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

by Brian King

For the cover of my last book, my brother, Jon, provided the following endorsement: “Brian has been unaffected by stress since I met him when he was five. I think he tapped into how to manage stress and live on his own terms at an early age.” Generally speaking, I live a pretty stress-free life, and as a result I experience more emotional highs than lows. This does not mean that I have not dealt with my share of adverse events; I absolutely have. Bad things happen all the time, but what ultimately makes the difference in our lives is how we deal with those situations.

As they say,

always check your source. If only people on Facebook followed this rule before sharing a political meme . . . oh well, human nature is what it is.

So then I started talking about everyone’s favorite imaginary animal, unicorns. The problem with this was that people had a hard time relating to the example. People tend to think of unicorns as nice, benevolent, magical creatures that have glitter in their fur and shoot rainbows out of their butts. Even Judy has a collection of toy unicorns at home. However, a real unicorn will kill you! It has a horn on its head! What do you think that horn is for? That’s a weapon for stabbing! It didn’t grow that thing so little girls could play ring toss! That unicorn will stab you, stomp all over your body, and shoot rainbows out its butt just to add insult to injury.

You can see why I went back to bears. 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. If you are going to get all worked up over traffic, consciously or unconsciously, living in the world of what could happen rather than what is happening, you might as well watch out for unicorns. One of the first pieces of advice I will offer is this: Learn to assess your stress. Learn to tell the difference between bears and traffic. The first thing we should do when we start to feel agitated or stressed is stop and ask ourselves, “Is this situation actually threatening?” If it is, then Houston, we have a probl—uh I mean, bear!

And that’s 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. Let me add another step to the advice I gave in the last section. 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. In fact, if we can do something about a situation and we choose not to for whatever reason, then we are to blame for our own 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. Think about it. If you are a worrier, when do you worry? You probably don’t worry when your brain is actively engaged in some task. You probably don’t worry when you are focused on an activity, deep in thought, or being thoroughly entertained. 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. People eat when they are bored. People drink when they are bored. Some people smoke to give their brains and hands something to do. Some people pick fights, get angry, or just stir things up. And some people worry. In other words, you worry to give your brain something to do.

Eagles song “Take It Easy” because it, or at least the chorus, is about resilience.37 Take it easy, take it easy Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy Lighten up while you still can Don’t even try to understand Just find a place to make your stand, and take it easy I’m no music expert, but that song would have probably been a lot less successful if it was called “Just Be Resilient.” On another note, how cool would it have been if that last line went “Just take a minute to make a plan, then take it easy?”

journaling practice, “I love the idea of starting my day by listing three things I’m grateful for. And going to bed thinking about the three amazing things that happened in the day. I’m a big believer in the transformative practice of gratitude.”64 And if Hermione Granger’s words aren’t enough of an endorsement,