Quickie StressBuster to Save Your Sanity
Would you invest two-minute of your day to create a Firewall in your
brain against anxiety, fear, and stress?
Sure, it’s easy to say yes, but you need to do it for 21 consecutive days in order for this strategy to go on autopilot (habit). Do you have game?
Once upon a time there was a devoted psychologist who did not want to have his
patients coming weekly for the next seven years before they were helped.
Irv Solomon, Ph.D offered three stressbusters: to those suffering from
run-away internal dialogue; negative mental-movies of death and destruction, and
finally, how to stick to your goals and achieve your objectives. Here’s one.
Internal dialogue
You don’t have to be suffering from deep depression to have occurrences when your
mind keeps chattering, and scaring you with its dire predictions. It’s caused by Amygdala Highjack, where your self-talk (stream-of-consciousness) is out of your
control and runs 24/7 including while you’re dreaming.
You can takes drugs to terminate runaway internal dialogue, or 3-years of psychoanalysis, or exercise your will by the Solomon strategy.
Strategy 1: Sit down, facing a wall and focus you eyes on a single point directly in front of you.
You are using your central vision, a/k/a foveal sight to see sharply. It’s the same
vision used in reading and while on the computer.
Now, relax and begin to see the area left of the spot you are focused on while NOT
moving your head or eyes. You still see the single pointed spot, but also include
in your path-of-vision the left-sided area surrounding the point in front of you.
Keep looking at the spot in the center of the wall, including the left side and ADD
seeing the area on your right side. See, there is nothing to it, just “Go Wide, Go Lizzard”, meaning let your peripheral (side) vision kick in.
Every time you say the phrase, “Go Wide, Go Lizzard”, automatically let your eyes
shift from Central (foveal) vision to Peripheral (side) vision – while still focused
straight ahead of you. Yes, you can easily do both simultaneously. Try it now.
Facts Educated Folks Know
One more thing, you can see horizontally 165 degrees left-to-right, and 130 degrees
vertically (above-and-below). Do we use our entire field of vision? Answer: we use
1-2 degrees of our horizontal, and none of our vertical visions. So what? That’s
why we read as slow-as-a-snail (150 words per minute), get dry-eye, and computer
usage headaches.
Back to the “Go Wide, Go Lizard” exercise to delete internally dialogue. Keep your
eyes relaxed and staring at that middle point, plus the left and right sides.
Add this; intend to see the area ABOVE the central point. See vertically ABOVE, while simultaneously view the center and the sides. Do it now and know it’s easy.
Next, add to your central and peripheral vision, the vertical area BELOW your center point of focus.
This is baby stuff, so stop making it sound like a circus act. Choose to let your eyes
do what they are capable of doing naturally. They see centrally (sharply), plus the left and right sides of the center, and finally they also encompass what is above and below the center. Get it?
What do you do with your vision when you say to yourself, “Go Wide, Go Lizard”?
First, don’t move your head or your eyes, and see the panorama of “up-down, left-right, and center.” Oh yeah, the lizard sees in her left-eye only what is on her left,
and the right-eye what occurs on her right field-of vision.
Homo sapiens have eyes that overlap with a binocular vision, which is what you have unless you are a scientifically trained baboon. You have peripheral, horizontal and vertical, and central (foveal) sight. But you have forgotten how to use them.
“Go Wide, and Go Lizard” is a programmed mental trigger to use all the elements of your eyes, not just central vision.
Okay, So What
After one-minute for 85% of us, and for sure after two-minutes, your internal dialogue, self-talk, and stream of consciousness dies a horrible death. The chatter
ceases and desists, and your stress signals of “fight-or-flight” are turned off.
Your brain uses this Peripheral Vision exercise to switch you from Sympathetic Nervous System dominance (adrenalin and cortisol stress hormones) to Parasympathetic dominance Nervous System (acetylcholine) dominance, and deep relaxation.
You have taken back control of your marathon talkfest “subvocalization” and
stream of consciousness, to blessed quietude and peace of mind.
In the extreme, you stop hearing negative judgments like, “You’re a loser, stupid,
and should seriously consider an early exit.” It’s hard to argue back with yourself, and win, right?
But with the Solomon strategy, you wrest back control and stop all the effects of
the Fight-or-Flight Syndrome. Why? These stress symptoms included rapid
heartbeat, hyperventilation, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune system.
For those who want physiological details, Google: left Obitofrontal Cortex, and right PreFrontal cortex, the sites of our Fight-or-Flight Syndrome.
After That
After this two-minute Peripheral Vision strategy there is up to a 90% reduction
of internal dialogue for up to four hours. After the 21st day of practice, there is
a 90% reduction of malicious self-talk for up to 12 hours. If required, you can always renew your relief with another two-minute strategy dose.
We have personally heard from executives who have used this strategy and tell us
it works faster and better than drugs or a visit to their shrink. Remember, stress
is truly the invisible killer, and now you have a weapon to beat it into the ground.
Endwords
We suggest you consider improving your personal productivity up to 39%.
Would it help you to stand out from your competitors if you could read three
(3) books, articles and reports in the time others can hardly finish one?
How about doubling your long-term memory? Ask us how.
See ya,
copyright © H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org
hbw@speedlearning.org
1-877-567-2500
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Author of Speed Reading for Professionals, published
by Barron's. Business partner of Evelyn Wood, graduating
2 million, including the White House staff of four
U.S. Presidents.