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6 Benefits of Staying Calm In the Face of Stress

There are many benefits of staying calm in the face of stress. It helps us handle situations better, love and accept ourselves, and find joy in our lives.

Stress is known to be a 'silent killer', and for valid reasons. These two words typify the peak of stress — it is often invisible to others and it has the potential to make us very unwell by balancing our neurological and psychological systems. There is a whole range of benefits of staying calm both for the body and the mind.

By staying calm we are able to take better decisions, handle difficult situations, care for ourselves and find more joy in our lives. Being calm is not something you need to be born with. It's something we can learn through therapy, meditation and by taking good care of our mental health.

Being Calm and Modulating Stress

Humans are wired to be calm and live through their life in a balanced state. A state of 'stress response' (Hans Selye, 1936), so often experienced by us, should usually occur only when there is a real crisis. Much like our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have experienced when a vicious animal was chasing them. In the modern world, however, we tend to experience these mini 'life and death' crises many times a day. That is if they are not modulated.

This is not to berate the difficult experiences and real-life challenges faced by many but to highlight the importance of scanning an event for what it is. It's about seeing it as it is before having an automatic response of fight-or-flight.

Being calm and learning to be mindful can be the very difference between having eustress and stress. Eustress is the positive amount of strain required to mediate life events, and stress is the state of physiological and psychological arousal where our resources are perceived as not adequate to deal with the demands of the environment.

Being calm, moderating the 'stress response' with a sense of realism, and approaching the situation mindfully is the difference between being consumed by the situation and managing it. Being mindful also includes choosing useful thoughts and not focusing too narrowly on any one thought.

Studies show that mental training can result in increased control over the distribution of brain resources (Slagter et al., 2007). The human mind has a limited capacity to process information and conduct processing. Mental training and a calm attitude help us distribute these resources.

The principle of Figure and Ground (Fritz Perls, 1987) in Gestalt Psychology alludes to a similar notion. According to this principle, different issues will become figural and recede to the ground at different times. Practices that involve meditation, visualization, therapy and counselling support individuals in learning to turn their attention to one stream of thought.

Meditation and the State of Calm

Meditation is a practice that can be learnt and taught. It helps you focus the mind and achieve a state of calm by managing your thoughts. Meditation is widely known for its great benefits in reducing anxiety, enhancing relaxation, and bringing forth a feeling of well-being.

Deshmukh (2006) defines meditation as the art of being serene and present in the moment, rather than working on constantly changing or becoming something in the future. This is comparable to the 'here and now' experience of Gestalt Therapy, where there is no agenda barring a curiosity on the therapist's part to allow the client's mind to go where it needs to go.

Gestalt Therapy uses the immediacy of the experience to bring forth awareness. This awareness will serve to highlight stuck areas and practice release in the same by owning disconnected and disavowed parts of the self, rather than making an effort to change.

The Benefits of Staying Calm

An interesting approach to either waking up a latent tendency for calmness or becoming calm when we need to be is to be able to see the benefits of it. The brain is wired for dopamine receptor 'hits.' When the human brain can see what advantage is going to come its way it can organize the benefits and attach ourselves to them. If we experience the benefits of being calm, we become able to set goals and become motivated to follow through.

1. Mediating the 'Stress Response' and DOSEing on the Right Neurotransmitters

Neurotransmitters are the network of chemical messengers that carry information from neurons to the parts of the body where action is required. When we are faced with a stressful situation, the Sympathetic Nervous System is automatically activated by the brain and a host of responses come forth that are required to fight that crisis — a faster heartbeat, adrenal gland activity, quick respiration, sweating, and the feeling of a dry mouth.

One of the benefits of staying calm is that there is no pent up energy in this way: we deal with the situation in relation to how dangerous it actually is. We can teach our body to activate the Parasympathetic instead of the Sympathetic Nervous System — one of the ways is to 'DOSE' up on the right neurotransmitters: Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins.

2. Comfort, Resilience, Well-Being

Calmness brings about an immediate sense of well-being and comfort. It is when we are in this state of calm that we can battle our anxiety and manage stressful situations with more equanimity. Resilience is all about overcoming difficulty. When we experience the truly positive effects of resilience, we are fostering positive self-esteem and self-love that is self-explanatory and autonomous.

A vital output of resilience and an integral aspect of composure is understanding that we can rarely control life's circumstances. What we can do instead is to mediate our response to our circumstances. If we respond differently, then those circumstances will sooner or later 'respond' to what we put into them.

3. Managing Obtrusive Thoughts

Amongst the greatest benefits of being calm and channelling our inner composure is the victory over the ever-chugging 'thought train'. The thought train can be constant and circular, ruminating and taking us down the same pathways over and over. Often, it projects a bleak or catastrophic outcome, leaving us with a feeling of 'all or nothing.'

Calmness allows us instead to sink into a deeper reserve. It allows us to ground ourselves with who we really are. It shows us that we are not our thoughts. The first glimmers of clarity come with our first breaths of calm. Deep breathing, breathwork, and counting our breaths are all modalities of moving to calm.

4. Clearer Decision-Making

Chronic and acute stress situations eat away at our self-esteem. Being more calm, more often allows windows into myriad ways of thinking and feeling. It brings us options. When we can imagine other options, we feel more possibility. This sense of possibility and promise brings forth clarity and equanimity. When we are clear, we are also less fearful. It makes us stronger in what we need to do.

5. Connecting to the Authentic Self

Many of us live divided lives. This is because we are unable to connect with our deep authentic needs and desires. Calmness, composure, and resilience lead instead to a state of realism. This is a state where it is difficult to hide the true nature of our wants.

The hard work feels less intense when we are connected to our authentic selves. The struggle to manage ourselves suddenly stops. We can simply be ourselves — and the relief is palpable. This process of connecting and contacting with ourselves begins by being calm and composed in the face of adversity and extremity, and by allowing the possibility of all our responses.

6. Equilibrium and Finding Joy

In the quest for fighting stress, hacking anxiety, and feeling "better", we often do not notice how imbalanced our inner equilibrium is. Calmness and composure to the stressors and challenges around us allow us to be more balanced. This balance is the pivotal difference between poor coping and successful navigation of a situation.

Only when we are calm, when our body slows down, and we do not feel like we are under attack, can we allow ourselves to locate our inner needs. So, perhaps it is time to get in touch with that imbalanced inner self, quieten some of the demons of self-deprecation and habitual tendency to keep our own needs at bay, and allow ourselves to start dreaming of lighter softer feelings like contentment and joy. Being calm is indeed the gateway to being joyful.

Methods and Techniques of Keeping Calm

• Grounding with the earth — taking a barefoot walk in the park, lying down flat on the floor, going for a nature run.
• Locating stress and anxiety in the body — especially when it first arrives; where do you feel it, how do you feel it, and where does it go?
• Take a break — move away from stimuli, practice some anti-anxiety and stress hacks that you can do yourself, give your neurological system a break, and practice self-care.
• Be judicious — how do I use my time, do I need people around me, can I reach out to my supportive circle, is it more useful for me to be on my own?
• Practice — meditation, sleep hacks, guided imagery, visualization, bodywork.
• Feeling focused — staying clear of too much cognitive analysis when overwhelmed, working on sensory modulation, walking back to composure, try again tomorrow.
• No force of pressure — calm begets calm, creating the environment to wind down, bringing gentle vibes into the environment.

Conclusion: Therapy Leads to a Calmer Mind

We must first attune to ourselves, and find our inner harmony and balance before we can tune to another. Tuning into our needs begins with listening to our body and what it is telling us, what it is feeling and lacking.

Many techniques and suggestions sound like 'hacks' when we try to apply them without the right support and guidance. Therapy helps build the toolbox for how to start applying the 'hacks' and making them into everyday ways of life. It teaches us how to identify obstacles and, most importantly, be kinder to the self when we cannot manage.

Gestalt Therapy and Integrated Counselling are good places to start, especially with their special focus on staying in the 'here and now' and working with the body as a tool — come to therapy to know yourself better, or just come to learn to catch your inner calm.