WOW Word-Of-the-Week #438: Tolerance
December 26, 2012 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on WOW Word-Of-the-Week #438: Tolerance
Tolerance – willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs or practices of others.
Would you say you are a fairly tolerant person? How accepting are you of other people’s beliefs? Have you ever challenged any of your long held beliefs?
This is the final WOW on Heidi Stevens’ article from the Chicago Tribune titled, “TAMING STRESS” featuring Thea Singer’s “5 things you can do so you will be less reactive to a stressor when one hits. It’s really important to be proactive.”
- Break a sweat: Exercise is a good stressor and it trains your brain to relax.
- Offline friending: Call a pal. Join a book club. Volunteer.
- Skip Ben & Jerry’s: Do something that you enjoy: Take a mindful walk, read a book, jump rope.
- Meditate: We’ve seen a lot of research that shows people who meditate can begin to change not just the physiology of the brain, but the structure of the brain. The brain waves are very different in someone who meditates than in someone who doesn’t. That’s because meditation (also known as mindfulness-based stress reduction) actually creates new neural pathways between the brain’s right and left hemispheres which offers coherence between our brains’s analytical, time-conscious, logical left side and the intuitive, accepting, creative right side. A Psychiatry Research study concludes that participation in mindfulness-based stress reduction is associated with changes in gray matter concentration in brain regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing and perspective taking.
- Show compassion: Acceptance of others is particularly helpful in warding off stress. The goal is to alter your perceptions of situations outside of yourself. It’s not about wearing rose-col
ored glasses, but finding ways to counter negativity. Notice something good that happened to you today and tell someone about it. Do something nice for another person.
Singer ends by saying, “People say, ‘Oh, his is so touchy-feely,’ but there is scientific evidence to back it up. I’m as skeptical as the next guy. But when you look at the science behind it, it’s really inspiring.”
This week’s focus is on being tolerant and respecting others beliefs. Does meditation sound like something you would be willing to try? When was the last time you did something nice for someone? Have you ever done a “random act of kindness” to a complete stranger? How did it make you feel?
WOW Word-Of-the-Week #437: Proactive
December 20, 2012 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on WOW Word-Of-the-Week #437: Proactive
Proactive – acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty.
Did you make time to “break a sweat” and exercise last week? How did that make you feel? Did you enjoy taking time to relax?
This week’s WOW is the follow up to last week’s Heidi Stevens’ article from the Chicago Tribune titled, “TAMING STRESS” featuring Thea Singer’s “5 things you can do so you will be less reactive to a stressor when one hits. It’s really important to be proactive.”
- 1. Break a sweat: Exercise is a good stressor and it trains your brain to relax.
- 2. Offline friending: Scientific studies have shown that those who have greater social support are less reactive to stressors than those who have less support. When we experience emotional pleasure, our reward circuitry kicks in. When we experience emotional pain, a different part of the brain kicks in. In those who exhibit more social support, the part of the brain that experiences pain is less reactive during “stress” than in those with less support. And the benefits apply whether you’re giving or receiving social support. Call a pal. Join a book club. Volunteer.
- 3. Skip Ben & Jerry’s: Stress eating makes us feel better, but over time it wears down our ability to keep anxiety at bay. It kicks off a pleasure center, the same way drugs of abuse do. But once it wears off, the cycle starts over and we crave the same food to kick off the center again. This actually raises our stress levels and increases our cortisol levels. I recommend you think of something else that brings you satisfaction that will also kick off the reward center, but that won’t get you into that whole cycle again. Carrots and celery are not necessarily pleasurable. Do something that you enjoy: Take a mindful walk, read a book, jump rope.
This week’s focus is on being proactive and being prepared to handle any expected difficulties. Do you have a backup plan in place if something goes wrong? How many social support systems do you have? What activity other than eating brings you pleasure?
WOW Word-Of-the-Week #436: Stress
December 12, 2012 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on WOW Word-Of-the-Week #436: Stress
Stress – mental, emotional, or physical strain or tension.
Does your stress level go up with the holidays? Do you feel more stress at home or at work? Have you found ways to help you reduce tension?
This week Heidi Stevens’s article from the Chicago Tribune titled, “TAMING STRESS” caught my eye. She writes, “Facing down a man-eating lion is not the same as facing gown an Excel spreadsheet, but try 
explaining that to your body’s stress receptors, especially when they’re at maximum capacity trying to get ready for the holidays.
Stress has become a normal part of most of our lives with longer work hours, financial burdens and family strains. It doesn’t take much, especially at this time of year, to push us over the top.”
Thea Singer an MIT instructor and author of “Stress Less” says, “Once the lion is gone your stress response subsides. So much of what stresses us now, though is perceived stress. And when you constantly perceive yourself as stressed, your stress hormones never get turned off and you bathe yourself in a toxic substance.”
The consequences of stress is that it instantaneously increases your heart rate and blood pressure, makes your guts not function well and creates damage to your blood vessels and organs. Singer goes on to say, “There are 5 things you can do so you will be less reactive to a stressor when one hits. It’s really important to be proactive.”
- Break a sweat: Exercise is a good stressor and it trains your brain to relax. If you look at our culture, we’re not exercising regularly. We’re training ourselves for stress, but we’re not training ourselves for relaxation.
I will share the other 4 in the next WOW’s. This week’s focus is on how much stress you have in your life. What % of your day do you feel stressed? Do you feel more stress at work or at home? When was the last time you exercised? When was the last time you relaxed?
Reader Responses
“What I try to do is not think about the word “stress.” If I put a name on whatever it is I need to do in order to meet a deadline at work or finish shopping or take care of something with my wife or the girls, then I will begin to think too much. That just messes up my head and guts. I don’t need that. I just try to do one thing at a time and then let everything else take care of themselves. In many instances, we let the things we have no control over take over our lives. We needlessly worry about these things until we are sick. None of us needs that. The best thing we can all do at this time of year is simply to take the word “stress” out of our vocabularies. That is half the battle. Great word for this time of year, Susan. Happy Holidays to you and yours.:” – “Warrior” Joe
WOW Word-Of-the-Week #435: Priority
December 7, 2012 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on WOW Word-Of-the-Week #435: Priority
Priorities – those things you do in order of importance or urgency.
How many priorities do you have in a week? Do you keep a list of your priorities as a reminder? Have you ever forgotten something that you considered a priority? How embarrassed did that make you feel?
This week’s WOW is all about my forgetting my priority of writing this week’s WOW. I even had it on my list! I usually write them on Wednesday. This week I totally “spaced it” because I changed my routine. No excuse! But it is the truth.
My husband Chris was invited to the retirement party of one of his past colleagues in Pasadena. He said to me, “You really don’t want to go, do you?” To which I replied, “If I go you get to drive in the carpool lane.” Now that may not sound like a big deal, but if you live in Southern California it’s HUGE.
I really hate sitting in traffic and wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. It was a good thing too because it was crazy even at 2:00 in the afternoon. He has also asked me, “Won’t you be bored sitting in the hotel room.” To which I replied, “I’m going to address the Holiday Cards.”
Then on the way home yesterday I realized I had totally forgotten to do my WOW and made myself a note. Then I got home and got side tracked with finishing my Christmas decorating. I have to tell you I am giggling as I write this because I’m really starting to sound like one of those people that are “old and forgetful.”
This week’s focus is on those things you do in order of importance or urgency. Do you ever have a problem juggling priorities? Do you have a system that you use that keeps you on task with you priorities? If you forgot about a priority in the past how did you recover?
Reader Responses
My top priorities are my wife and daughters. They come before anyone and anything else. As for work priorities, when there are numerous projects that have to be completed, I always do those that have to be completed first and the soonest. Then I go in order. There have been times in the past when because of a CHANGE IN MY SCHEDULE(!) I forgot to study for a couple of tests in my freshman or sophomore year of college. On both of the exams I believed that I received grades of D. It happens. Something out of the blue prevents us from keeping our eyes on the prize and we forget. I made no excuses. But going back to grade school I made a habit of writing things down before I forgot them. These days, my wife will ask me in September if I have ordered my new Weekly Minder, which has places for reminders every day of the week. I write down birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, school events, doctors appointments. It actually helps my wife with things that she needs to remember. Every weekend I look at my “little black book” to see what I need to remember that week. Hopefully it is written down. But, suffice it to say, I have my priorities straight every day of the week during the year” – “Warrior” Joe
“I use the tried and true method of making a list of tasks, then checking them off as I accomplish them. Anything left at end of day goes to next day’s list. My Mom was even more productive. She used an normal kitchen timer. She’d focus on a project for an hour till the bell went off, then move to another. That kept the monotony down and she got a lot of chores done every day. When I need to prioritize I will also number the items on list in order of importance.” – Bob