Welcome back to Book Break!
And did you know that the whole of April is Stress Awareness Month?
So I've got for you in this video seven tips for reducing your stress.
And I have come here to tell you about them, in the beautiful semi-open air garden right
at the top of Crossrail Place.
It is such a lovely calm place to come in the middle of the city, so I thought it would
be a perfect place to come and talk about how to keep your stress levels down, something
that is so important for all of us is our working lives, or at school or university.
We've all got a lot of stress.
But hopefully these seven tips will help you keep feeling calm.
Tip number one: start meditating.
So I have been reading the book Stress Less, Accomplish More, by Emily Fletcher.
And this is all about her Ziva technique of meditation, which people have been absolutely
swearing by.
So Emily Fletcher recommends just 15 minutes of meditation twice a day.
This is meditating for busy people.
I promise you can make time for this.
The thing that I so fell in love with in this technique is that, unlike the pictures of
meditating that you've probably seen, of people in kind of unnaturally perfect yoga positions,
this is actually meditation where you're allowed to get comfortable.
So the book recommends - you know what, let's actually try this out and I'll show you.
OK, so I'm sitting down on the floor now, because this book recommends that to meditate
you have to start by getting comfortable.
The only requirement is that you have your back supported against something, and your
neck is free to move around.
You can have your legs crossed, you can have your legs curled up, however is comfortable
for you, as long as you're feeling supported and relaxed.
Then you close your eyes, and begin.
But of course, to find out the rest of the Ziva techniques, you will have to read this
book.
OK, I'm going back up to my seat for tip number two.
Tip number two is to practise mindfulness, so Ten to Zen is a ten minute routine by Owen
O'Kane, that is all about calming your brain down and recharging.
And it is really really simple to do.
So the first minute of this routine is just about checking in with yourself.
Ask yourself how you're feeling, and really give yourself the chance to respond, even
if some of the emotions that you're feeling are negative.
Just acknowledge and accept them.
Even just one minute of that will already have brought you so far in terms of calming
your brain down, but I really do urge you to pick up this book and look at the rest
of the routine, because it goes on to help you find calm spaces within your brain, use
breathing to reduce anxiety, and even use some CBT techniques to ease your worries.
It's really really good, I recommend it.
Tip number three is to remember that it is thoughts, and not events, that make you stressed.
So I got this one from Mo Gawdat's brilliant book Solve for Happy. So to explain what he
means by this, he encourages you to spend a minute thinking about a time recently that
made you unhappy or angry.
So for example, maybe a friend was rude to you.
Spend a minute really dwelling on that, and getting all worked up about it.
So I'm thinking about a customer service call I had recently where they were really rude
to me, and I still feel really annoyed when I think about it.
But after you've done that, then spend the next minute thinking about something completely
different.
Maybe sing a song that you like, or plan what you're going to eat this evening.
All of that pain and anger that you felt a second ago, is it still there when you're
not thinking about it?
No.
Because an event itself can't make you unhappy.
What makes you unhappy, and what makes you stressed, is turning that event into a thought,
and then dwelling on it.
Obviously it's more complicated than that, and Gawdat talks really movingly in this book
about his process of grief after the death of his son.
So he's obviously not expecting anyone to resist feeling pain, but the book goes into
really incredible detail about the illusions that we use to trick ourselves with.
Everything from our sense of self, to our sense of being in control.
And the book then replaces them with a formula that we can use to literally engineer ourselves
a happier and less stressed life.
It's incredible.
It's a whole new way of thinking about our thought processes, and I think it's completely
life-changing.
Tip number four is a really simple one, and that is to laugh at things that go wrong.
And this came from a really sweet quote that Ian Frazier contributed to O's Little Book
of Calm and Comfort, and it's a really short quote so I'm actually just going to read you
the whole thing.
The tap water hits a spoon in the sink and sprays you.
You pull a window shade and it just keeps going and going.
You can't roll up a garden hose in any dignified way.
You have to become a connoisseur of these events.
Wow, look at that, that's great.
You have to hope that a higher power is saying, That was a good one.
And that you're sharing the divine pleasure that it's taking in your misfortune.
Tip number five is to choose a mentor who can help you.
And Russell Brand has a whole book about this, called, surprisingly enough, Mentors.
So Russell Brand came across this concept as part of his drug addiction recovery programme,
which suggests that you choose a mentor to sponsor you and help guide you through the
process of recovery.
And he then found that this was really effective in loads of other areas of his life as well.
So the book is all about the different mentors that have helped him in various ways throughout
his life.
So Russell Brand's advice to us is that we look at our lives, and think about the areas
where we want to improve, and then think about who we can look to for guidance.
Because the important thing is, we don't have to do it all on our own.
Tip number six, this one's my favourite, is give yourself unconditional permission to
eat.
And this one is going to be relevant to so many of you, because so many of us let food
become one of the biggest sources of stress in our lives.
And the book that I've read recently that massively reduced my stress in this area is
Just Eat It by Laura Thomas.
We have a whole video talking to the author which I will link to so you can go and watch
that, because this book, I've found to be really really life-changing.
Just Eat It basically tells us to ditch the diets, ditch everything that we've been stressing
about around food for our whole lives, and just eat what our bodies want us to eat.
Should be so simple, but of course it isn't, and that's why so many of us still struggle
with it.
But Just Eat It is a whole book full of guidance and exercises to help us get in touch with
our body, and really understand our own hunger and fullness cues.
But step one, before you can do any of that, is you've got to give yourself unconditional
permission to eat.
You don't have to earn food, you don't have to deserve food, you don't have to do anything
to counter food.
You can have food unconditionally, no questions asked, no deals struck.
And it's only once you truly believe that that you'll actually be able to get in touch
with what your body wants to eat.
And I think my body wants a cookie, so on the way home I'm going to get one.
And finally, tip number seven is another one from this book, O's Little Book of Calm and
Comfort.
This time it was a quote contributed by Lise Funderberg, and it's really stuck with me,
because I think it's really lovely.
So she talks about attempting new things that, in the grand scheme of things, don't really
matter.
So it might be copying a recipe from Pinterest, or watching a YouTube video on a new craft
and then giving it a go.
The point being that if it doesn't work, it doesn't matter.
So instead of stressing about the result, you can just really focus on the enjoyment
of learning and of doing.
And I think she puts it best, so I'm going to read out a bit in her own words.
The whole while, I forsake doing things flawlessly, and instead just do them.
For the joy of learning something new, for the pleasure of thinking with my hands, for
the sweet delight of merely trying.
I think that is so lovely and something that we should all do a bit more of.
So I hope you're all feeling nice and destressed.
Do give this video a thumbs up if you liked it, and leave a comment below if you've got
any tips of your own for reducing stress.
Something that we all need so much of at the moment.
And just to get your stress levels back up next week, coming up next week on Book Break,
we've got a video all about the scariest horror books.
And I've been giving myself nightmares all week reading those in preparation.
So do hit that subscribe button below for new videos every Thursday, and in the meantime
you can follow us over on Instagram @bookbreakuk for lots of fun, behind the scenes content
and bloopers.
See you next time.