Canyon Ranch (Arizona)
You're at the office with deadlines to meet or deals to close. Or you're at home with long to-do lists and loved ones to care for. No matter where you go, you can feel stressed-out or anxious about something. What to do? Here are some practical recommendations for coping with difficult times.

1. Learn from the innocent
Live in the moment. As adults, we are capable of anticipating the future, but, honestly, you can't live in any moment but the present one. Animals and very young children live in the present, and there's great psychological and spiritual value in trying to emulate that simplicity. To focus your attention on "the now," close your eyes and breathe deeply, while paying attention to the movement of your breath in and out. Focus on ambient sounds, scents and physical sensations. Don't try to drive thoughts away; let them come and go.

While only the most accomplished spiritual adepts can emulate the clear consciousness of animal or young child for very long, even a moment of awareness practice can help make a frantic day bearable.

2. Don't borrow trouble
When we're anxious, what we're doing is imagining a future and behaving as if it were here. But life, in fact, is not a movie, with a predictable course of events and pre-determined ending. You really do not know what will happen next. This can be a liberating realization, and becoming aware of our thoughts as "script," not reality, can help put some distance between us and our fears.

3. Live happily ever after: Develop a storybook ending
Once you understand that anxiety is the result of your imagination working overtime, use that knowledge. Instead of trying to stop thoughts about the future - that's impossible - make up alternate endings to the stories you're telling yourself. No matter how bad one ending is, you can develop one that is worse, much worse, ridiculously worse - and you can also imagine endings that are better. Developing improbable conclusions - some happy, some tragic - serves as an entertaining distraction and reminds you that none of the scenarios that make you anxious are real.

4. Add more texture to your life
Comforting textures can be a surprisingly effective antidote to anxiety and stress: Wear soft clothes, put flannel sheets on your bed, sleep with a corner of a blanket in your hand. Psychologists believe this works because it evokes childhood. Before we had words, we had blankets and soft toys. We were comforted by texture, and accessing this primal comfort helps calm tumultuous thoughts.

5. Take your pulse
Put your hand on your neck or wrist and literally feel your heart beating. Focus in a meditative manner and tell yourself, 'This is my heart beating.' Then put your hand on your belly and feel the rise and fall of your diaphragm, and say, 'This is my body breathing.' You can access these stabilizing touchstone thoughts anywhere - in meetings or crowded places.

6. Nurture other living things
Forging connections with living things has proven health benefits. It's both cheering and calming to attend to something that is alive and growing. Care for your children in special ways, spend extra time with your dog or cat or the flowers in your garden and feel your spirit settle.

7. Trouble sleeping? Displace your inner dialogue
When you can't get to sleep at night, you're probably listening to a conversation in your head. If you listen to someone else, that pointless train of repetitive thoughts will stop scrolling through your head. Try letting someone read you to sleep: Download a not-too-exciting audiobook (no thrillers or ghost stories!) onto your iPod, or listen to a storyteller on tape. Especially good are recordings by Garrison Keillor, Robert Fulghum and Tom Bodett - readers whose deep, soothing voices offer mellow messages with uplifting humor. Simply slip on a pair of headphones to quiet your inner dialogue.

Your life - your terms
Adjusting the way you see the world is the ultimate in stress and anxiety relief. You have the power to opt out and get off the treadmill of continuous psychic stress. The key is to recognize when you are falling into the old stressed-out pattern, then to try one or more of the seven steps to short-circuit your anxiety. Before long, work and home will be relaxing places you love to be.

http://www.canyonranch.com/
(800)742-9000 (413)637-4100