Twenty-one: Reasons to Live

          What’s the meaning of life?  Why are we here?  There can be a lot of different answers to that.  Here’s mine.  I’ve got four.

          The first is to love.  When you move forth with love, it brings out the best in you.  This is easier than it is hard, though it does include forgiveness, which takes strength.

          The second is to do some good.  This supersedes making money, though there’s nothing wrong with that.  The idea is to combine the two.

          The third is to achieve perfect irony.  This one is a bit harder to explain, but if you think of irony as a bit of contradiction, a bit of coincidence, with a twist, then you realize that it’s noticing and embracing when life goes a little wrong, and seeing the funny side of it.  Giving the little difficulties of life a wash of humor makes them that much easier to bear, and to overcome.

           And finally, number four is to gather as much information as you can.  About anything.  We’re talking brain candy.  Learn things, all sorts of unrelated, interesting things.  You never know when you’ll use it.  But you don’t have to.  When you hear some unusual tidbit, go find out more.  This is how to be truly rich. 

          When you think of some reasons, please let me know.   It goes with number four.

                                      As you think, so it shall be.

                                                  Happiness.

Twenty: Daily Relaxers

          No time for yoga?  Best friend unavailable for a chance to vent?  Too active to sit and meditate?  Quotidian practices, however small, serve to alleviate extra daily stress.

          The little things add up, such as a good night’s sleep.   Adequate rest keeps us going and able to face the challenges of the day.  The Egyptians and Romans ate lettuce to promote sleep.   Lactucarium in lettuce promotes relaxation.  But since lettuce is not a common bedtime snack, consider boosting melatonin levels during the day, a hormone created by the pineal gland that regulates circadian rhythms.   Make sure you get enough B vitamins, and soak up some sunlight.   

          Another of nature’s subtle tranquilizers is magnesium.   Mid-night waking is the perfect setting for dark thoughts.   Magnesium gets depleted when we are very stressed, eat too many sugary foods, and imbibe too much alcohol.  Broiled tuna and halibut, artichokes, bananas, and dried figs, brown rice, barley, oats, and buckwheat, prune juice, dairy foods, nuts, cooked spinach, pumpkin seeds, and tomato paste provide a good dose.  Roll over and go back to sleep.

          The stress from a tough day can be easier to bear with a drink – of hot or cold chamomile tea.  The calming effects from this old remedy should not be underestimated, especially for those who suffer chronic anxiety.  The amino acid glycine in chamomile acts as a low level muscle and nerve relaxant.  The synergistic outcome is a result of the mind-body connection.  If the body is calmed, the mind follows suit, and of course the reverse is also true. 

          The power of a hug is medicinal.  Cortisol levels are lowered, and blood pressure goes down.  When huggers hold on for at least twenty seconds, and full relaxation occurs, the benefit is obvious.  Touch communicates with the cerebellum to trigger positive emotion.  Virginia Satir, family therapist stated, “We need four hugs a day for survival.  We need eight hugs a day for maintenance.  We need twelve hugs a day for growth.”  True or not, her belief in a hug’s potency makes you think.  In the absence of a co-hugger, hug a pet, a pillow, yourself when wrapped in a shawl. 

          Humming boosts mood, and is easier to get away with than, “whistling a happy tune” in public.  When we hum, nitric oxide levels are raised in the blood.  Nitric oxide has stress-reducing properties.  Focusing on a tune distracts your worried thoughts, too.  Humming is similar to purring.  It soothes.  Perhaps it’s catching.  Keep it soft.  Give it a try.

          The more we take small measures to help ourselves, the better we can attend to each other. 

                                               As we think, so it shall be.

                                                       Happiness!

Nineteen: Happiness is a Choice

Can it be this easy?  Well, no, you need to go through a process of thought before you can accept this basic truth. 

We can all accept the given that we are in control of what we want to think about, most of the time.  A simplistic metaphor is deciding which movie to view at leisure, at home.  Will we watch a flick that stimulates, warms, entertains?  Or watch a heart-wrenching, tragic, horror story that leaves us feeling bereft?  We have this choice every day, and night, as we try to sleep sweetly, and go back to sleep later after waking in the night, in our thoughts.

Why do we slip into the self-terrorizing arenas of thought that strain the psyche and make us feel that life is no fun?  Because we allow it.  We allow the burglar into the apartment.  We invite the vampire over the threshold.  The shark into the pool.  The fly into the ointment.  The, well you get the idea.

We forget that we have ‘executive control’ over what screens in our mind’s eye.  But this is where the heavy lifting comes in.  We have to exert that control.  We have to resist negative thoughts.  We can’t let the wolf blow down the house without some concerted efforts to prevent it, now can we?  This is one of those things that takes work to attain, but is so worth it.

To cut us some slack, thinking is habitual.  If our thinking has been on the negative side for decades, that’s a really strong current to swim against, at first. 

To begin, make the decision that that’s just what you’re going to do.  Dedicate yourself to it.  Tell yourself in the mirror out loud, every day, “I resist negative thoughts.”  Make it in the present tense.  Be active. 

Next, give yourself small successes.  Choose negative thoughts that aren’t that overwhelming, and wrestle with each of them in turn.  Contradict them.  Dis-empower them.  Minimize them.  Reject them.  Success gives you more strength – another way to say, “self-esteem.”  Collect these successes.   Write them down.  Remind yourself often that this is your new way of thinking about yourself, and about your life.

You are challenging unhealthy beliefs about living.  ‘Shoulds,’ ‘I can’ts,” and ‘buts’ put up walls that keep you from further evolution into a stronger, savvier, more logical person.

As you defy the little monsters in your head, you start to feel better.  It comes over you and becomes an established chosen way to think.  You are choosing happiness by not choosing despair.  Dispel one, you find the other.  You realize that happiness is in your nature all along.

Published in Etweek on September 7, 2012

Eighteen: Be Your Own Best Friend

          School.  The mental implications are endless.  The close to carefree days.  The resuming of daily social connections.  Flirting.  Schedules.  Long days.  Homework and projects and tests.  Stress.

          Children and parents, and college students all face the challenges ahead at the beginning of each academic year.  The right mental attitudes give you ‘extra help.’ 

          When you set out to be your own best friend your objective is to make life as easy to navigate as you can.  In essence, you take care of yourself in disciplined, savvy ways to avoid anxiety.  Key to this concept is readiness, preparation, and doing things ahead of time.  This means managing your time by doing assignments before they are due.  Just do it. 

          Don’t wait until the last minute!  Start collecting information for that report the week before.  Chip away at the writing, or designing, or studying, each day.  Even though it seems like you are punishing yourself by working ‘when you don’t have to,’ the benefits will become apparent later. 

First of all, there will be no all-nighters, or desperate consternation while trying to get it all done at once.  You will love yourself for the ease you have gifted yourself with.  Also, you will be able to deal with the unpleasant surprise of the forgotten test to study for, or the pleasant one of a social invite that you are free to attend.   This is having your hands on the reins.  This is how you build self-esteem.  You are worth the trouble.

As your own best friend, you also practice methods to handle stress when it does build up.  Smile often, even when alone.  You trick your endorphin levels into increasing and giving you a lift.  Finding some source of laughter each day, having a dose of nature, dancing or doing push-ups until you exhaust yourself, working out, and doing something creative are all endorphin-related too.

Venting to a confidant, and therapeutic writing, in which you express your worries and feelings work well.  Positive self-talk, such as saying “I will succeed” to yourself in the mirror, or in your head directs your steps to doing and feeling better.  Playing an instrument, meditating to achieve a state of stillness, and listening to music that boosts your mood are effective. 

And a little chocolate, chamomile tea, foods with omega-3 fatty acids (go look them up), and drinking milk before bed, soothe the mind.  As you have a snack, compile a list of things that make you happy.  Read it before you turn out the light at night to direct your thoughts away from stressful ones. 

The more you take care of yourself, the calmer and happier you will be.  Isn’t that what best friends are for?  

                                       As you think, so it shall be.

                                                   Happiness.

Seventeen: Gentle Attention

Gentle Attention

(published in the July 29-Aug. 11 edition of etweek)

          How exciting it is to be a participant in the Electronic Age!  An over-abundance of brain candy at everyone’s fingertips.   The capacity to work, study, play, or research at all hours.  For long hours.  Till we can’t focus on another word, or scene, or pixel.   This kind of food for thought can result in over-feeding.  We are wearying our brains to bits!

          And of course, mental fatigue reduces the ability to think logically.  We make poor choices.  We snap at a friend.  We eat and drink too much.  Ironically, we can’t sleep.   We become forgetful.   We nurse a bad mood.  We feel overwhelmed, and anxious.  Where’s the joy?

          The pursuit of a state of gentle attention is the answer.  Prolonged, focused attention is required for reading, problem-solving, watching TV, and conversation.  This is difficult to sustain without a personal cost.  All this concerted mental effort needs to be balanced by attention that is a gentle, relaxing awareness that captures your focus, but leaves your mind free to wander.   The way to achieve gentle attention is to spend time in the natural world.

          They don’t call it human ‘nature’ for nothing.  There’s our reminder.   It may take a little doing to make ourselves appreciate the habitat outside our door.   We’ve seen it a million times.  Now go and look again.  Register the different colors that are green.  Listen to the wind-in-the-trees sound.  All of the leaves have a different texture.  What’s living out there? 

          A trip to a new place adds novelty to natural.  The ocean is hard to ignore, and cleans the senses.  Natural sounds cancel out all of the noise we endure every day.  Sea spray gives you a healthy dose of iodine.  Long Islanders are rich in beaches. 

          Growing things affect us profoundly.  Go to the Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay and get a ‘plant high.’  Mingle softly with the flora, breathe in the subtle fragrances.  Notice what this does to your breathing, heart rate, and state of mind.

          And give in to the appeal of trees.  No, really.  Ancient cultures ‘bathed’ in forests.  The majesty and magnetism of trees, especially large numbers of them revitalizes your spirit.  A scientific reason is phytoncides, or wood oils apparent in the woods, which boost human immunity, and decrease human stress hormone levels.   And they’re beautiful.  Visit the Prosser Pines in Yaphank and remember where we once lived.

          Children know how to let their minds wander, effortlessly.  Adults need some coaxing.  Not all stress and anxiety needs verbal appraisal and relief.  This natural world is for you.  Now go.  Go!

Sixteen: Overcoming Worry

Overcoming Worry

By Anne Starnes Kingsbury  

          Human beings are the only creatures that worry.  We think that the ability to brood until our concerns become a desperate litany of fearsome threats is an enhancement of our self-defense systems.  So wrong!

          Many anxious people use worry as a protective talisman.  They believe that forecasting all dire possibilities is preventive.  If this were true, imagine the power we would have.  Far better to cross your fingers and avoid the mental fatigue of having to be aware of every menace, real or imagined.

          Excessive worry does not make you a better thinker.  It will not prepare you for the worst, nor help you to attain the best outcome.   The reality is, worry uses up mental resources.  Therefore, our problem-solving powers are weakened.  Worry is excessive emotional thinking instead of logical processing.

          Remaining in a state of hypervigilance, expecting the worst possibilities at any given moment to occur, allows negative thoughts to dominate our reality.  We are developing a bad attitude about living.  Continuous, long-term worry can become a period of depression.   

          A good approach to controlling the urge to drive ourselves to exhaustion with worrying is to follow these five steps:

1.     Challenge negative thoughts.  What is the immediate threat?   Do not exaggerate, catastrophize, or distort the situation before you.  Stay real to the facts.

2.     Let go of the fruitless need to worry.  Worry is a distraction.  It slows you down.  Do not believe that bad things will happen if you dispense with it.

3.     Be honest about what’s good.   This practice will strengthen you as you analyze the problem.  You must identify what is not going wrong, and be aware of positives. 

4.     Think creatively about solutions.  Don’t give up too quickly.  Make lists.  Sleep on it.  Do some research.  Talk it out.

5.     Take action, however small.  A powerful way to lessen anxiety is to do something.  Get informed about the situation.  Make a plan.  Calm yourself with a crossword puzzle, or by holding someone’s hand.  Do ten jumping jacks. 

Worry is an attempt to process fear.  But it is the wrong tactic.  We are wasting time.  The issues that concern us need to be dealt with, and at the same time we need to focus on positive parts of life too.  You deserve to think about pleasant events, interesting ideas, things that you want to do, and cultivate relationships with people who belong in your life. 

Stress is a normal part of living.  When stress becomes overwhelming, creating anxiety, information and support restore balance. Call 631-805-4529 to discuss a meeting to develop an individualized stress management plan that includes research for life issues and concerns.

Anne Starnes Kingsbury, MA, MS is a Stress Management Coach.  Look on facebook for “Effective Stress Management,” contact her on effectivestressmanagement@yahoo.com, and read her blog, http:/successoverstress.blogspot.com for practical ways to control stress and anxiety.

(This is the fourth article published in etweek, June 29, 2012.) 

Fifteen: Bad Mental Habits

         We all have a mental script that dictates the choices we make.  This script is based on family beliefs learned in childhood, on experiences that have made a significant impression, and on personality traits we have.  If this mental script is based on distorted thinking, we can live day to day with a depressive state of mind.

          A depressive mental script is based on repetition of negative stories about ourselves that we recite in our thoughts when circumstances bring them to mind.  For example, a person who has been criticized for mistakes made in childhood may believe he cannot go to college, or be successful, or move away from a poor neighborhood.   Another, who has a difficult time talking to women, may believe he is not meant to have a happy relationship.  Older people who base their self-esteem on the familiar ways of their youth may believe that the old ways were best, and decide that they want nothing to do with technology. 

          The repetition of stories that limit our abilities is actually a bad habit.  We allow ourselves to overgeneralize, which is viewing an incorrect belief, or a negative event as a prophecy.  This type of thinking insists that we must remain in a never-ending pattern of defeat.   Isolated incidents are used to create a bias that prevents personal growth.  A person may interpret the news of a friend’s job loss as good reason to stop seeking better employment.  The recession becomes part of a self-limiting script that prevents progress, and causes a sense of hopelessness.   

BREAKING FREE 

          This poem by John Boyle O’Reilly says it all.  

How shall I a habit break?           

As you did that habit make,        

As you gathered, you must lose, 

As you yielded, now refuse.         

                             Thread by thread the strands we twist,

                             Till they bind us neck and wrist,

                             Thread by thread that patient hand,

                             Must untwine ere free we stand.  

          We must painstakingly undo the snares we create for ourselves.  No laziness, insecurity, pigheadedness, or faint heart allowed!

          First, careful examination of your mental scripts is in order.   A good method is to view them as belonging to someone else.  Is the belief that a good job can’t be found really based in fact?  Is the notion enough to hold you back?  

It is necessary for you to reinterpret the rules that you have designed for yourself.  Two important ingredients that must be added to your mental mix are some self-love, and courage.  What good things do you want for yourself?  How hard is it to do what it takes and go for it?

Stop repeating self-limiting ideas to yourself.  Confront, contradict, and challenge them.  Test them.  Good mental habits, the kind that embrace possibility, and encourage effort, build self-esteem. 

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness

Fourteen: The Usefulness of Worry

The erroneous beliefs we have about the usefulness of worry keeps us willing to indulge in self-torment.  Many people think that constant worry is beneficial.  We think worrying must help us prepare for the worst, motivates us, and helps us analyze our problems.  We believe worrying must help us avoid negative outcomes, and promote positive ones. 

Believing these myths about worry is like believing in the usefulness of superstition.  There is no truth to it.  Worry does more harm than good.

However, people cling to the fruitless practice of worry as if bad things will happen if they don’t do it.  The fact is, our minds cannot problem solve effectively because we are using up mental resources needed to think clearly.  Continuous, long term worry can become a period of depression.  Dr. Burns in Feeling Good, his book about cognitive therapy states,

“During periods of depression you lose some of your capacity for clear thinking; you have trouble putting things into proper perspective.    Negative events grow in importance until they dominate your entire reality – and you can’t really tell that what is happening is distorted.  It all seems very real to you.  The illusion of hell you create is very convincing.”

Worry is an attempt to suppress fear.  But, the effort and thought that go into worry delays us from doing what we are supposed to be doing – processing emotion.  Emotion is processed by using logical thinking to understand it.  Feeling some emotional pain is normal and necessary, but remaining in that state is not.  Excessive, generalized worrying can become the norm in your everyday thinking.   The sensation of hypervigilance, feeling always on the ready for trouble makes you into a nervous wreck.

Another seldom-admitted reason to engage in worry is, it feels good.  It’s like over-eating.  As you do it you are enjoying yourself.   Then later, you have regrets.  Worrying is a self-indulgence.  Some may even argue that it is a twisted form of self-love because you feel you are standing up for yourself against your spouse, your friends, your acquaintances, the world.  The down side is you are making your mental habitat a darker, colder, more fearsome place than it needs to be. 

One way to stop this practice is to ask yourself if you would want your own child to feel this way.  Imagine the mind-set you would want your child to have, day-to-day, moment-to-moment.  You would want him or her to be resilient, and unburdened, and hopeful, and joyous.  These feelings cannot prevail when constant worry is going on. 

Don’t you want this for yourself?  Don’t you deserve to focus on positive events, interesting ideas, things you want to do, and cultivating relationships with people who belong in your life?  Try to think of yourself as your own child the next time you indulge in negative thinking.  You have the power to enjoy your life.

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness

Thirteen: Change Talk

Here’s proof that the words, “I can’t” work against you.  Language is an exclusive human way of processing information.  The predominance of positive or negative talk predicts the outcome of any effort.  I suppose we are in effect talking ourselves into things.

The more we voice the logic behind making a significant change, the more progress is made.  Negative talk stunts progress. 

We become convinced of our own convictions the more we repeat them.  If we repeat the logic for change, we adapt to and adopt it.  This ‘change talk’ must therefore progress to  ‘sustain talk’ to finally become ‘commitment language.’  Funny how scholars in psychology make up terms, but they are descriptive. 

'Change talk’ is also useful when challenging deeply ingrained ‘family fictions.’  This last term was coined by Dickens, but is a perfect description for myths that have been accepted as truth.  

An example would be a person who believes that he cannot take needed control over his own life because he must answer to family traditions.  He may not want to enter into the family business or profession.  ‘Change talk’ works to loosen the resistance to independent thinking.  The words, “I can’t” stunt personal growth, difficult as it may at first be.  Words like, “I will succeed in this new field when I get the required training to do the job” become a prediction that encourages freedom, action, and progress.

            As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness

Twelve: Neural Pathways

Why are certain trains of thought automatic?  How do we get locked into thinking the same negative thoughts over and over again?  Why do we keep obsessing over the same distressing topics even though we try so hard to stop?

Obsessive thoughts occur because when a new idea comes to our attention it becomes instilled in a neural pathway that becomes deeper and deeper with every repetition.  A neural pathway is the development of a network of brain cells that form in a pattern.  But how do these thoughts become a set pattern?  A neural pathway is created when we learn.  When the learning is emotional, it can be more intense.

A negative neural pathway is formed by emotional learning – the experience of a negative event, or from a stressful realization that may or may not be true.

A neural pathway is like a thin trail across the grass at first.  If the thoughts contain a lot of emotion, the trail attracts attention and is traveled more and more.  The trail becomes a dirt path.  It is getting deeper.  The more often your mind travels down this path, the easier it is to slip into it.  This can become obsession.

The reason negative neural pathways cause emotional pain and unease is that certain chemicals, such as the stress hormone cortisol, are released into the brain at high levels from distressing thoughts.  The more we travel down these paths of thought, the more high levels of these chemicals are maintained.  Anxiety is the result. 

However, the brain is plastic and ever changing, especially when we make a concerted effort to make it change.  If we avoid these negative trains of thought, the negative neural pathways ‘shrivel’ from disuse.  The way to do this is to consciously create positive neural pathways.  The positive, feel-good brain chemicals like serotonin, and endorphins are released into the brain, taking control of your mood.   

If this is so simple, why isn’t it easy to do?  To create a positive neural pathway you must think it over and over again, just as the negative pathway was created.  The emotional charge is not present though.  Therefore, practice is required.  Just as we practiced to drive, play an instrument, or take an exam, so we must have the discipline to repeat positive thoughts.  This constant reinforcement trains the brain to think more rationally. 

A helpful way to start a positive neural pathway is to write down positive ideas.  The focus on the new thoughts intensifies by using other senses.  A few days of ‘practice’ by writing directs you to return to these ideas mentally.  Your positive neural pathways deepen.  You experience concrete relief.

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness

Eleven: "Light theDarkness" published in etWeek

The March 11, 2012 edition of etWeek includes an article I wrote about managing stress:

Light the Darkness

By Anne Starnes Kingsbury

          Life is about balance, the equivalent of happiness.  To maintain balance requires constant adjustment as new circumstances come to our attention.  Stress depletes our cognitive reserve, the mental and emotional defenses we use against the assaults of living.   Cognitive reserve includes self-control, optimism, resilience, and the perception of significant social support.  

We’ve all heard about the evils of stress that damage the body and the psyche.   But almost the worst of the baleful list is that feeling of dread, the darkness of mind, the absence of joy that makes life worth living and the air smell sweet.  Unmanaged stress progresses into anxiety.  Anxiety can develop into hopelessness and depression. 

All is not lost!  We are all born with cognitive plasticity!  We can alter how we think, which alters how we process what we feel, which alters our subjugation to stress.  Our thought processing is plastic.  We can train the brain to perform in sound and strong ways to live in a stressful world.  Practice causes evolution.  Our neural pathways can be restructured to keep us peaceful and happy.

The mind is resilient, especially when it becomes educated in the ways of function, emotion, and thought.  When we know what to expect, have methods to process stress as it arises, and have adequate self-knowledge we are equipped to withstand all challenges. 

When disaster strikes:

Perspective is everything.  As we think, so it shall be.  When a distressing situation, or state of mind arises, we can immediately light the darkness by remembering that anxiety is magnified by uncertainty.  By acknowledging that fearing what might happen is escalating intense stress, the magnitude of the stress is reduced at once. 

The next step is to take mental control by not allowing catastrophic thoughts to create panic.  Deep breathing, three deep, slow breaths should do, reduces the pitch of the anxious state further. 

Finally, relaxing the mind and body enough to use logic instead of emotion to examine a worrisome situation, perhaps at a later time, keeps anxiety at bay.  Stress is managed by logical thinking.

Learning to alleviate stress improves every other ill that you will ever suffer.  Stress management is preventative.  All the clenching of muscles is reduced, which gives the body a break.  Stress related illnesses such as heart disease are minimized.  Social interaction is improved, which benefits your career, and those you love.  The unavoidable slings and arrows in life are met with a strong and courageous spirit.  

Ten: Benefit Finding

Reactions to a difficult medical diagnosis are fraught with extreme distress.  Especially in the beginning, worry over coping with the mental and emotional anguish can be just as bad as coping with the illness. 

An early, fairly automatic response to bad news about your health is to grieve.  You feel loss, of the perception of the person you once were.  This feeling passes.  Then it’s necessary to develop coping methods for what lies ahead.  One that is a form of self-encouragement is benefit finding. 

As you learn to accept a new normal that may include medical treatments, medicines, and a reliance on the medical community, benefit finding, which is the acknowledgment of any and all positives in the face of adversity, fosters positive emotional adjustment.  An example is, if you comply with taking meds, you will proceed to improvement.  Another is, if you find out as much as possible about the condition you have, you may take more charge over your symptom control.  

A caveat (warning) in using this coping method is, the benefit finding should be self-directed.  Other people in your life want to help.  However, their ideas of the positives can burden you because they want you to give ready agreement when you are not at the right mental and emotional place to do so.  The pressure to ‘cheer up and see the bright side’ can cause more distress.  Patience is very important. 

Benefit finding is an effective resource for adapting to illness, and is a mental defense against negative emotion.  As benefit finding buffers you from adverse experiences and negative emotional episodes, you develop a sense of meaning and self-worth.  If becoming ill steals your sense of dignity during periods of stress and tumultuous anxiety, benefit finding restores it.  

The outcome of this process is to become accommodated to your particular situation, and to build new life goals and priorities.  The positive mood this engenders enables you to engage in creative problem solving.  You become a better manager over your illness.  Benefit finding works best when it is used in compliance with your own terms and needs, at your own rate of progress. You learn that you can help yourself.

 As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness

Nine: Music Therapy

Mental and physical illness responds well to music therapy.  It’s interesting that Jung once pointed out that illness is ‘dis-ease,’ that is, we lose our sense of composure when we don’t feel well. 

Music can be used by the psyche to express the inexpressible.  It is nonverbal, or uses appropriate words, and is non-threatening.  Expressing emotional pain is an important destressor.  Emoting to music draws out intense feeling; the music seems to emote with you, and for you. 

Music brings about transcendence of symptoms – we rise above them, and regain composure.  Music therapy even helps to manage pain.  This is termed audioanalgesia, an analgesic or pain stopping effect from listening.  This works in three ways.

First, the emotional engagement fostered by listening to music distracts the attention from pain and discomfort.  Focus on the melodic and rhythmic tensions leaves less mental resources for pain perception. 

Second, we acquire a feeling of control over pain because we have an available, engaging way to deal with it.  We can use music as a medicinal treatment.

Third, we make associations with the music from memories we have.  The personal context we recall attaches meaning to the music, and makes it more potent.

With music therapy we can take an active part in healing ourselves.  I have turned to the power of music to help me be brave during a very difficult period of time.  For my needs, I wanted songs with words as well as melodies, that inspired and comforted.  I took a few days to create a list of songs that I found empowering.  My son burned a cd for me.  I played this cd so many times in the car on my way to stressful events.  The music was there for me, and reminded me that I could get through.  Doing this simple thing made me feel less powerless. 

                                         

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness

                                                    

Eight: Mood Congruence

Mood congruence is simply the tendency to seek experiences and ideas that confirm our mood.  If we are happy, we find delight in the slightest things.  If we are anxious or depressed, we think the world is an unpleasant place.  We do not see the world through rose-colored glasses.

Mood is so powerful that it dictates what we notice and focus on.  In this way, we maintain a negative mood by feeding it with more fuel to keep it burning out of control.  It’s as if we wish to justify how we are feeling by pointing out to ourselves, and others, proof that not only is there nothing to be happy about, but that there are abundant examples of misery, fear, and pain, everywhere.  We dig ourselves a hole to suffer in, usually alone.    

Awareness of this tendency is the first step in improving mood.  Force yourself to focus on something positive.  This is rather difficult when you are under a layer of negative thoughts, but it is worth the struggle.  One way to approach this, if you find yourself in a bad mood often, is to make a list of mood boosters ahead of time to refer to when you’re down.

This list may include rereading an engaging passage in a favorite book – have it marked and available, taking care of some small nagging task that will give you satisfaction, getting a nice, long, warm hug, or visiting an enchanting place.  Another potent way to improve your mood is to make plans.  Good plans and mental health go hand in hand.  Of course you have to allow yourself to let go of your worries, annoyances, and burdens and embrace ways to improve your mood.  Then, once you are focusing on positive things, you can create a chain reaction to sustain it.

This process is mind control.  You are managing your self. 

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness

Seven: Uncertainty

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a complex condition.  That said, the single most important factor to be managed is the inability to tolerate uncertainty.  Fear of an escalating ‘what if’ can drive a person to panic or despair. 

Uncertainty involves a preoccupation with minor details.  This preoccupation can assert itself as an obsession.  People enduring a period of uncertainty focus on what are deemed unfixable worries.  When they cannot arrive at an acceptable solution, they experience agitation and distress.  

The first thing to do when caught up in this state is to realize that uncertainty is the cause of the distress.  Bringing rationale into focus instead of runaway emotions creates an immediate level of calm.  The height of anxiety is lowered to a more endurable threshold.  Once a person has come this far, focusing on the present can lessen the feeling of threat even further.  ‘Be here now’ is a current catch phrase.  Realize that nothing is happening at this moment.  Then, when the stress of ‘what if’ is under control, perhaps at a later date, examine the problem logically.    

For example, the illness of a loved one can be a very uncertain time.  The possibility of a negative outcome sets off a chain reaction of worries.  The stress of the situation can become unbearable.  Realizing that uncertainty is magnifying the natural concern one is feeling prevents panic-filled thoughts.  Taking measures to self-soothe, such as having chamomile tea, going outside for a change of scene, and generally removing one’s self mentally and emotionally from the projected fearful future one has concocted works to establish calm. 

Increasing tolerance of uncertainty is a training process like any other.  Self-awareness, correction of erroneous beliefs about worry, better ways to analyze problems, and careful cognitive exposure or thinking about a problem are the necessary steps.

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness

Six: Cheerfulness

A good attitude.  Well adjusted.  Agreeable.  These characteristics are demonstrated by the general practice of cheerfulness.  The tone we portray during interaction with others has more import than we realize.  We are attracted to cheerful people.  We feel better when we are cheerful.  However, we don’t always feel that way.

A heavy schedule makes it hard to be cheerful.  Difficult people to deal with, skipping lunch, a gray day full of mood-suppressing positive ions in the air (negative ions improve mood), there are so many reasons, large and small that we cannot summon a cheerful thought. What to do?

William James, psychologist and philosopher wrote, “Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if cheerfulness be lost, is to set up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already here.”  If we adopt the attitude we wish to portray, if we become actors in our daily interactions, the cheerfulness becomes reality.  It’s personal power of suggestion.  And it gets easier.  The positive effects of cheerfulness, the higher regard from other people, the spring in your step, reinforces the forced attitude.  A little mental discipline can have a significant return.

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness

Five: Relaxation Training

Many people who suffer with anxiety believe strongly that the anxiety happens without rhyme or reason, arising from an unconscious source.  Anxious feelings seem to flood through the mind even when there is no anxiety-causing stimulus.  This belief fosters the hopeless idea that anxiety cannot be controlled, and creates more anxiety. This idea is false.  Relaxation training addresses unconscious anxiety on an unconscious level.

There is a reason why anxiety sneaks up on you.  It’s all about triggers.  Elements of a stressful event can be retained in memory.  These elements can act as triggers to cause anxious feelings later, although there is no present threat.  For example, if a child gets separated from a parent accidentally, in a public place, the noise of a crowd may become associated with the fear the child experiences.  The noise of a crowd may become a trigger that causes the adult who experienced this event as a child to feel automatic panic or intense anxiety.  The adult may be watching a movie, hear the noise of a crowd scene that reminds her of this long past event unconsciously, and feel extremely, inexplicably anxious.  The trigger causes the response.

To deal with anxiety triggers, we do not have to remember the details of long past frightful events.  We can train ourselves to relax on command, mentally, to quell physical tension.  Once muscle tension is lessened or eliminated, the feelings of dread will pass. 

There are varying methods of relaxation training to try.  One involves purposefully tightening, then relaxing muscle groups: facial muscles, arms, abdomen, etc.  The mental part of this training is to imagine stressful things – dental work, public speaking, as the physical relaxation is going on.  As the muscles are tensed then released, a word, such as ‘calm,’ is repeated mentally.  This becomes the conditioned command.  The association of the forced relaxation with usually stressful events serves to weaken the stress response in the body, and then in the mind. 

With relaxation, the anxiety does not escalate once it is triggered.  Escalation of anxiety is driven by additional catastrophic thoughts and the bodily tension that can cause sweating, and rapid heart beat.  The sufferer takes control by aborting the escalating stress with a concerted effort to physically relax by intoning the command word mentally to herself.

As with training of any kind, expertise is not attained over night.  Practice and faith in the technique are necessary.  We train to use computer software; we train for a marathon.  We should train to prevent anxiety attacks.  It’s worth the discipline, and is very empowering.   

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness

Four: Emotional Intelligence

Problems processing emotion are at the root of most mental disturbances.  The facets of emotional intelligence can be developed to enhance the process.

1. Self-awareness  An important thing to teach our children is self-awareness.  Often when people feel upset, part of the reason is physical.  We need to determine if we are tired, hungry, have some pain or discomfort from a headache, ill-fitting shoes, muscle strain, that exacerbates worries, and makes it more difficult to control behaviors toward others.  Next we should determine if other concerns in our private lives are trespassing into our public ones, and try to separate the emotions.  Self-awareness can be termed self-honesty.

2. Managing emotions  Self-awareness leads to self-management.  We must keep our emotions appropriate to the situation we are in at present.  The motives of our emotions are, again, subject to an honest appraisal – are they skewing our thoughts and behaviors?  The complex business of dealing with fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, etc. should be an ongoing, behind-the-scenes task.

3. Motivating self  An empowering way to manage emotion is to channel it in the service of a goal.  That saying about ‘the tough get going’ is a perfect metaphor for this concept.  This cannot be taken too lightly.  This is a major method of processing emotion effectively!

4. Empathy  Without this crucial element, relationships are flawed. 

5. Handling relationships  An important skill to nurture is social competence.  A socially competent person manages the emotion in others.  To do this, one must manage the emotion in one’s self.  A competent social manager avoids conflict, acknowledges the other person’s concerns, maintains an upbeat tone, and does not feel disparaged, intimidated, or controlled by being agreeable.

Cultivating emotional intelligence is sort of like taking inventory during social interactions.  We can only change, or control ourselves, not others.  However, we can manage interactions by managing the emotions in our selves.

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness