Pause. Breathe. Act. You Can’t Undo Send in Real Life

Stressed, angry, feeling like yelling at somebody…”Count until ten”…we all know that. But do we count? Or we react?

Do you know that Google has a feature for Gmail – “Undo Send”?

Once you hit "Send" Gmail holds the email for five seconds, during which time you can stop the email from going out.

What's interesting is that, apparently, a five-second pause is all most people need to realize they've made a mistake.

What about a real life? When you meet somebody in person or on the phone? Unfortunately there is no “Undo Send” button.

Spilt water can't be gathered. Said words won’t turn back. Though, we try to undo send. But we can’t. People tend to remember…

What can we do instead?

How about avoiding the unproductive "Send" in the first place?

1-2-3-4-5 seconds, maybe its enough to avoid additional stress of beating ourselves up for what have we said or how have we reacted?

Perhaps that's all we need to avoid making the mistake. Five tiny seconds.

What science says?

When we are angry ready to yell at somebody we set our stress reaction in motion:  Immediately your heart rate increases. Adrenaline flows. And your emotions flood in.

There's no rule that says we need to respond to something right away. Pause. Take a few breaths.

There are direct pathways from sensory stimuli into the amygdala, which is the emotional response center of the brain. When something unsettling happens in the outside world, it immediately evokes an emotion.

When under emotion (on our way to spoil relationships, both professional and personal) we are not able neither to think rationally nor make good decisions.

So, how do you get beyond the emotion to rational thought?

When you are about to get into fight with somebody, similar war is going on in your brain between your prefrontal cortex and your amygdala. Amygdala sets stress reaction in motion, prefrontal cortex is calming down guy.

How we could help our prefrontal cortex win the war.

Simply as it is all you need you have always handy – your breathing. Take a deep breath and delay your action, so you give the prefrontal cortex time to control the emotional response.

Slowing down your breath has a direct calming affect on your brain: brain perceives that stress danger is over.

It won’t take long your prefrontal cortex to overcome your amygdala. Just little a second or two.

Take Action:

When you are about to react on your negative emotion Stop… Take a Deep Breath and give your prefrontal cortex a little time to win. Then respond, not react.

It takes only a few seconds. We don’t have that “undo Send” button in real life.

Pause. Breathe. Only then act. 

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Pink Bubble Meditation

Imagine your fantasies wrapped in pink bubbles floating into the air and allowing the Universe to bring them in manifestation! Sounds like fun? Well, it is. Engaging in the creative visualization exercise can apparently help you to take stress out of your dreams. 

The Pink Bubble meditation technique is something that Shakti Gawain has created. I met Shakti through her amazing book Creative Visualization about 10 years ago. Since then her books have become my refrence books. 

 The Pink Bubble meditation is simple and wonderfully effective.  

Exercise:

• Sit or lie down comfortably, close your eyes and breathe deeply, slowly, and naturally. Gradually relax and feel this meditation taking you deeper and deeper.
• Imagine something that you would like to manifest. Imagine that is already happened.
• Picture it as clearly as possibly in your mind. Now in your mind's eye surround your fantasy with a pink bubble; put your goal inside the bubble. Pink is the color associated with the heart, and if this color vibrations surrounds whatever you visualize, it bring to you only that which is in perfect affinity with your being.
• The third step is to let go of your bubble and imagine it floating off into the universe, still containing your vision. This symbolizes that you are emotionally "letting go" of it.
• Now it's free to float around the universe, attracting and gathering energy for its manifestation.

There is nothing more you need to do. 

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10 Ways to Achieve Work/Life Balance

Is your busy schedule running you ragged?

Studies show that we are running at a faster pace than in generations past. Between work, family and the daily demands of life, there is little time left in a day to decompress. Unfortunately, when you don’t take time out to relax, you can be headed for trouble. Emotional and physical problems are often the result of over-stressed, over-tired adults on the go.

If you’re running on empty, it’s time to make some changes. Following are ways that you can find more time in the day and ultimately take better care of yourself.

1. Identify commitments you made that you dread including memberships, time-wasting meetings, etc. Learn to say no and eliminate them.

2. Start and end each day with a To Do list and then prioritize each task. Odds are that you won’t accomplish every task on the list so tackle the most important items and then forget about the rest when the day is over.

3. Make a list of goals. This will help you focus on what is important. Goals should include short-term and long-term plans for your business, personal life and family. 

4. Set a schedule for daily and weekly activities and put them on your calendar. For example, dedicate one hour per week to updating your blog or decide that you will make sales calls between 9am to 10am each morning. When you start blocking out your time for tasks, not only will you use your time more wisely, but you will start meeting goals and will put an end the multi-tasking cycle.  

5. Get organized. Countless hours can be wasted due to missing paperwork and lost time can equate to lost income. Schedule time to take care of the clutter and either hire a professional organizer or dedicate yourself to getting systems in place and finding a home for everything in your work and home space. 

6. Check e-mail no more than two to three times per day (morning, afternoon and end of the day). Organize messages with folders and try to touch each message only once. 

7. Take frequent breaks throughout the day. Sitting at a desk all day is a recipe for disaster resulting in back and neck problems, headaches and carpal tunnel syndrome. Get up, walk around, stretch, breathe, have a glass of water and take a few minutes to clear your head. 

8. Keep your energy up with small meals throughout the day. It’s easy to skip meals when you’re in the heat of the workday, but this can actually impair productivity. Instead of reaching for a caffeine fix, grab a granola bar, piece of fruit or a cup of yogurt. Keep snacks on hand to make it easy to keep your personal engine fueled throughout the day.

9. Leave early at least one day each week. Treat yourself to some time alone or spend some quality time with your family. 

10. Quit doing it all yourself. Outsourcing is a great way to reclaim your time. Think you can’t afford it? Consider what you earn hourly. If you can hire someone to take care of tasks for less, then it’s probably a worthwhile investment. Hire a virtual assistant to help with paperwork, have your laundry picked up, get a landscaper or house cleaner and have your groceries delivered. 

Even implementing just a few of these suggestions can make a dramatic improvement in your well-being. And if any of these suggestions leave you feeling guilty, shake it off. Work will always be there, but if you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be of any use at work or at home. Take care of number one and the rest will fall into place.

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Stress-Free Productivity: “Salami” Principle

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one”, Mark Twain Have you ever needed to deal with large tasks? How did it feel? Thrilling, positively challenging? Or, on the contrary? Dealing with large tasks can be so stressful and overwhelming that you either never start them, or having started them, you become discouraged and give up. But does this solve the problem?

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Stress Reduction – Learn Productive Change

Dealing with change is about dealing with stress. Change is stressful and isn't always easy, especially when you doubt about where to start.

To help you through here are five crucial steps to productive change:

1. Take care of your health. When you're going through change, you tend to sleep less, eat more, drink more coffee or alcohol and stop exercising. Remember, you need to physically move to start moving the emotions of change through you.

2. Allow yourself quiet time. Sit with what is, even for just 10 or 15 minutes a day. That's when intuition starts taking over and you think, "Oh, I see this" or "oh, I should call this person."

3. Become less selfish. Change is very me, me, me, but the human spirit wants connection, unity, giving, sharing and love. Find a way to give, to share, and to be there for someone else.

4. No labeling. During change, everything seems black and white—this is a good change or that is a bad change. In reality, we don't know what the future holds.

5. Know that we don't live in an either/or world. You don't have to decide between the corporate world and pursuing your dreams, or between ambition and spirituality. We live in an "and" world.

Change isn't always easy, especially when you doubt about where to start.

Holistic stress management coaching enables you to create balanced life by identifying the sources of stress in your life and equiping you with techniques to manage stress more effectively in order to reach the permanent stress reduction and work life balance results.

If you'd like to talk about coaching with me, please contact me directly at info@action4balance.com with a brief description of your situation. Coaching is carried out by phone (you can connect from the comfort of your home or office) in English,  Latvian and Russian.

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