Tip: Change Your Perspective

There is an old, wooden roller coaster in Kennywood park just outside of Pittsburgh that is famous with coaster aficionados from around the world. Rather than beginning the ride with a climb up a clickity, clackity slope, the Thunderbolt plummets 95 feet into a natural gorge. If you don’t know what to expect, you never catch your breath for the entire ride. After the first shock, the brief respite during the next climb is completely undermined by anticipation of the next drop. I feel almost certain that whoever coined the phrase emotional roller coaster had the Thunderbolt in mind.

The element of surprise feeds a good deal of power into our emotional response to any event. Once in motion, we are like the riders of the Thunderbolt who find it difficult to compose themselves. Our bodies automatically begin to produce and react to natural chemicals that make clear thinking difficult. Time and emotional distance are required before we can benefit from hindsight and realize that it wasn’t as bad as it had seemed.

Early in my career, I lived with a young family in New York. One warm summer evening, as we were taking a walk, the family’s little girl, Iris, was suddenly taken by a fit of frantic hysterics. Through gut-wrenching sobs she explained that she had lost her ring.

When Iris realized that the ring was gone, she was on the emotional version of the Thunderbolt. All of the natural reactions to stress, fear, loss, and grief came into play. It took considerable intervention to get her off that ride. It took her father picking her up and holding her tight. Her mother caressed her head and murmured comforting words. There were promises of a new ring, candy and ice-cream treats, and trips to the park.

To the adults, the value of that ring was negligible. On a practical level, it was a worthless piece of plastic that had come out of a gumball machine earlier in the day. To Iris, on the other hand, it meant so much more. Imagine the anticipation she must have felt when she turned the knob on the gumball machine and the excitement when that treasure of great beauty fell into her palm. Imagine too, how putting it on had made her feel beautiful and special.

Iris was only four years old. She couldn’t possibly have distanced herself enough to realize that the ring was just a piece of plastic, one of hundreds in that machine that would still be there the next day. She’d never be able to comprehend that the loss of that her ring was really insignificant compared to some of the others that she would experience later in life. Now that she is a grown woman with children of her own, I doubt that she even remembers the fateful day when that terrible tragedy struck.

Oh that we could learn this one lesson in life! This story isn’t just a cute tale of a sweet little girl in a pinafore dress with ribbons in her hair. It illustrates an essential truth. Nothing is as bad as it seems. Real tragedies happen on a daily basis but people survive them, sometimes miraculously unscathed. We marvel at the stories of survival and success after life shattering events like hurricanes, earthquakes and tornados. How much more are we likely to survive a missed deadline at work, an argument with a family member or a scratch on our new car?

It all comes down to perspective. For adults; perspective is a matter of choice. Upsetting events are an unavoidable part of life. Yet, we are often as easily traumatized as a four year old girl at the loss of a gumball machine ring.

Our reactions under those circumstances can be devastating. People have quit jobs, ended friendships, torn up contracts, separated from spouses and even committed acts of violence out of later regretted fits of emotion. The consequences of these actions are usually far more reaching than those of the event itself. Most of the injuries suffered in an earthquake aren’t from things falling on people but result from panic as people try to run away from perceived danger.

However, when we recognize the emotion as simply a reaction to an event or a circumstance, we immediately put some distance between our reaction and the event itself. That distance, whether expressed in time or space, allows us to more easily benefit from the perspective of hindsight.

Thomas Jefferson said, “When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to on hundred.” The principal works whether you are experiencing anger, frustration, fear, embarrassment or grief. If we distance ourselves from the moment and our immediate reaction, we might realize that things are not as bad as they seem and we might be able to react in a more appropriate manner.

But how? Here are some suggestions:

Count to ten. Take Jefferson’s advice to heart. When you count to ten, you do two things at once. You give yourself a moment before you react and you focus your attention on something trivial and inconsequential. In context, your situation may also seem less portentous.

Remind yourself that everything is going to be all right. These are the words we use to comfort others, why not comfort ourselves with them. Things may not be the same but they will be all right.

Don’t allow yourself to relive the event in your mind. Ruminating over an event only feeds and develops the emotion of it and reacting out of emotion is the real danger.

Go to the restroom. You may not be able to ignore an event but most of the time an immediate reaction isn’t necessary. Just walking into another room may be enough to trigger a change of perspective.

Distract yourself for a little while. If you need more than a few moments to compose yourself and get things into perspective, pick up a book or magazine. Play a game on the computer. Brush your teeth. Take out the trash. Clean your office. Pray or meditate. Go to the gym. Take a walk in the park. The situation may still be there later but you’ll be in a better mind to deal with it.

Remember the positive side. There are pros and cons to everything in life. When we are feeling down about something, we are focused on the cons. Try making a list of the pros. When you hate your job, think of the reasons why you like it. When you are angry with someone, remind yourself of his or her good qualities. When feeling grief, remember good times.

Look for the humor in the situation. The career of many comics depends on pointing out how silly we are when we take ourselves and the lives we live too seriously.

The amazing thing about the Thunderbolt is that once you know what to expect, it is a very exciting ride. People come from all over the world to experience it. We know that life is full of ups and downs. Aren’t we better off if we simply enjoy the ride?

Balanced Life Tip: A Short Nap Can Go A Long Way

During my first semester in college I met an fine arts major named Beth who believed sleep was a waste of time. She slept in 20 minute chunks diligently working on projects in between several naps a day. She was perpetually fatigued, lethargic and lived in a dream-like fog that many of her friends took for being “cool.”

Beth was an extreme case but she typifies a common American mistake: When it comes to sleep, we’ve got better things to do. Consequently, so many of us are so sleep deprived that sleep disorders are common.

Just look around:

Advertising media bombard us with commercials for both prescription and over the counter sleep aids.

We see as many commercials and advertisements for mattresses promising better rest. How many of us haven’t walked into a store at the mall to find out what our “sleep number” is and who can resist finding out what the Tempur-Pedic mattress feels like? If you haven’t done this yet, admit that you’ve been tempted.

Convenience store shelves are stocked with vitamin packs and energy drinks.

Coffee is now an American obsession, commonly consumed even among teenagers. ($18 Billion of coffee a year is consumed in the US.)

Just twenty years ago, it would have been difficult to find someone who had undergone a sleep test. And if you actually knew someone who had experienced a test, chances were that he or she had travelled quite a distance, perhaps even by air, to be tested at a sleep center. Now, a simple count of the directory at sleepcenters.org reveals that there are at least 945 sleep test centers across the country. According to Sleep Centers of America, more than 70 million Americans have a sleep disorder and more than 10 million people a year consult their physicians regarding sleep-related issues.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drowsy driving in America kills more than 1,500 people a year and causes 71,000 injuries in an estimated 100,000 sleep-related crashes a year.

If you ask me, America could do with a nap.

Winston Churchill put it eloquently when he wrote, “Nature had not intended mankind to work from 8 in the morning until midnight without the refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it lasts only 20 minutes, is sufficient to renew all vital forces.”

A Short Nap Can Go A Long Way!

Research has demonstrated that even a brief nap of between 20 to 45 minutes, will rejuvenate you, and increase your ability to concentrate making you more productive.

Until a few years ago, I pushed myself as hard as any other baby-boomer in the work force. I got up early, went into the office, worked late, came home and had trouble sleeping because I was so wound up. One day, I arrived an hour early for a meeting and I waited in my car.

The next time I glanced at the clock, it was 20 minutes later, a snore and awakened me. Apart from the slight self-conscious embarrassment of the snore, I felt terrific and my meeting went really well. I had recently read an article on power naps and had scoffed at the idea of companies putting in power nap facilities. Who is going to pay someone to take a nap? But, I was so impressed with by my own experience; I tried it again, this time on purpose. The difference was amazing. I began planning my appointments so that I could find half an hour a day for a nap. I purchased a sleep mask and a small travel pillow and kept them in the car. Since then, napping has become part of my regular routine. While others are socializing in the lunchroom, you’ll find me reclined in my car taking Winston Churchill’s recommended 20 minutes.

There are lots of people take naps. They don’t talk about it. It’s a secret because on some level, I think it embarrasses them. I admit, I nap in my car because I don’t think I could stand the ribbing I’d get if someone were to hear snoring behind my office door. I’ve met quite a number of people who say that they could never nap for just twenty minutes. They confess that they would be out for hours. Well, that just makes a stronger argument for the fact that most of us are sleep deprived.

Sleep researchers have discovered that sleep deprivation makes it difficult for us to learn and concentrate. Sleep deprived people are less productive, more forgetful and more prone to both error and accidents. It also causes weight gain, impairs our immune system, reduces our ability to handle stress and leaves us cranky.

Any one of these side-effects can set our work-life balance off kilter. By not getting enough sleep; we increase our exposure to all of them. Getting enough sleep is one of the most effective steps we can take to improving the quality of our lives. Here are ten simple things you can do to improve your sleep:

1. Save time to unwind. Give yourself more than an hour of mindless activity at the end of the day so that you do not spend half the night reliving the events of the day or rehearsing what might happen the next day. Read something frivolous. Watch TV. Pray or meditate.

2. Don’t eat late. In sleep, you body wants to heal and rejuvenate. If it is spending half the night digesting food, you are not reaping the full benefit of your sleep. Don’t eat less than two or three hours before going to sleep.

3. Avoid drinking a lot of fluids before bedtime if you often find yourself waking up to visit the bathroom.

4. Avoid caffeine after 2 pm. I know this may go against everything you hold dear and Starbucks stockholder may scoff, but the effects of caffeine can last a long time. If you need a picker-upper in the afternoon, rather than reaching for a cup of coffee or an energy drink, consider the humble nap or some physical exercise to get your energy flowing.

5. Consider non-chemical sleep aids. Buy a sleep mask and/or ear-plugs if you are a light sleeper. Pull the drapes closed. Cover LED lights. And if you live on a busy street or in a noisy building, white background noise may help--a recording of waves or rain or even the hum of a fan. (My dishwasher puts me right under.)

6. Invest in a good mattress. You spend a third of your life in bed, invest in a high-quality mattress that meets your needs.

7. Set your internal clock. Try to go to bed and get up at the same time every day whether you are working or not. You’ll know you are getting enough sleep when you wake up right before your alarm feeling refreshed and ready for the day.

8. Regulate your alcohol consumption. While alcohol can relax, it also has a dehydrating effect and reduces the quality of your sleep.

9. Consider power napping in the middle of the day but more than 8 hours before you go to bed. Napping later may make it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep.

10. Get more physical exercise during the day. If our work is not physically taxing, chances are, we aren’t working our bodies as hard as we work our minds. A little exercise can set things right.

For more balanced life tips or to subscribe to my Balanced Life Tips please visit my website at www.integrityhpi.com