How To Find Balance Around Work & Stress

How To Find Balance Around Work & Stress

Refocusing on the body took away stress, anxiety, and thinking negative thoughts about ourselves. It turned it into feeling relaxed, feeling at ease, and feeling well-being. - Dr. Epel.

The Epel Lab did an intervention study on a highly-stressed group. After 8 weeks, everyone felt less stress and anxiety. Eight years later, they still have better mental health. 8 years! It's one of the longest studies looking at mental health and showing significant improvements.

They asked the group to take tiny, mindful breaks throughout their stressful day. Whenever they felt overwhelmed by family responsibilities or confused at work, they'd pause for a minute. Close their eyes. Take a few deep breaths. And continue with their day.

Why did this work? When you're in 'go' mode, you are subject to believing stressful thoughts that come. You get fooled into thinking that you need to keep ruminating and limiting yourself. This makes you more stressed.

The mindful check-in, however, makes you look inward. It activates your interoception. It makes you aware of what's going on in your brain/body and helps you break the loop at a physiological level. So, do this now.

Pause, close your eyes, and take a deep breath. It takes 10 seconds. Do it!

You'll enter a calm state immediately. And whenever a stressor comes during the day, you can maintain inner peace.

You could put reminders in your environment to always come back to the practice. Maybe add it to your to-do list, put a note on your desk, or change your wallpaper to "take a mindful break".

Take mindful pauses during the day.

Here's the clip from the podcast.