Using the calmness response lets you put the brake on stress

When we're out on the road, there are constant changes in traffic conditions and speed limits, as well as the occasional steep turn. That's why we need to use our car's throttle and brake to get to our destination without crashing.

Our brains have a throttle and a brake, too. Similar to when driving a car on the road, we need to use both for thriving at work and life. Here's the tricky part: Our brains are wired to automatically use the throttle whenever something is challenging us. You're familiar with that reaction. It's also known as the (acute) stress response.

In our body, acute stress improves wound healing and immune function. In our brain, it speeds up cognitive processing and makes us more alert and focused – as a result, it primes our system for faster, better, and sharper cognition.

If that surprises you, you're not alone. Stress has a terrible reputation. When hearing the term, most of us think about exhaustion or burnout. As it turns out, these terms refer to common consequences of what scientists call chronic stress. It's the equivalent of going full throttle on the road all the time, with similarly dire consequences for our body and brain.

The key to dealing with stress is not letting acute stress turn into chronic stress. To pull that off, frequently putting on our brain’s brake is essential. Unfortunately, unlike using the throttle, doing so doesn't come naturally to us. However, we can learn to put on that brake – by activating what researchers call the calmness response.

Over the next weeks, I'll delve deeper into that response and share the best science-based practices for turning it on. Some of these take less than a minute and thus allow you to deal with stress in real-time. Others take a bit longer, but work wonders for restoring your mental energy and focus. And since the calmness response is necessary for sleep, all of them also work for falling (back) asleep. So stay tuned!

Until then, here's a quick fix. As Shawn Achor, one of the world's leading experts on stress, has shown, changing how you think about stress is a very effective way to deal with it.

There are two kinds of stress mindsets: If you believe that stress has debilitating consequences for your health, well-being and productivity, that's a stress-is-debilitating mindset. Conversely, if you think that stress has enhancing effects on these outcomes, that's a stress-is-enhancing mindset. As I've alluded to above, there's scientific evidence for both.

At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, Achor and his colleagues conducted a study with 380 managers at UBS. The results were fascinating. Managers who thought about stress as enhancing instead of debilitating reported significantly fewer symptoms of chronic stress, such as headaches, backache and fatigue. They also were more satisfied with their lives and felt more energetic. And last but not least, their productivity was increased by a whopping 37%.

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Until next week,
Christian