Posts Tagged ‘how to relax’

Improve your Relationships: Validate the Other Person’s Position

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Everyone has their own point of view.

While this may seem like an obvious statement, failure to acknowledge the validity of the other person’s perspective is one of the top ways that disagreements escalate into conflict.

When a friend, a co-worker or a family member disagrees with you, it is easy to slip into a win/lose mentality.  Either you’re right and you win or they’re right and you lose.  No one wants to be a loser, so it’s easy to get locked into the rightness of your position.  Things can quickly escalate into angry conflict when both people get stuck in this behavior.

The truth is that in most situations, both positions have validity.  The trick is to be willing to recognize and acknowledge that the other person’s point of view is plausible, even though it differs from your own.

To do this it is crucial to remember that every person has their own point of view.  The other person simply sees things or does them differently from you.  They have been doing things a certain way all of their lives, just as you have.  Their way has worked perfectly well for them, just as yours has worked for you.

Just because one person’s viewpoint or way of doing something works doesn’t mean that the other person’s does not.  You can both be right.  When you keep this in mind, it is easier to take disagreement at face value, rather than experiencing it as a put-down or an attack.

When you validate the other person’s position, it makes it much more likely that they will be willing to consider your point of view, as well.

When you are able to experience disagreement in this way, you and the other person can move beyond a win/lose position – your way or their way – to a win/win exploration of what’s the best way to deal with the situation at hand.

Instead of being adversaries, you become a team, addressing the challenge together.  Conflict is avoided.  What’s more, by drawing on the best of both positions, you are likely to come up with a solution that works for both of you, a solution that will probably be better than anything either of you would have come up with on your own.

You win, the other person wins, the relationship wins and you will be making your good life better!

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Ways to Channel the Energy You Spend Worrying

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Focus your attention in the present.

When you worry you are lost between your ears.  You are focused on some feared outcome in the future.  Though these thoughts and feelings may consume you, whatever you are imagining is less real than what is around you.  Take a deep breath.  Turn your attention to your surroundings. Notice anything in your environment that you can appreciate – the beauty of nature, someone you love, some music you really enjoy.  Whatever your worry, it’s a hypothetical situation off somewhere in the future.  The moment you are living in is real.  It is a gift.  That’s why it’s called the present. Appreciate it fully.  It’s really all you have.

Focusing in the present helps to put what you are worrying about into a larger perspective.  You can see that while your concern is a part of your life, it is only one part of a much larger whole.  When you focus on what works in your life, you diminish the power of your worry.  When you re-channel your worry energy in more positive directions, you’ll be sure to make your good life better.

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Ways to Channel the Energy You Spend Worrying

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Keep a Worry Journal

Keep a journal in which you record all of your worries.  You can carry a small notebook wherever you go and keep a running account of your worries throughout the day.  Or you might want to keep a notebook next to your bed and each night before you go to sleep record the major worries of the day.  Worries have a way of circling endlessly in your head.  One worry can seem like twenty when it comes around again and again.  When you write your worries down they become more manageable.  Sometimes a worry loses its power when seen in black and white.  You can go back over your worry journal weekly or monthly.

It can be extremely instructive to review your worries and notice the actual outcome in each situation.  Often the things you worry about never occur.  Other times they happen but you handle them just fine. This powerful lesson in reality can help you reduce your worry in the future.

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Ways to Channel the Energy You Spend Worrying

Monday, July 12th, 2010

1. Give yourself high quality worry time.

You may actually value your worrying.  After all, worry can feel protective.  Considering every possible negative outcome can give you confidence that there will be no unpleasant surprises.  The problem comes when worry takes over your life, intruding at any moment of the day or night to distract you from what you really need to focus on.Instead of letting worry take over, set aside brief periods throughout the day devoted to high quality worry.  It’s up to you to decide how often you need to worry and how long each period should last.  You might want to devote the last five minutes of every hour of your waking day to high quality worry, or you might prefer 20 minute sessions morning, afternoon and evening.

During high quality worry time you focus all of your attention on whatever you’re anxious about.  You can allow yourself to get as worked up as you want about anything that’s bothering you.  Once the designated time is up, you turn your attention back to whatever needs to be done in your life.  If worry intrudes at any other time in the day, you very patiently and gently remind yourself that now is not the time to worry.  You turn your attention back to whatever it is that you were doing, confident that before long you will once again have some high quality worry time available to devote yourself wholeheartedly to your concern.  If the schedule you initially choose doesn’t work for you, modify it until you find one that does.  As you practice high quality worrying, you may gradually decrease your sessions in length or frequency.

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Three Ways to Relax and Restore Life Balance

Monday, January 11th, 2010

We are all hard wired to work hard and then to recuperate from our exertions. Just watch a young child to observe this natural cycle so essential to life balance.  They run around like crazy and then conk out.  While taking a nap may not be practical for you, there are ways to relax that take only a few moments.  You will return to work refreshed, with renewed ability to accomplish what you need to do.

Failure to honor this rhythm is a major source of stress.  When you drive yourself hard throughout your day, going from one activity to the next with no respite, you put demands on your body and your mind that they were not designed to handle. Over time this stress can lead to burnout.  Yet reestablishing your necessary life balance is easy to do.

In an earlier post, we discussed the benefits of taking a short walk.  Here are three additional ways you can relax and restore balance to your life.  Each of these exercises takes less than 10 minutes to do.

To gain maximum benefit, make sure you will not be interrupted.  Turn off your cell phone and let those around you know that you are not to be disturbed.  You may need to leave your office or work station to find a quiet spot.  You will be able to relax more deeply confident that nothing will bother you.

1.    Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR):

PMR entails tensing and relaxing various muscle groups in turn.  It doesn’t matter whether you start at your head and work down or your feet and work up.

For each muscle group – your eyes, your jaw, your neck and shoulders – you tense the muscles you are focusing on as hard as you can, hold that tension for a moment and then release it.   Repeat this process with each muscle group in turn.  The power of PMR comes from the rebound effect that enables muscles which have been tensed to relax more deeply.

An additional benefit of PMR is increased awareness.  PMR teaches you notice muscular tension when it occurs in your body.  You will recognize those muscle groups where you habitually hold tension.

Check out these muscle groups throughout the day.  If you notice tension tighten those muscles even further, and then relax them deeply.  Over time you will train your muscles to remain relaxed even when you are under stress.

2.    Imagine Relaxation Throughout Your Body:

You can achieve relaxation by simply imagining calm and peace reaching every part of your body.  Imagine yourself breathing in calm and peace.  Imagine that tranquility circulating throughout your body, the way the oxygen you breathe finds its way to every cell in your body, with no effort whatsoever on your part.  Then, with each exhalation, imagine yourself breathing out any stress or tension.

Or you can imagine relaxation like a warm liquid that flows gently down over your head, bringing calm and peace as it reaches every part of your body.

3.    Calm Scene:

Imagine a scene that for you is very calming. For many people this is a beach scene. Others find themselves in a beautiful meadow, or in bed on a lazy morning with nothing to do and no where to go.

Carefully observe everything you see and hear and smell and feel in your calm scene.  Really relax into the comfort you find here.

By imagining your calm scene at the conclusion of practicing PMR, you will come to associate the scene with the deep feeling of relaxation you achieve.  Then, when you do not have the time to go through the entire PMR exercise, you will be able to experience deep calm simply by immersing yourself for a moment or two in your calm scene.

Practicing these relaxation techniques repeatedly – at least once and preferably twice or three times a day – will help you improve your life balance.  Relaxation is like any physical skill.  The more you practice it, the better you will be at it and the easier it will become.

You will find that you are better able to deal with stress.  You will be more focused and productive when you return to your work.  All of this will make your good life better.

Jeannette Samanen, Ph.D.
Jeannette’s professional development began with graduate school at the University of Oregon.  Her first post-doctoral position was at the Boston University School of Medicine where, as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology), where she specialized in stress management and behavioral medicine.  Jeannette has had over 30 years of experience as a life coach and psychologist and derives great pleasure from helping clients transform their lives for the better.

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