7 Tips to Conquer Stress According to Dr. David Spiegel

How to live a more stress-free life

By Dr. David Spiegel and Marisa Chayavivatkul

We’ve all been there. We’ve all had our off days. We are all human.

Yet, many of us can’t seem to master our overthinking, stress, and anxiety even on our best days. Haunted by ruminating thoughts, prolonging our state of discomfort, we manage to make bad things seem worse by misusing our own minds.

Whether you struggle with anxiety often or just occasionally, here are 7 ways to help you feel better on your off days.

1. Accept Your Anxiety and Uncertainty

As Stanford Health Care Psychiatrist and Co-Founder of Reveri, Dr. David Spiegel, puts it — running away from what is causing your anxiety will only make you more anxious. Avoiding a stressor only makes it seem even more threatening, and it deprives you of any possible experiences of mastery over it. At the same time, fighting it forces you to pay attention to it, but not in a way that will lead to a resolution. For example: try telling yourself not to think about purple elephants. Actively restraining yourself from doing or thinking about something is not constructive.

2. Use Your Imagination

First, turn your attention to an aspect of your encounter with a stressor that you can control — your physical reaction to it.

You can use our self-hypnosis app, Reveri (available on iOS and Android), to teach you how to make your body comfortable.

By entering a self-hypnotic state and imagining that you are in a bath, a lake, a hot tub, or just floating in space, you can learn to physically respond to an image that conveys physical comfort. By doing this, You are already ahead of the game as you are countering the physical fight or flight response that is a natural reaction to stress.

Next, use your imagination to picture an imaginary screen in your mind’s eye. First, picture the pleasant scene you already feel yourself in. Second, divide the screen in half. On the left side, picture one aspect of the stressor that concerns you, while keeping your body floating and comfortable.

3. Problem Solve

On the right side of the imaginary screen, picture one thing you can do to help you to deal with the stressor on the left, again with your body floating. Just having an action plan, no matter how limited it may be, will help you to feel active rather than reactive. Notice how the combination of physical comfort and having a plan can help you address and destress the problem.

4. Work with The Wave

Stress is part of being alive — it goes with the territory. Stress is the flip side of caring and connection. You feel stressed because you care about what is being threatened — worry is the troublesome side of commitment. So, learn to roll with it, like a surfer on a big wave. Rather than fight or avoid the wave, pick it up and ride with it. Enjoy the ride and see where it takes you.

You can use self-hypnosis, in Reveri’s Relieve Stress exercise, for example, to picture yourself riding that wave rather than fighting or fleeing it. Learn to enjoy the ride. Work with the wave, not against it. Harness the power of uncertainty.

5. Believe in Yourself

Ponder similar situations in the past and think about how you dealt with them. Acknowledge your own coping abilities and adapt them to the current stressor. Think about how other people you admire have handled similar situations. Acknowledge that you have gotten over this in the past, and you can in the future.

6. Energy Conservation

Notice how you can channel your anxiety into positive energy to address and deal with a problem. No more racing the engine without going anywhere. Honor your worry and mobilize to do something about it.

7. Congratulate Yourself

Notice how you have addressed your problem, helped your body feel more comfortable, developed a strategy or two, channeled your anxiety into positive energy, and emerged feeling better and stronger. Feel free to utilize the Reveri app’s self-hypnosis as often as you wish to relax and remobilize. Ride the wave.

Our mission at Reveri is to make hypnosis mainstream and help hundreds of millions of people achieve goals like better sleep, enhanced focus and performance, relief from stress and anxiety, pain management, and more.

The Reveri app is available for download on the App Store for iOS users and Google Play for Android users.

For more information, please visit www.reveri.com or send us an email at support@reveri.com.