Hi, I’m Gilles Brideau and I’m a psychotherapist, a life coach that lives in Sudbury, Ontario. I’d like to welcome you to today’s session which will focus on stress management strategies, so how to relieve your stress in 20 minutes or less. That’s what we’re going to be focusing on today, so I’d like to dive right in.
One of the most important things to focus on initially is we want to see how to change or create a different state of mind, especially a negative state of mind. We can look at that as being anger, or sadness, or fear. Whenever we’re in these negatives states of mind and obviously we missed out another one, but it’s not a negative one, it’s this three letter one called joy. Now that’s not one of the ones that we’re going to focus on because if you add that I want you to amplify it and have more of it and not less of it. Today it’s more about those negative states of mind, the states of mind that holds us back.
Now I understand that I’ve done this presentation at a collegiate level with probably about 800 students probably in the last three years. The feedback that I’ve got has been very, very beneficial. That’s one of the reasons why I thought I would post this video today. Since they had found the information to be so useful to them I wanted to create some good content for you and, hopefully, that you will find it beneficial.
Let’s get right into it. How do we change this negative state of mind? There’s two key components to that. The first is changing your physiology. Now the best metaphor that I often give in terms of changing your physiology is … Just a little example. I’d like to run this with you, I’d like you to mentally participate if you would because it’ll make it much more effective in terms of your learning. I want you to imagine that … I’m now bringing in a brown paper bag. Now it’s porous, so you can breathe in there and as I wrap you in a brown paper bag you start to realize how crappy of a situation that is.
Now I’m going to go one step further. I’m going to imagine hosing you down or wetting the bag. Now you’re sitting there in this really crappy, wet, brown paper bag. Now within the bag I’m going to give you two resources, a phone and a book. Now other than passing the time, would playing on your phone make that situation better? Now I know everybody likes angry birds and all that stuff, but other than passing the time would your situation really change or would you just have wasted a couple of hours? Because if you think about it even though you might have been distracted for a little while you’re still in this wet, crappy, brown paper bag.
Similarly if you used your phone to phone a friend say. You can say if I called a friend they would help me feel better. Maybe during the duration of the call they may make you feel better, but suddenly once you would get off the phone you would realize that you’re still in the same situation which is stuck inside of this wet, brown paper bag. Now similarly with a book, if you read the book and I’m a huge fan of books and as a hypnotist I understand the concept that a great book will put you into a trance and into an altered state of mind. However, when you raise your eyes from the words on the page or from that story you’re so engrossed in you’ll soon realize that you are still in a wet, brown paper bag.
How do you get out of that state, that negative state of being in the bag? I know a lot of you are saying oh, I’ll just move, right. I’m going to ask you this, if you moved a little like this would it would break the bag? Chances are it wouldn’t. How about like this? Chances are it wouldn’t. If you make any big movement you would easily and effortlessly get out of the bag. That’s the key. The first thing I want you to do is move. Now a question that’s often asked is how long should I move? About 20 minutes. There’s research that indicates that endorphins are released naturally by the brain after 20 minutes of activity. By moving for only 20 minutes natural endorphins are going to be released by the brain and you will start to feel better.
Now anybody that exercises on a regular basis can attest to the fact that if they went to the gym or something like that and move their body usually it helped alter their state of mind. That’s only one component because know if you only do one of these elements, so just physiology and we’re going to cover focus in a minute, if you just did one of these elements it wouldn’t effectively create lasting change with regards to changing your state. Meaning it’s not effective longer term. It might change you for an hour or so, but what I found in explaining this and demonstrating this and having students follow through with this is they said that it had a much more lasting effect than just exercising for a short period of time.
That brings us to the second component which is around focus. The focus component of this presentation is taken or adapted from neuro-linguistics programming which is just really fascinating technology. It’s been around for a really long time since the 1970s by Bandler and Grinder. I know in videos to come I’m going to cover some of the different components like the essence of building rapport, how that can help you in relationships, projection of the mind, just different things, different technologies that will help you.
Today’s focus is around eye movement. Specifically, as it creates to focus and again this is accurate with about 80% of the population, so I’d like you to play along with me here. For the majority of people when their eyes look up or they glaze over at dead center, so it looks like this. It’s almost like you can put a hand in front of their face and they’re almost looking through you. People have a tendency to be in pictures in their mind. Here’s how I want to do this. Now again understand when I do this I typically have a group of people and I get them to pair up, so that they can observe their partner. I’d like you to have some fun with this with significant others and ask them these general questions. You may find and observe that this technology or this information holds true.
Usually what I ask them to do and what I would ask you to do is I’d like you to picture your bedroom and more specifically what’s immediately on the right when you enter your bedroom? Chances are for the majority of you you’ll just drift up slightly and say there’s a dresser or something like that. Even for some people they glaze over at dead center and go on the right-hand side there’s a dresser there and I have a lamp. If I ask them specifically is there change or any jewelry on the table or on the dresser they’ll … Again it’s almost like you can wave your hand in front of their face because they’re in an altered state where they’re seeing pictures.
Now I’ve had some students and I’ve had some fun with this. That they are looking down and they go I can’t see any pictures and I’ll say, okay, just calm down, drift your eyes up and they’ll go oh, there’s my bedroom. Sometimes they can really have some fun with that. Again I encourage you to have some fun with some loved ones with that.
Now when your eyes drift side to side you’re accessing auditory information. Now in this example your eyes might drift up when I give you the prompt, your eyes might drift up because you’ll see the person’s face. Then you’ll see your eyes will drift side to side to remember hearing their specific voice or the conversation, so here’s the prompt. I want you to think of the last person you spoke to on your cell phone and I want you to tell me specifically what they talked about. This is quick, five, four, three, two, one. Notice how your eyes drifted side to side. Now if it had any emotional meaning, meaning you talk to your kids or you talk to your mom you may have drifted down and to my left.
Understand that when your eyes drift side to side you’re in an auditory place in your mind. When you drift down and to my right, so when you drift … I know on camera it’s going to be in reverse, but if you look down into my right you’re going to be in the … Again this is when you’re looking at someone. If their eyes go down into their … When you’re looking at them and it goes down into the right that usually means that they’re in auditory digital meaning they’re recalling or replaying a certain conversation in their mind. Now that’s different than auditory. Auditory it’s more the sound of the voice and all that stuff. Auditory digital is more like stored information.
Now when people are in emotion they have a tendency to look down and to their … Again when it’s looking at them down into the left. That’s when they’re more connected to feeling. I’ve often used this with clients, especially with young clients, that if they come in and I prompt them with a question and I notice that they look more down into the left say I’ll know that … It seems like you’re processing some information now or it seems there’s something really troubling you. I remember young people often say it’s almost like you’re reading my mind. Actually I’m just reading your eyes.
How do we bring that technology all together to make this work? Before we get to that how I demonstrate that in my office, I have a recliner to my left that is pretty low to the ground and to my right there’s a picture of a beach scene. There’s some palm trees and some wooden boats and all that … a nice, little picture of serenity. How I prompt my clients is for the first example is I want you to look at my palm trees and I’m going to try to prompt you with words, but while I prompt you I want you to just keep your focus on the palm trees. In other words, you’re going to be looking up. While they look up I’ll just try to prompt them in terms of creating a negative state of mind, so this is what it could sound like.
I know in the last month you’ve been going through some trials and tribulations as it pertains to your relationship, as it pertains to your health or whatever brought them to my office. As you think about that notice how you’re not really affected too much by what I say. Usually we’ll have some laughter because the clients will say yeah, it almost felt like you were Charlie Brown’s teacher where I heard you talking, but it was more like wa, wa, wa, wa, wa. I really wasn’t affected too much by what you were saying.
Now in the second example I get them to look down. It doesn’t matter if it’s right or left, just keep their gaze down. I will use the same language as I use in the first example. Understand that there’s some things that have brought you into my office today as it pertains to your health or your relationships or your finances. That really has had an impact on you in the last little while. More often than not what they notice as well as what I notice is that their breathing changes, their blink rate changes, their physical posture will change meaning their shoulders will slouch or any kind of physiology will actually change. I get them to just notice that for a few seconds. Usually the feedback is they say I was much more affected by what you said the second time.
Now understand that the context is the same meaning I used the exact same words in both examples and I do that for a reason, so that they can experientially feel a difference in their physiology by just shifting their focus up. Now how do we take the technology all together? I suggest to my clients to everyone that I see that in that first week I’d like them to walk daily for 20 minutes and look up. Now what I usually add to that is don’t do this, you’re going to run into posts. It’s just in essence taking in the world, so being at this level.
Now I also remind them to not be so critical to themselves and this is what I mean. A lot of times people will find themselves looking down because that’s how they’ve been processing information especially if they’ve been more in negative states of mind they have a tendency to look down. I don’t want them to be self-critical or hard on themselves like ah, I’m looking down again. Instead I want you to change, oh, oops, okay, time to look back up. What they find is as they start to look up a little bit more and to shift their physiology for about 20 minutes their state actively changes and like I said 20 minutes or less.
A lot of my clients incorporate that walking program and it’s helped their mental health. What I usually say around this, too, is people often say exercise is good for your health and all that stuff, but I never found a way to outrun a fork. To me the physiology … Weight is a great by-product. If you can have that and that’s awesome, but this is really about mental health. Increase your walk, shift your focus up, and it can change your state.
Now if you’re a student watching this kind of some key elements, too, that a lot of people remember words on a page or words on a PowerPoint which is usually stored in the visual part of the brain. Now when students get anxious and again I’ve worked with a lot of students with regards to this topic, when they get anxious their tendency is to look down to the right and down to the left, that’s what we learned today. It’ll sound like this or it’ll look like this to you watching. Oh, geez, I knew the answer, how come I can’t remember this? You go both with that internal dialogue to yourself meaning you talk to yourself, that’s the auditory digital, when a person as you look at them looking down into your right. They shift into the emotion which is oh, what’s the matter with me, I can’t remember, I’m feeling my heart rate going up and all that stuff, so by shifting their focus down are they accessing any pictures? Chances are they’re not.
What I get them to do is I give them a cue and it could be a simple cue like the click of a pen. We do some relaxation techniques, so that when they’re in those environments like a testing environment or anything like that by the sound of the click of a pen they could feel relaxed like they did in my office. Then it’s to remember that most of the answers that you studied were here, so by looking at pictures.
Now maybe some of you remember this example when you’re in college or even if you’re in high school or university. You’re sitting there and you’re sitting there panicking because you can’t remember a simple answer to a problem that you knew you studied less than an hour ago. You can’t remember and you can’t remember and you get really frustrated. You leave the test hall of the classroom or whatever and you see one of your friends. As soon as you look up you go ah, page 62, I knew it even if your friend didn’t give you that answer. It’s like you knew it as soon as he came out. Why two things happen, you relax the mind which allowed you to have more access to those memories and the second thing you looked up and by looking up those pictures came readily accessible to you.
By the way, as a last thing marketers know how to use this really well because if you go to a fast-food restaurant, where’s the menus, up. You’ll even use visual language like oh, that looks good. It looks good, visual language. When you go to a nice restaurant where’s the menus? Down. Even then if there’s pictures you’ll usually use language like this. I don’t know what I feel like tonight. Feeling, kinesthetic language, so just kind of interesting on how marketers use that well. Now in Canada we have Tim Hortons and we usually have these little things through the drive-through that shows pictures like a little movie of the new treat of the month or feature of the month. It’s usually higher than where you sit in the driving position. Again you’ll use visual language like, wow, that looks good, I’ll have two of those, so marketers know how to use this really well.
Anyways, I hope that this has been fun and entertaining for you today. Don’t forget to hit the light button at the bottom of the screen. Also, I’d love to welcome your comments, if this video was useful to you or if there’s any other topics that you would find beneficial I’m going to try to keep doing these things on a daily basis and providing you with the best content that I can deliver to you. It’s been great having you. Thanks so much for joining me today and coaching with coach G. Have a great day!