Calming Balms
Let’s be clear: these are not calm times.
But here’s something that I found instructive: it is possible to employ calming balms during fever-pitch times of fear and anxiety. The choice to use them? Well, that’s yours. Wrapping yourself in calm is a self-directed strategy. But the effort can work well, and is worth the effort.
I returned to this awareness (yet again) during two recent historical weeks when the US Congress was preparing another impeachment of our disgraced president on the heels of the week before that when rioters tore through the Capitol building. Indeed, these are not calm times.
While running an early-morning errand, I was listening to the morning news. In a society where the squeaky wheel typically gets the grease, US broadcasters tend to speak with intense urgency and passion. It’s loud and rapid-fire, and their voices sometimes tumble over one another like a torrent of springtime snowmelt.
At a certain point, I couldn’t take it any more. I decided to switch over to my BBC World channel. Within seconds, I felt a giant “ahhhh....!” The level of relief was stunning enough to ponder. I decided it stemmed primarily from the simple nonverbal fact that the speakers were employing a slower, quieter pace. (It also helped that the topic under discussion had no hard edges.) I found myself mentally stepping back from the brink of Full Frazzle to something more sustainable. My day was suddenly able to unfold more deliberately and, well, calmly.
I would wish this experience on everyone.
But my wishes aren’t enough. It takes self-guidance and awareness to build a moat of calm. Recognizing habits that fan the forces of your inner chaos and confusion is an excellent start. Regardless of the life challenges we each face, everyone has the opportunity to make choices to stop poking the metaphorical bear.
What does it mean, to be calm? A definition (heard maybe on a Brene Brown podcast - see “Unlocking Us”) is that “calm is perspective, mindfulness, and the ability to manage emotional reactivity.” When we’re able to step back from the fray, we gain perspective. When we quiet our minds, they can refill with welcome awareness. And who wouldn’t want to develop into the sort of person who doesn’t fly off the handle with minimal provocation (which is one way of defining emotional reactivity)?
Here are some apt and useful Calming Balms. Surely there are others. Should you choose to develop a habit of living (more) calmly, you’d be amazed at the boosted capacity for managing life in this complex world when you put them to work on your behalf.
Turn off the news after one round. Being civically engaged and knowledgeable about current events is relevant, especially these days. But it’s not your problem that broadcasters have to fill every minute, 24/7/365. Inevitably the news extends into being masticated and churned to death by the pundits. Stop playing into their search for good ratings.
Better sleep = a calmer life. Limit the factors known to disrupt healthy sleep, such as sugar, alcohol, hard exercise, and, yes, the news (!) within three hours of bedtime. See Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker for a host of information on this topic.
Monitor the noise in your life, including music choices. For Some, yes, a blast of full-volume, drum-beat-heavy rock is sometimes indicated...but not as a steady diet. Notice the impact of sound in your world. When it begins to feel like a woodpecker on your brain, name it for what it is: noise. Do your adrenal glands a favor: switch it off.
Be conscious about what else you let into your brain. Build the skill of letting go of things over which you have no control so they don’t chew holes in your psyche. It’s like filling high-performance engines with bad fuel; junk yields junk. What you read and hear can influence the quality of your thoughts and opinions. Try to rely on properly edited sources of information. It’s the best possibility for obtaining accurate, thorough information. There’s a reason fact-checkers have a job. (The same is true, of course, of how you choose to fuel your body. The four food groups are not sugar, salt, fat, and caffeine!)
Get some fresh air daily. Research is abundant about the natural world’s ability to calm and soothe humans. Find time to connect with sky, open air, trees and bushes, flowers, water, etc. Mayzie and I are out there like religion, no matter the weather. The additional perk of exercise is another element of building a calm(er) life.
Practice meditation or mindfulness. Scientific research shows abundantly that they are soothing and helpful to jangled mental states.
One thing that doesn’t get to the bottom of a search for calm is the use of drugs (prescribed or not), alcohol, or other numbing methods that just set the pain of life aside for awhile. That’s just palliative, and doesn’t generate true wellness.
Building a state of honest calm is good, worthy work. Find a path that heals, soothes, or mitigates pain, and you’ll surely be pleasantly surprised at the difference in your life.
