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

by Brian King

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

Whatever the reason, I would like to point out that in 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.

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!

But what if it is threatening? What if you are actually being attacked by a bear? If you answer yes than a follow-up question is in order: “Can I do anything about it?”

As I often say: if you don’t like the way you feel, change your mind . . . er, thoughts.

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.

Speaking of nuggets, skimmers, this is for you: If we can’t do anything to change a situation, what is the point of worrying about it?

I appreciate that the author includes these tidbits.

If you are a worrier, why do you worry? Understanding why you repeatedly engage in this behavior could be a great help in overcoming it.

And skimmers, here you go: Learning to keep our brain active can help us avoid excessive worrying.

I thought that boredom was good sometimes.

Don’t get stressed over the piddly, inconsequential events that seem to plague us on a regular basis. In other words, only get stressed when you are faced with a “bear.”

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

Telling someone who is enraged, anxious, or hopeless to just relax could be perceived as dismissive at best, and at worst could stress them even further. Depending on the situation, I usually try to validate the person’s feelings instead.

Feeling in control is not the same thing as being controlling. People that are controlling are annoying.

When we feel rage over an incident, such as road rage, it is important to reframe our thoughts by examining the actual outcome. 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.

Oh my... This is a big one for me.

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. Our brains have become accustomed to using 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.

When she was a little older, she built a tree fort in the backyard that was so big the city made her family take it down.

The best, and most important, way to raise resilient children is to be resilient in their presence. Period.

If we want our children to grow up to be able to handle whatever life throws at them, then we need to be able to handle whatever life throws at us.

The more we experience, the more our brain also learns to solve problems.

Sometimes life deals us shitty circumstances. Sometimes you can’t do anything about those circumstances. But you can change how they affect you.

optimistic thinking is positively correlated with happiness. Optimistic people are happier and happy people are more optimistic.

The most optimistic people among us are still plagued by negative thoughts, the difference is that they don’t dwell on them or ruminate.

Writing in a journal is not going to make you immediately optimistic, but practicing positive thinking on a regular basis will have an impact on your thinking.

Having a sense of humor means being able to understand things in multiple ways, and this is incredibly helpful in overcoming stress.

if we encounter two stimuli, one positive and one negative, our brain is more likely to notice and be affected by the negative stimulus.

Part of being an optimistic thinker is suppressing negative thoughts. As I previously mentioned, optimistic people have pessimistic thoughts all the time, we just don’t dwell on them.

Three things we can do in the moment to calm ourselves down: Deep breathing Physical exercise Force a smile

Trusting an example rather than an expert is a common fallacy,

Sometimes we can’t locate the source of the tension—no attacking bears, no motionless traffic, not even any imaginary unicorns to be found—and yet, somehow, we experience a full-on activation of our stress response.

We soon realized how many people out there seemed to think childbirth was like hitting a giant pause button on adult life. It is not, and it certainly does not have to be.

Traveling outside of the comfort zone of home brings a lot of opportunities to problem solve (although hopefully you won’t find yourself in a situation like my brother did in Mexico), even if it is just a short vacation.

Challenging our mind with new experiences keeps us healthy. Vacations, and the mind-set they inspire, help deal with burnout. So take them. You don’t have to go somewhere exotic (you know, like Denver), in fact, you may not even have to leave your town. Just leave your comfort zone.

There is no urgency when we think we can do it any time, so we never do it.