How To End Stress

Welcome,

Don.

Thanks for joining us.

Oh,

Well,

Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure.

This is such a hot topic.

Everybody's got stress,

From our kids to ourselves to the people we deal with on a daily basis.

Is it really possible to end stress?

It is possible.

The biggest reason people are stressed is because the stress gene they inherited is turned up high.

So this accounts for 50% of why you're stressed if you're stressed,

And particularly if you're chronically stressed.

And then,

Of course,

There's our circumstances that stress us,

You know,

The money problems,

Job problems,

Family problems.

But it turns out that circumstances only account for about 10% of what makes life stressful and unhappy.

You know,

We often think a change of circumstances is what's needed to end a stressful life,

But in actuality,

It doesn't make a very big difference at all.

The change that makes the biggest difference is a change of attitude.

Attitude accounts for 40% of what either perpetuates the life of stress or transforms it into the good life.

Research shows that a positive shift in attitude quiets the stress gene.

In other words,

It causes it to down-regulate.

And now that puts you in the driver's seat.

It gives you 90% chance of achieving a high quality of life.

You know,

Now you're flowing with all that intelligence that's in your brain.

Now you're in the position to change your unwanted circumstances.

You've got the brain power to master your life.

That matches up with the ratio of the happiness set point,

Right?

That's right.

You know,

It's really telling because,

You know,

When I coach people and work with people in workshops,

Most people start off with thinking,

Well,

If I had a better job or if I had more money or if I had a better partner,

A sweeter wife or husband or partner,

Everything would be better.

My mother used to call it,

Well,

My ship comes in.

But it turns out,

You know,

In the studies that they've done,

They found that people who,

For example,

Win the lottery for six months,

They are elated.

It's a huge change in circumstances.

But after that six months,

Their genetic disposition changes their mood set point back to where it was before and prior to getting all the money.

Then they did studies on people who are paraplegic due to an accident.

And they found with those people that for the first six months,

They were clinically depressed.

They could not have been more unhappy.

But after six months,

They came to the determination that if they didn't take hold of their attitude,

Their life was going to be twice as miserable.

And most of those people made that shift,

Which comes back to the point,

Your attitude determines your experience of life.

And your experience of life determines the degree to which you're going to succeed at life.

And if you have a positive way of relating to whatever comes,

All the ups and downs that come,

You're going to do much better in life at every level of life that matters to you.

Agreed.

But I think we can also agree that stress itself is not what's toxic,

Right?

I mean,

There's a good amount of stress is needed in order to catalyze change,

To catalyze shift.

So we're not talking about those kinds of challenges that call upon us to stretch.

We're talking about the kinds of stress that have a physiological response to our bodies,

In our bodies that actually can shorten lifespan.

When you have a problem,

When you face some kind of adversity and you're afraid of it and you feel pessimistic about it,

That stress.

And when you make that shift in attitude to that word,

You just use challenge,

Your stress level begins to drop.

And what you see what happens within your brain,

Your primitive brain,

Which is in control of your experience when when you're stressed,

When you're afraid,

Your primitive brain sets off stress reactions,

It dumps stress hormones into your system.

And those stress hormones debilitate the higher brain function that generates the fluid and creative intelligence to solve your problems,

As well as the emotional and social intelligence that puts more joy into your work and steals more peace into your day,

More love into your relationships,

More spring into your step.

And all of that happens,

All that shift to higher brain power happens when you change your relationship to the situation.

So when you get a problem initially,

You might go,

Oh,

No.

But if your attitude changes to look at that problem more creatively,

Where it becomes a challenge,

Then you become excited.

You become engaged with it and your stress level drops.

You're not dumping stress hormones into your system.

And that's the good part of stress.

If you can initially use it to help you see that you have a choice that you can make here in terms of your attitude,

A choice that empowers you,

You avoid all of the debilitating problems that stress cause and make no mistake.

Stress is a killer.

If it becomes a chronic issue in your life,

You need to change it because at the health level,

It leads to heart attack,

It leads to cancer,

It leads to premature aging.

And at the neurological level,

It means debilitated brain function.

Yes.

And let's talk a little bit about the debilitated brain function versus optimal brain functioning,

Because really we're talking about a different kind of brain science and research that is going on right now that is really proving that we can teach an old dog new tricks.

You know,

We talk about the happiness set point or we talk about the stress set point that comes from our DNA.

But what science is bearing out and this is really quite exciting is through the discovery and development of neuroplasticity,

We can actually train the brain.

We can actually stimulate growth of new networks and connections in our brains.

Talk a little bit about that and how it relates back to this theme.

It's really a new frontier in medical science.

What they're discovering is that your mental state has a great deal to do with determining your physical state,

In other words,

Your body,

Determining your health,

The level of energy and well-being that you enjoy,

And it also determines the degree to which you maximize your brain power.

You maximize those intelligences that I just talked about,

The intellectual,

The emotional,

The social intelligence.

Stress is a problem in your life.

It means you were born with the stress gene turned up high and you can actually begin to change through a shift in attitude,

A shift in mindset,

A shift from being primarily fearful,

Primarily anxious in the way you relate to the world,

To being more dynamically peaceful,

Calm,

Creative and optimistic as you relate to circumstances.

And as you do that,

What begins to happen is that that higher brain function that makes you powerful and makes your brain powerful,

It begins to come online and it predicts a much more successful life in your career,

With your family,

With your own personal growth.

You have the brain power to master your life.