To manage stress, stop fighting and welcome the unpleasant feeling.
We are a dozen of people gathered in the Boardroom at the Impact Hub Geneva, visualizing a full e-mailbox in front of us after a relaxing vacation. When we think of attacking the task, what words come to mind? 30 seconds to list them!
A positive psychology coach Delphine Wolf asks, how many positive and negative words came to mind. Some participants, yours truly included, managed to write down absolutely zero positive expressions.
“This is how our brain works”, explains Delphine Wolf, who is here today to share her special skill; stress management.
She explains that stress is often perceived as a negative thing, but there is a way to turn that around. First of all, we should stop fighting stress and welcome it. According to some studies, only 10 % of stress is due to external factors, and the remaining 90 % is actually linked to our reaction to stress. So 90% of stress is inside our heads!
Delphine Wolf explains this also in terms of external noise and internal noise. External noise can be information that is not correct, that is hypopthetical or just not useful for you at this moment – but it still affects our way of thinking and feeling. And then there is internal noise: our way to react to things.
After the skillshare I took the time to list ways to reduce noise in my life and decided to apply them from now on:
- I reduce external noise that comes from interruptions: e-mails, social media etc. I check all that only 3 or 4 times a day, at dedicated moments. Not every five seconds like I usually do.
- I start listing successes and positive feedback that I get. This helps me identify the positive things from the noise of negativity.
- Before a demanding task, I take 2 minutes to breathe, concentrate and take a positive mindset. It is important to do that mindfully.
Here are some other tips from Delphine and other participants:
- Take a power pose before a demanding task, like attacking that full e-mailbox or before an important meeting or job interview. Stand straight, in good posture and put your hands on your hips. Feel more powerful already, don’t you?
- While driving a car, spend a moment without radio. Also applicable to all of you wearing headphones every day during your train ride! Those podcasts can be inspiring, but your brain needs some rest, too.
- Tune out notification sounds from your e-mail and other applications. Even better: delete those colorful pastilles, too.
- Launch a positive things challenge with a friend: you both make a vocal memo every evening about the good things you have experienced that day and send them to one another.
- Physical activity helps. It can be any sport you love from dancing to football.
Have a subject of interest you want to discuss / share with others?
From IT to fostering collaboration, social media strategy, urban agriculture and health & wellness, we are crowdsourcing topics prior to the event: feel free to propose any subject that you think might interest others! Contact our Community Catalyst, @Ashleigh Armstrong!
Skillshares are Impact Hub member-only events. If you want to have your share about this goodness, join our community!