The coronavirus has wreaked havoc not only in our physical world and economical world, but also in our emotional world. Feelings of anxiety, fear and even panic and terror are everywhere.
These feelings make us want to move with urgency. This is especially true when there is a lot at stake in our personal and professional lives. However, this biological state causes fragmented attention. We are having difficulty making decisions. We switch from one headline to the next and only half-read what we are reading -- all the time searching for a solution for our businesses, our families, and ourselves.
These emotions literally make us move more quickly. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense. When a tiger is chasing you, activating adrenaline and cortisol to run faster is evolutionarily adaptive. However, during a global pandemic, we mostly experience this speeding up mentally and emotionally. This fear-based emotional state compromises our ability to think clearly and make wise decisions. We are experiencing an exponential crisis. We are all struggling to keep up, even the best of us. Emotions change rapidly and are triggered by a host of stimuli. Some of these changes are conscious, but many are not so. It is common to change how we feel by the minute depending on where our attention is focused.
Yet to be effective, we need to make decisions from an anchored place. We need to dig deep into our principles of decision making, our consistent values, and use discernment to find reliable information. In order to do this, it requires us to regulate our own emotional responses. Our companies and our families need us to navigate through these uncertainties with a clear mind.
How can you do this?
Many of us know that emotions are really just sensations in our bodies. At times it can be difficult to change our emotions, but we can use our physiological wiring to change how we feel through our bodies. We can change our mind-state by changing our physiology.
Breathe
Notice your breathing. Notice if it is irregular. Irregular breath rates send our bodies into distress. Focus on inhaling and exhaling for the same duration. The depth of breath is secondary to its regularity. We can go deeper into a parasympathetic state when our exhales are longer than our inhales. Try exhaling for twice as long as your inhale. Try inhaling for the count of 4 and exhaling for the count of 8. (4 reps at a time)
Slow down . . . literally
Notice how quickly you are scanning through things, half reading, half listening, as if the urgency you are feeling will not allow you to focus on one thing. Move slower and fight the seduction that faster is better. More coffee will not make you think more clearly . . . it will only feed this urgency. Walk slower. Read slower. When we move slower we have the opportunity to notice more things. This is vitally important right now. We need our attention sharp and we need to notice as much as we can, and absorb as much data as we can. It is not okay to miss things at this stage of the game. Slow down.
TIP - Temperature, Intensive Exercise & Progressive Muscle Relaxation
When your mind is going too fast, try the following activities to activate your parasympathetic nervous system. PNS is the nervous system that calms you down after a stressful period.
T - TEMPERATURE EXTREMES
Use hot water to relax and calm down (warm washcloth, hot bath or shower) Use cold water to quickly activate your parasympathetic nervous system. (cold shower, face in ice water, ice cubes on pressure points) Wim Hof Method - Benefits of Cold Showers
I - INTENSIVE EXERCISE During stressful times our heart rate is accelerated. Using intensive exercise to spike the heart rate which will trigger a recalibration of your heart rate during cool down. (Try push ups, running up/down stairs or burpees) Try 30 sec. - 1 min. After the intensive episode, lay down on the floor with your feet resting in a chair, use an eye shade and perform a longer 4/8 breath session. Getting your legs above your heart will trigger your vagus nerve, and send you deeper into a resting state. Perform for 3-5 minutes.
P - PROGRESSIVE MUSCLE RELAXATION When we are emotionally tense, we inadvertently tense our muscles. Systematically tensing muscles and releasing them can help calm our emotional state. Start with hands, squeeze tight, release… forearms tense . . . relax.
During times of crisis, we want to respond quickly and efficiently. As variables change and new information is gathered, we need to be able to take decisive action. When we take the time to slow down our physiology, we can gather our attention, our resources and our teams deliberately.
Leaders, we have been trained for this. Lead . . . but first . . .slow down and anchor.