The Art of Taking It Easy: How to Cope with Bears, Traffic, and the Rest of Life's Stressors

by Brian King

Bad things happen all the time, but what ultimately makes the difference in our lives is how we deal with those situations.

remember, if you are stressing out about being happy, you are doing it wrong!

The simplest description I have ever come across is that stress is our brain’s reaction to a perception of threat.

our brain creates these things called beliefs, values, and expectations, and they influence how we perceive the world.

all those scenarios the perceived threat was a product of your thoughts. The traffic was real, but it was your own beliefs, values, and expectations that made the situation into one that you found stressful.

Ultimately overcoming stress and managing its impact on our lives depends on this basic realization: most of our stress is from percieved threats, not clear and present threats.

When stressed we should ask ourselves, is this an actual threat? If it is an actual threat, then can I do anything about it?

we feel stress when there is no real external threat to us, only some challenged belief, value, or expectation of ours. In other words, a thought. Yep, most of our stress is imaginary.

the thing about worrying, it does nothing to prevent bad things from happening. Worrying does not affect the outcome of a situation, it doesn’t make adverse events less likely to occur, it just makes our life less great.

When we start to worry to the point that we start to experience stress, we need to take a moment and ask ourselves, “Can I do anything about this?” If the answer is yes, then do it or make a plan to do it.

what if there isn’t anything we can do about our situation? In that case, I think it is helpful to ask ourselves, “If there is nothing I can do about it, then why am I worrying about it?” It is a rhetorical question really, but by thinking that to ourselves, we reduce the likelihood that we will continue thinking about whatever it is that is causing us stress.

Worry is one way that the brain can generate its own activity. Yes, worry relieves boredom. And I believe this is why most worrying occurs.

More than likely, you worry when you have time on your hands or when your brain is not otherwise occupied. You worry to relieve boredom, which should be no surprise, as boredom already motivates a lot of behavior that people would prefer to change.

Think about how many times you may have been so overwhelmed with stress that you became incredibly inactive. Maybe you were sitting at your desk at work, handed an incredibly daunting task with an unrealistic deadline, and instead of diving right in and tackling that bad boy (fight), or asking your boss for an extension or help (flight), you just sat there unable to do anything (freeze).

Emotions influence behavior, specifically by helping us react in a manner that is appropriate for the moment.

Negative emotions may have an even stronger impact on our behavior.

there are three basic categories of behavioral reactions to threat: fight, flight, or freeze.

whenever we activate our stress response, functional or not, we are inhibiting our immune system and preventing our body from being able to heal.

It should be understood that stress, good or bad, has the same impact on the body regardless of how it is used.

Resilience is our ability to recover from adversity, to bounce back or return to equilibrium after experiencing an adverse event. It is a major component in coping with and recovering from stressful events.

Recovery time following an adverse event is often used as a measure of resilience.

People who recover faster are more resilient, whereas people who tend to take a bit longer are less resilient. Obviously, what is considered a healthy recovery period is going to vary depending on the nature of the event.

our thoughts make us resilient. How we process information and what we think following an adverse event has a great deal of influence over how quickly we will recover.

Psychological resilience is very strongly associated with happiness. If you are happy, you are managing your stress well, and if you are stressed you are probably not happy.

When there is more left activity than right activity, people report feeling happy and appear calm. When there is more activity on the right than left, people report feeling stressed, anxious, and worried.

Psychological resilience is our ability to overcome a challenge, to bounce back after an adverse event, or to cope with stress.

Resilience is highly related to happiness, and both are functions of how we think about the events we experience.

Skimming is the best way to read a book. Totes.

every single one of these components—goal pursuit, problem-solving, and planning for contingencies—are functions of reasoning.

Resilient people approach life by thinking and planning; they see their problems or adverse events as temporary and/or solvable.

When you feel like a problem is something that you can handle, it no longer causes you stress.

when we feel in control, all of the negative effects of stress are reduced or eliminated. Feeling stressed is really feeling out of control, to put it very simply. Every stressful situation is really just a situation where the brain does not feel it has any control.

being in control. We can feel as if we have some ability to influence the outcome of a situation, even when other factors also have some influence. The more we feel as if we have influence, the more stress we can handle.

Resilience is not an either/or type of construct, but rather one that varies along a spectrum. We all have a limit to what we can handle, but some of us have a higher limit than others.

The misunderstandings, the overreactions, and all the worrying over nothing. Nothing is our most common stressor,

We need to learn to react to what actually happened, not what could have happened or what we thought was going to happen. When it comes to our own health and safety, there is no benefit to allowing ourselves to be affected by things that did not happen.

In many cases, we become enraged over incidents where nothing serious has actually happened to us (e.g., we may have been cut off in traffic, but there was no car crash).

Learn to react to what has happened, not what almost happened or what could have happened.

if you don’t like the way you feel, change your thoughts.

being resilient means having the right kinds of thoughts in your head, and those thoughts relate to how well you feel you can handle whatever situation you are facing.

One of the reasons that change is so difficult for us is that throughout our lives we have practiced behaviors that were gratifying, rewarding, or easy.

In order to change our behavior, we need to: Learn to assess our stressful situations to determine if they are actually threatening and if there is something we can do about them. Learn to redirect our brain away from worrisome or negative thoughts. If simply changing our thoughts doesn’t work, then we can change our environment or activity. Repeatedly practice the behavior we want to exhibit.

Problem-solving skills can be improved by mastering any challenge that requires strategizing.

The best way to teach a child how to handle stress is to model resilient behaviors in their presence and try to keep our worry or anger to ourselves.

Three ways positive thinking can help you become more stress resilient are: Teaching you to become more optimistic. Teaching you to be more appreciative of what you have. Increasing your appreciation of humor.

Structured journaling exercises can help us learn to be more optimistic, which in turn can help us manage stress.

Verbally expressing positive emotions, such as love or gratitude, to others can make us happier and in turn help us manage stress.

Keeping a gratitude journal, specifically listing three things we appreciate about each day, can also make us happier.

Humor is a natural stress-management tool.

We have a tendency to focus on negativity; we can reduce this by redirecting our thoughts or putting things into perspective.