Thoughts thought thoughts…stress — day 9
Today was a day, where you can say. It feels like summer. Here in the Netherlands it is officially a holiday. Next to that the weather is very nice (25 degrees Celcius). Which is quite high for Dutch standards. So getting to “work” is something I had to put myself in.
Today’s structure:
- Thought thoughts
- Stress
- How to put things into action when everything says you shouldn’t
Thoughts…You can’t shut them down.
Breath deeply…and empty your mind while breathing out. Well I am a firm believer of deep breathing techniques. However thoughts pop up even more when I start doing these exercises. As we all have approximately 30.000–60.000 thoughts a day, your mind is in overdrive.
Thoughts about all the things you “have” to do, or haven’t finished yet. That is where most of our thoughts are about, combined with a good dose of (self-) judgement and so on. While writing this, I am still thinking about the things that I need to do after this. And the list is quite long.
For now let me share my thoughts about thoughts. You can’t basically shut them down. However you can put them to use, when you become aware of what these thoughts are. Even better, if you know why these thoughts come up.
Our brain hasn’t evolved much during the last 500.000 years.
A week ago I gave a training together with Frans Duijts. This trainer is an expert in brain friendly working and he knows quite a bit about the brain and it functions.
Mainly what he mentions during the training is telling people what causes stress. Basically he says: The brain puts up everything that you haven’t finished, or that your brain has decided that it is not done. For example: when you are working on your Blog, suddenly your brain tells you that you “need to do the laundry” or you “haven’t answered that (very important) e-mail yet” and so on.
When you recognize this and try to react on that too often, by switching tasks too much, you will get what people call: Stress. Especially if you do this work this way for a longer time and you don’t take brakes.
How to put things into action when everything says you shouldn’t.
The weather is nice, you don’t feel well, you did not sleep well and someone far in the family is ill. Not to forget, you get so many notifications that your phone has to get the attention that it needs.
Well, that is a nice setup for doing nothing. As mentioned 2 days I ago, I wrote an article on what your 3 priorities of the day are. And stick to at least finishing those 3.
When this is hard, create accountability on yourself. What is your larger vision? Will doing nothing bring me one step closer to my goal/vision/mission?
If the answer is no, get to work. How small the action is.
If you get overwhelmed by thoughts, feelings: Put them on paper and decide what is the easiest thing you can do today (after doing nothing). Then take that first step. For me today, send an e-mail that I have been putting off for some time.
Often what I do is after writing down all my thoughts and feelings, is to keep my body moving. When I am in the office, I take a walk to the bathroom and splash water in my face. When I work from home, I do at least 15 push-ups and do some stretching of the hips (Squat position) and arms/shoulders.
There are many tools and tricks to help you with. Find out what works best for you.
I’d love you to share your ideas how you cope with this. Please put it in the comments :)
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Until Tomorrow,
Life is a game…Play!
Cor
