Relax: It Will Help Solve Your Problems

By Dr. Doreen Stern aka "The Life Docktor" | Last updated Oct 24, 2009, 10:15 pm

Take Control: Change Your Life in 17 Minutes
Seven Steps to Staying Sane in Challenging Times

Watching TV and reading the newspaper sometimes makes me shudder: the national debt, when piled up, may stretch out past the moon. It’s enough to make me feel frightened. Afraid of the future.

Yet Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s words are as true today as they were nearly 80 years ago: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Because fear – and the stress it causes – paralyzes you. Stress cuts off access to your rational, creative brain. As a result, you’re unable to consider options. To solve problems. Even to evaluate what today’s changing conditions mean to you. Instead, you’re frozen in place, hyperventilating, with a pounding head and tense muscles.

Seven steps can help you regain your equilibrium and feel more optimistic. Choose one or all.

1. Relax your body. Walking around the block for 17 minutes will release the tension in your body and clear your mind. Your breathing will slow and the pounding in your head subside. Also, sunshine increases your body’s production of vitamin D, which elevates your mood and promotes a positive outlook.

2. Smile. “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,” observes philosopher Thich Nhat Hanh, “but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.” Research confirms this. You can improve your mood by smiling. Smile and you’ll feel happier.

3. Stand up straight. Remember how your parents used to tell you to stand up straight? Turns out they were right. Not only will good posture make you feel more confident, it will increase your concentration and mental ability.

4. Remind yourself of your past successes. Think of 7 things of which you’re proud: your kids, family, friendships, education, goals you’ve set and achieved, as well as adversities you’ve overcome. Think of ways you’ve been kind to others. These positive thoughts will increase your self-esteem. And you’ll feel more optimistic about how things will turn out in the future.

5. Describe the life you choose to have. Take out 7 index cards and write on each of them one thing you desire in your life. Have you always wanted to travel to a foreign country? Go back to school? Been dying to start an exercise program? Make new friends? Be in an intimate relationship? When you write down your dreams, you’ll feel more motivated to make them become real.

6. Take a small step. Ask yourself: What’s the tiniest step you can take today to achieve the results you want? Not a huge lunge. No, a step so small you cannot fail. Take that step today. Your confidence will soar.

7. Identify one thing that’s holding you back. Did you promise to get back to someone and not do it yet? Do you have a stack of business cards on your desk or a pile of receipts to address? Have you been putting off making a dentist’s appointment? Address one thing now. You’ll feel more successful and believe in yourself more.

Write down, in the comment box below, one thing that’s holding you back. I invite you to spend 17 minutes today addressing it.