Do you know someone who is rarely affected by a stressful situation? They seem to be able to stay calm and collected when everyone around them gets hot. They may or may not have a secret to that quiet demeanor, but this is a skill that can be learned and literally wired into the cells of your brain. It sounds incredible? It is not.
I’m certainly not naive in realizing that we just can’t wave a magic wand and reduce our reactions to stress and anxiety. Nor would I tolerate being so apathetic about life and ignoring stressful situations and experiences when they arise. There is no use pretending that you are not stressed when in reality you are stressed, anxious, worried or scared. In fact, ignoring it only increases stress even more. The adage that you resist, persists, is at stake here. Resisting something places it more firmly in your experience.
No, what we are talking about is using your mind to change your brain, which will then change your mind and your personality.
It has long been said that you are what you think you are.
Well, what if you consciously decide what to think about for a few consecutive moments? Keep doing that and you could literally change the neural networks in your brain to reflect this new level of thinking.
So you want to change the way you react and respond to potentially stressful and anxiety-generating situations? Change the way you think about yourself in those situations BEFORE you are in those situations.
This is what visualization, guided imagery, or what I call mental rehearsal is all about.
What does this look like?
My teenage son was preparing for a trumpet solo for his high school jazz concert with only an hour left before the start. I was very nervous and looking forward to the performance. He was also concerned about the possibility of making mistakes in front of not only his peers, but the audience of hundreds of parents, teachers and children.
He asked for my help to calm him down so he wouldn’t be so nervous. He wanted to slow down his racing thoughts from fear of standing up and playing his solo in front of a large crowded auditorium and worrying that he might forget notes or play his solo out of sync with the rest of the music the band was playing.
He and I spent a few minutes before leaving him in the concert hall doing some relaxation and mindfulness exercises. In addition to a bit of breath work, I guided him through some mental images.
As a result, he nailed every note on his solo trumpet performance and received rapturous applause after finishing.
The only faster result of using mental imagery is that it seems like it can increase your confidence level, helping you perform better.
My son often uses this exercise before a test, a sports game, or a presentation to help him keep stress off instead of stressing out. Perhaps you have an upcoming presentation, speech, or performance where you need stress relief in the moment to help you process stress.
Mental rehearsal It is often called guided imagery or visualization and is a process of imagining in your mind now what you want to happen in the future. Create a confident body state and mindset in your brain as if you are experiencing the “Real” event. In fact, the neurons in the brain that fire if, for example, you hit a golf ball, they are the same neurons that go off if you’re just clearly thinking about hitting a gold ball.. Your mind doesn’t know the difference. That is why the perception of something scary can also scare you, such as feeling an itch on your skin or head and thinking that it is a spider when in reality all it is is a piece of fallen leaf.
The power of mental rehearsal
During the Vietnam War, United States Navy pilot Captain Jack Sands was shot down and imprisoned for seven years in Hanoi. They kept him isolated in a five foot by five foot cage. Survived. How could you ask? Using the only thing he had left that he couldn’t get rid of, his mind. Every day during those seven years, he played golf in his mind, visualizing with exact clarity every perfect shot on his 18-hole course created in his mind.
When Captain Sands was released, one of the first things he did when he got home was play a round of golf. Amazingly, he shot a 74 without having touched a golf club for over seven years. That’s a great score, but that’s not the remarkable part of the story. You see, Captain Sands was just an occasional golfer who normally shot around 100 before leaving for Vietnam. He hit 26 shots of his score without ever having played a physical round of golf all those years, but simply playing golf in his mind, with perfect precision, clarity and feeling.
Visualization has been used by sports psychologists with Olympic and professional athletes, as well as many others.
I used it with kids when I was coaching youth baseball. I helped a kid who almost always struck out one of the best and most consistent hitters on our team for the first ten games. I asked him to visualize the perfect batting stance and swing, seeing the ball as big as a beach ball and hitting it far away. That same game, while standing at the plate, you could tell he was different, an aura of confidence like never before. He crushed the ball on the third pitch to deep center field for a double.
My son visualized the applause from the audience before his solo concert. He had a clear picture of him in his mind playing all the notes perfectly and in sync with the rest of the band. What happened? He played the piece with almost no problem. Yes, I was still a little nervous. But his confidence and clarity of mind dominated his body and helped him relax and perform at a very high level.
Here are four steps to the mental rehearsal:
1) Close your eyes.
2) Imagine in your mind all the details of what you want to happen.
3) Engage all of your senses. What do you see, hear and feel as you create the perfect scene after you have achieved your goal?
4) Act as if you think your goal has already been accomplished.
Now your mind may wander, but do your best to bring it back as often as you can to this image of you achieving your goal.
Take a few minutes each day, perhaps upon waking up in the morning or before bed, imagining in your mind, as clearly as possible, that you are in a stressful or anxiety-producing situation and handling it in a very calm and relaxed manner when just like the person you always saw capable of more than handling stress, but thriving on it.
In this, you actually create the change before the change. Your brain is wired to be calmer in the face of stress and anxiety, so you will feel calmer when you are actually dealing with stress and anxiety.