Frankl quotes Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can endure almost any how.” That should help.