Step 1: A Better Way to Breathe
The reality is that you can't completely eliminate stress from your life -- nor would you want to.
Boredom can be just as stressful in its own way as racing to mail your taxes at 11:50 p.m. on April 15. But you can change the way you react to stress. And that's what counts. When researchers look more closely at the stress-heart disease connection, they find it isn't the stressor itself that's responsible for the negative health effects, Dr. Suarez says, but how much emotion that stressor arouses.
As babies we instinctively know how to breathe properly. But as adults we tend to forget. Babies breathe with their whole bodies, their stomachs puffing out every time they breathe in and collapsing when they breathe out. Now check your own breathing. Place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach, then take a normal breath. Which hand moved more? If you're like most people, neither moved much, but the hand on your chest probably moved a bit more. That's the habit of shallow breathing that most of us have acquired -- and it's why we use barely 20 percent of our lungs' capacity when we breathe (even less when we're stressed). It's small wonder that scientists used to think anxiety and hysteria were essentially respiratory problems in nature and that they could be brought about by faulty breathing.
While that may not be true, it is true that you can use deep breathing to counter the fight-or-flight reaction any time you feel stressed -- whether you're seething in a traffic jam, worrying about a deadline, or replaying in your mind that fight with your spouse. "When you're stressed, you may be sitting on the outside but running on the inside," says Robert Fried, Ph.D., director of the Stress and Biofeedback Clinic at the Albert Ellis Institute and a senior professor of psychology at Hunter College, both in New York City. "Deep breathing for stress reduction means you're sitting on the outside and you're reposing on the inside."
Once you've learned to do deep breathing, says Dr. Fried, author of Breathe Well, Be Well, it takes less work to breathe, thus reducing the amount of work your body has to do and sending a message to your brain that you're inactive. After a while your body gets the signal and your heart rate and oxygen consumption slow.
Believe it or not, some people actually pay "breathing coaches" to help them breathe properly. But you don't have to do that. Instead, follow Dr. Fried's breathing exercise below to still your pounding heart, soothe your churning stomach, and send a signal throughout your body to slow down.
Deep Breathing Exercise
This exercise combines deep breathing with mental imagery to help you feel relaxed yet alert. The results are immediate, so you can pull out the technique any time you need to feel calmer and more in control. Dr. Fried has used it in treating everything from tension and anxiety to burnout syndrome, panic disorder, agoraphobia, depression, tension headache, and high blood pressure.
A few notes of caution (yes, even something as seemingly innocuous as deep breathing isn't entirely risk-free -- a testament to its power to effect change in the body). If you're not used to deep breathing, your diaphragm muscle will need time to adjust and become toned, so start slowly. If you experience cramps while doing the exercise, stop. Also, deep breathing may cause a significant decrease in blood pressure, so if you suffer from low blood pressure or fainting, be cautious when trying it. Check with your doctor before doing this exercise if you have a condition in which you may need to hyperventilate, such as diabetes or kidney disease. (Under certain circumstances hyperventilation may be the body's protection against diabetic acidosis.) And diabetics, take note: The sudden reduction in blood levels of certain stress hormones has been demonstrated to reduce the need for insulin and may cause your blood sugar to drop.
Day 1. First, seat yourself comfortably, with your back supported by the back of the chair. Loosen any tight-fitting clothing and place your hands on your knees. Let yourself relax. Now you're ready to begin.
•Close your mouth and breathe through your nose only.
•Put one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach. As you inhale, hold your chest and don't let it rise. Let the hand on your abdomen rise as the air fills your lungs.
•Exhale slowly, pulling your abdomen back as far as it will go without letting that raise your chest in the process. Spend a minute or so on this exercise. If you feel dizzy, you are working too hard. Stop and rest a little until the dizziness passes, then make the motions a little more subtle.
Day 2. Follow the same routine you followed yesterday, but practice the exercise for two to three minutes.
Day 3. Breathe for four minutes, and try the exercise without your hands. You should now be noticing that your inhale and exhale are approximately the same duration. There should be no pause before or after inhale or exhale -- just one smooth motion. Your breathing rate may range between three and seven breaths per minute.
Day 4. Today you introduce imagery. Sit in your chair as before. Now:
•Close your eyes.
•Picture a very specific scene -- the beach in July, a cool pine forest, swimming underwater. Try to put yourself in the scene -- hear the sounds, feel the air (or water), smell the scents.
•As you focus on this scene, begin your deep breathing. Each time you inhale, imagine that you are breathing in the air of your scene, saying to yourself, "I feel awake, alert, and refreshed." And as you breathe out, feel the tensionin your body flow out with your breath as you say to yourself, "I feel relaxed, warm, and comfortable."
Do this for four breaths, then stop. After a few minutes of rest, repeat the exercise. Try the routine once in the morning and once in the evening. After about three weeks, Dr. Fried recommends that you do the exercise in rounds of three: Four or five breathing cycles and a few moments of rest, followed by a second round of four or five breathing cycles and a few moments of rest, and finally a third round of four or five breathing cycles.
Once you've mastered deep breathing, you can pull it out of your relaxation arsenal whenever life gets tense. Not only will it help slow your body down, but it may also, in effect, slow down time, providing those critical moments that are often the difference between exploding and maintaining your cool. As you breathe in and out, release the physical tension and then ask yourself the following questions:
•Is the way I'm reacting to this situation increasing my tension?
•Is this reaction logical and reasonable?
•Is this reaction realistic?
•Is there another way to view the situation?
The answers may enable you to "spin" the stressful situation from the negative to the positive, or at least to the neutral. Read on to learn more about spinning as a powerful antistress strategy.
Step 2: Practice Optimism
When you discovered you had high cholesterol, how did you react? Did you panic and begin picturing your own death from a heart attack? Or did you take a deep breath and view the diagnosis not as terrible news but as a kick in the pants to finally make some healthful lifestyle changes? If it's the latter, congratulations -- you're a positive person, able to take potentially negative experiences and put a positive spin on them. If it's the former, well then, you're like all too many Americans these days... focusing more on the doom and gloom.
If you tend to view the glass as half empty, don't despair. A growing movement called "positive psychology" is identifying ways that even the most negative-minded people can reframe, or spin, their outlooks on events. Remember, it's not a stressful event that is detrimental to your heart, it's your reaction to it. So learning to think positively may be one of the best things you can do to lower your heart disease risk. Numerous studies find that optimistic people get fewer illnesses and recover better from coronary bypass surgery and cancer. Optimism may even protect older men against heart disease, according to one study.
Of course, optimism is not a new concept; even Virgil wrote of it in the Aeneid 2,000 years ago when he penned: "They can because they think they can." That can be a difficult outlook to maintain in today's stressful, complicated world. But a little practice goes a long way. The next time an event or situation starts to raise your ire or your anxiety level, keep in mind the following tips:
Don't take it personally. Rather than viewing setbacks as signs of their own incompetence, optimists view them as flukes or signals that a new approach is needed. Take a tax audit, for example. Instead of whining about how it's just one more example of his lousy luck, an optimist would view it as a good opportunity to put his financial affairs in order, perhaps even winding up with some money back as errors in his favor are discovered. This doesn't mean, however, that you never accept blame for something that is your fault. But if you're an optimist, you accept the blame, learn from your mistake, and move on, rather than dwelling on the experience.
Maintain realistic expectations. There's no greater path to disappointment and frustration than setting your expectations too high. So if you expect that the cruise you're taking to the islands will be entirely trouble-free for the whole nine days, that every person you meet will become a new best friend, and that you definitely won't exceed the tight budget you have in mind, you're probably setting yourself up for some disappointment. Instead, stroll on board with the understanding that things may not go exactly according to plan, but a cruise in the sunshine in February still beats sloshing through the snow at home.
Worry concretely. Just because you're trying to have a positive attitude doesn't mean you don't have worries. The key is how you handle those worries. Write them down, talk about them with a friend, and put them into form and shape, as in, "I'm worried that my husband will lose his job because his plant is having layoffs," rather than suffering with an amorphous sense of financial doom. Worrying about something specific is less consuming and less damaging than general anxiety. Anxiety that's unfocused can lead to less logical, less effective responses.
Act happy. "We can act ourselves into a frame of mind," says David Myers, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Hope College (yes, Hope College) in Holland, Michigan. "Manipulated into a smiling expression, people feel better; when they scowl, the whole world seems to scowl back." So as the song goes, put on a happy face. Talk as if you feel positive, outgoing, and optimistic. Going through the motions often can help trigger the emotions.
Understand that enduring happiness doesn't come from wealth. It's one of the great myths of our time: Being rich, famous, or powerful automatically makes you happy. In fact, there are those who would argue the opposite, that too many people at the higher rungs of success have lost their perspective, their humanity, their values -- and thus, their happiness. Doubtful? Listen to this: Studies find that everyday people who win the lottery are no happier a year later than they were before they won. The lesson: Tend to the things that make you happy and don't use other people's measures to define yourself.
Take control of your time. Happy people feel in control of their lives. They learn how to say no to activities they either don't want to do or don't have the time to do.
Reframe your perceptions. If you're faced with 20 guests for Thanksgiving dinner (tomorrow) and your dishwasher just broke, instead of panicking about having to wash dozens of dishes, consider it a good excuse to use fancy paper plates -- and not wash any dishes at all.
Learn to forgive. Studies find that simply letting go of a grudge has numerous health benefits. In one study researchers found that people showed more signs of stress, including higher blood pressure and a faster heart rate, when they reflected on hurtful memories and grudges than when they imagined granting forgiveness to real-life offenders. In addition to the physical benefits of forgiveness, the act has emotional benefits. Once people truly forgive those who have hurt them, they often speak of feeling a weight lifted, feeling "lighter" and at peace. In one study people who attended a six-week forgiveness program were significantly more optimistic and willing to use forgiveness as a coping strategy months after the training ended than people who had been randomly assigned to a control group.
Read a book. Stress is a big issue for our society, and many savvy doctors, therapists, and spiritual leaders have written books on the topic. There are books that offer daily motivations, 12-week "happiness" programs, tips and advice, or merely reassurance. There are books on coping with grief, depression, lousy bosses, bad marriages, financial problems, and challenging kids. Rest assured that if you go into a bookstore, you'll probably find a book that speaks to whatever problem is causing you stress. Buying it could be an excellent investment in your well-being.
Step 3: Embrace Life
Creating a sense of peace and calm in your life means more than just coping with stress as best you can; it also means actively embracing those things that bring pleasure and satisfaction. A big part of doing this is finding work and hobbies that challenge you without overwhelming you.
Have you ever been so engrossed in an activity that you forgot to worry about your problems? "Happy people often are in a zone called 'flow,'" says David Myers, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. That's when two hours fly by in two minutes because you're so involved in what you're doing. In one study researchers gave volunteers a pager and had them note what they were doing and how they felt every time they were beeped. They found people usually felt happier if they were mentally engaged by work or active leisure than if they were just sitting around. Ironically, the less expensive a leisure activity is, the more absorbed and happy people often are while doing it, Dr. Myers says.
Hobbies are not only soothing (for instance, more than half of women who crochet or knit say they do these activities to relax), they can provide a big dollop of self-esteem-boosting satisfaction at a job well done. Don't have a hobby? Not sure what to do with your spare time? To discover which activities are most satisfying to you -- and to find new ones -- try the following:
Track your time. For one week write down everything you do and rank it on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of what gives you the most pleasure. The following week try to make sure the scales tip in favor of those things that satisfy you, even if it means giving up a chore or activity you think you have to do (but really don't).
Recall your youth. What did you love to do most when you were a child? Was it coloring? Then why not sign up for a drawing class? Helping your mom cook? Maybe you should spend more time in the kitchen. Making up plays and games? Consider joining a theater group. Riding your bike around the neighborhood? Bike riding is certainly an easy -- and heart-healthy -- activity to take up.
Explore your community. Too many of us live in ignorance of the many activities going on in our own backyards. So as you search for new experiences to embrace, look in your own community. Check out the course offerings at the local college or high school (some offer continuing education courses). Get on the mailing list for arts groups and concert halls. Scan the meetings and events notices on the bulletin board at the public library.
Schedule some fun. Just as you schedule dentist appointments, schedule some fun time. Try to plan a pleasurable activity at least once a week. And don't forget to put vacations -- large or small -- on the calendar a few times a year.
From Cut Your Cholesterol