Why is it So Hard to Slow Down?

by | Blog

Most of us are aware of many positive ways to relieve stress and do something good for our bodies.    Just knowing it, doesn’t mean we are going to then make room in our days for those healthy activities.  Why is that?  There is a human tendency to only think and feel that what is possible is related to the current state we are in.  If our world is traveling around us at the speed of sound and we’re swept up in that wave, then so is our nervous system.  For our brains, it’s very difficult to imagine a different experience.  We lose our ability to conceive what calm feels like because in our brain’s estimation, its like swimming against a rip tide current.  Within a split second the brain decides that the effort is too much to shift gears and that it makes more sense to stay with the frenetic pace.

The same holds true for exercise – one of the best stress relievers.  The alarm clock grabs you out of a dream and beckons you to move out onto what you now perceive as the icy tundra of a floor that leads to some other arctic journey of morning exercise.  Again, the experience may be perceived as so difficult that the mind cannot motivate itself to give it a try.

One way to try and minimize your present reality being so juxtaposed with your desired state is to put a very small time limit around your intended goal.  For example, if you are looking to reduce stress, setting the objective to just closing your eyes to focus on your breath for 30 seconds can feel achievable.  Here’s the thing, that small change in behavior might be enough for the time being.  Or, now that you got yourself to breathe, you might find that you can go longer with greater ease.   Either way, the idea is that you now have a bridge to get things shifting.

About Sojourn

Sojourn Partners is a results-driven executive leadership coaching firm that empowers the professional workforce to think differently in order to realize the full return on investment in themselves and their companies. Professional leadership thinking and intervention, based on years of research and experience, place Sojourn Partners at the forefront in executive leadership coaching, organizational development, strategic planning and culture and climate change.

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