How to Stay Calm When You Know You'll Be Stressed (animated video)

Whenever you sense danger of some kind—whether it’s real or imagined—your body’s defenses start an automatic process known as the “fight-or-flight” reaction or the “stress response.” Look at it like your body’s panic button.

When pushed, your nervous system responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol, that prepares your body for an emergency.
Sometimes, this stress response is incredibly helpful, like try to prevent a wild animal from eating you. But the problem is, you're likely hitting your body’s panic too much. When you experience too much stress for an extended period of time it causes major damage to your health, mood, productivity, and radically diminishes your quality of life.
One way to stay calm when you know you’ll be stressed is preparing for the event beforehand. You can do this through mental contrasting. Psychologist and author Gabriele Oettingin suggests using a mental contrasting tool called WOOP, which stands for Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan.

To do it, close your eyes and imagine your wish coming true for a few minutes. This is the wish and outcome part. Let’s say you imagine doing well on your final exam. Then, imagine the main obstacle standing in the way of your desired outcome. For this example, the main obstacle for not acing the final exam, could be not studying and preparing properly. Then lastly, the plan. This is where you envision the action you would take if such a barrier were to present itself. In this example, it could mean studying several hours a day in, or hiring a tutor to help you prepare for the exam.

Dr. Oettingin found in her study of health providers that those who used this mental contrasting tool were significantly more engaged with their work and less stressed than members of a control group.

The reason this approach is better than wishful thinking is because, wishfully fantasizing about the perfect outcome without making any effort towards achieving that outcome can make you feel better and ease your stress in the short-term, but it can be counterproductive. This false sense of confidence, often leads you to preparing less and making it less likely to achieve your desired outcome. For example, if you fantasize about acing your test and feel so confident that you don’t study, then you likely won’t get the grade you want on the exam.

The Other Side of Life by Michael Unks-Affiliate Link to Amazon listed below..
https://amzn.to/2xq2C1c

If you’ve been enjoying the animation style videos I’ve been making then check out the playlist for it!
   • Animated Videos  

If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching, send me an email at [email protected]

Here's the link to a free audio version of my best selling book "Awesome in Hours"
https://unksmichael.lpages.co/1st-opt...

If you liked this video and want more videos like it I make videos each week and will be taking video suggestions from you.
Subscribe today by hitting the link below...
http://www.youtube.com/c/TheFormerShy...

Music credit: “Weather Any Storm(Instrumental Version),” by Cody Francis

“Valium,” By No Thanks

*Both obtained from Epidemic Sounds under creator license

If you enjoyed this video..here is the link to share with your friends!
   • How to Stay Calm When You Know You'll Be S...  

How to Overcome Mental Resistance (animated video)