Morning. Do you ever think that if it were not for feeling stressed you would feel nothing at all? Yep. Insanity still reigns. Just when I got things going the right directions with retirement and the webinar we need to listen to – not to mention other work for the psych office – the accountant sends the tax forms back. What I thought was going to be a credit is a debit. Somebody made a blunder. One hint: not me.
So, you may be hearing from me requesting bail money, but in the meantime I am going to use some skills on myself.
They have made some additions to the DBT skill set since I was trained. We are finding them in this webinar. One thing they are stressing is the brain-body connection. They are talking sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, Vagus nerve and all that good stuff.
I know I hit on this a bit before. Bear with me. There is some neat stuff here and if you get very, very stressed out by life, the state of the world and/or the state of your vision, these things might help.
First of all, ever hear of the mammalian diving reflex? That is what happens when the toddler falls in the frozen river, is fished out from under the ice half an hour later and lives, no worse for wear.
Bending over, putting cold water on your face and holding your breath (15 seconds or so at a time for our purposes) will trigger this response. The reason we want to trigger it is it is fantastic for reducing stress reactions. Flipping out? Ice on your face, bend at the waist and hold your breath. It is sort of a quick, temporary fix but sometimes that is all we need.
There are other ways to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. That is the system that brings us down after the sympathetic system revs us up. For one thing you could eat a sour candy. Getting the saliva flowing is one way to reduce stress. Then there is always a good yawn or three or four. Yawning kick-starts the parasympathetic nervous system as well.
One of the distress tolerance skills we teach in DBT is distracting with thoughts. For a long time I thought it was distracting with complicated thoughts like doing calculus in your head. It potential could be, but it can also be simple, repetitive thought. In fact, simple repetitive thought function to disrupt the action of the default mode network of the brain.
According to Wikipedia the default mode of the brain activates when we are thinking about others, ourselves, past and future. Hmm….sounds like brooding and worrying to me.
A great way to block the action of the default mode and reduce worry is to do something verbal that is repetitive or tedious. You can mentally count or say the alphabet. Name the 50 states. Think of a name that starts with each letter.
Or you can go old school. How about the Lord’s prayer or om Shanti, Shanti, om? There are hundreds of mantras, religious and secular. Find one you like and repeat it over and over. All you have to lose is your worry.