Many are sure that in order to keep up with everything and be effective, you need to keep yourself in good shape. Tension, will, desire – and run forward! However, studies show that constant emotional and physical stress reduces our efficiency, while those who know how to relax perform creative tasks more efficiently.
Modern office workers are forced to regularly make creative decisions: figure out how to optimize processes, look for new markets and methods of working with new information systems… Tactics and strategies change every day, and you have to look for the best ways to develop yourself, the product and the company.
These regular changes plunge both employees of large companies and independent entrepreneurs into a stable state of stress. And as psychological research shows, creative decision-making requires just the opposite: relaxation. Relaxing, we learn to look at the situation from the outside, go beyond and come up with moves that will give competitive advantages.
First step to relaxation
Mental and emotional relaxation begins with a balanced state of the body, because it is it that is the tool for the realization of our emotions. If our body is flexible and mobile, then emotional experiences pass through it like a wave, and we return to a calm, relaxed state.
When tensions remain in the body, emotions often “get stuck” in them. For example, those who stoop are more prone to anxiety and sad states: sadness “gets stuck” in a tense chest, and anxiety and hyper-responsibility are realized through tension in the neck and shoulders.
Those who are chronically stressed fall into a vicious circle:
- against the background of experiences, habitual tensions are formed,
- reasons for experiences are exhausted, but muscle tension remains,
- against the background of habitual stresses, habitual emotions arise, although there is no longer an objective reason for them.
That’s why it’s so important to take good care of your body. First you need to learn how to “actively relax”: look for and relax habitual tensions. You can learn this, for example, by mastering one of the directions of qigong – Xing Shen Juang (Xinshen). In this practice, relaxation and pleasure from it are at the forefront: we learn to measure the depth of bodily relaxation and consciously move into it.
Let go of the mind
The second step to creative efficiency is to relax the mind. To roughly imagine how it is, do the following. Close your eyes and clench your hand into a fist. Gradually relaxing your fist, allow your palms to open. And now imagine that you give yourself the opportunity, as your palms relax, to “relax”, to open the boundaries of the mind. It turns out?
Surely you didn’t manage to “relax your head” 100% right away, but, most likely, you felt a change in your state, albeit a small one. So it is quite possible to free your head from the buzz of thoughts.
To learn this, meditation is suitable – for example, Shen Jen Gong. Its purpose is to search for inner silence through stopping the monologue. Of course, until we master special techniques, our head continues to “buzz” and generate thoughts, but you can master these techniques in just four days of classes (and then practice regularly for 10-12 minutes a day).
Control emotions
It is impossible to cope with acute emotions instantly and not worry at all: we are people, which means we will worry, fall in love, swear and do stupid things. However, it is possible to ensure that emotions come and go, and do not take away the last strength and do not plunge into chaos.
In our culture, it is commonly believed that “control over emotions” makes us emotionless robots. But in the East, where health and well-being are inextricably linked with the concept of vitality, the management of emotions is considered a blessing. The one who controls feelings does not allow himself to fall into an anxiety disorder and depression, even though he experiences sadness, fear and other negative emotions. He can look at the most intractable situation from the outside and find the most favorable way out.
Perhaps body exercises alone will be enough to regain balance and get rid of habitual stress.
According to the Eastern tradition, the flexible structure of the body, the ability to control the state of mind and mastery of breathing practices allow you to control energy. When there is no strength, breathing techniques allow you to replenish the resource. When there is too much energy and there is no way to stop and think, and even more so to fall asleep, they regulate the circulation of vital forces, direct them to a peaceful course.
If you like to plan, try the relaxation-seeking strategy outlined above. If global planning is alien to you, master bodily practices that relieve habitual tensions and look at the result. Perhaps just 15 minutes a day of body exercises alone will be enough to regain balance and get rid of habitual stress.