Conquering Post Pandemic Mental Stress
- Brainz Magazine
- May 17, 2022
- 5 min read
Written by: Nate Hager, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Regardless of who you are in this pandemic, it appears no one has come out unscathed. Whether it's the lasting effects of financial troubles, job losses, missed academic opportunities for our children, burnout, physical health issues, or the collapse of family bonds or friendships, we all know someone who’s struggling. This pandemic has been truly global in its unified impact on individuals. The unpredictability of life over the past two years has given rise to unprecedented levels of stress and deteriorating mental health. Worst yet, many experts fear the full impact has yet to be fully understood – especially among children. We can’t afford to be slowed down because it affects our businesses, earning potential and our loved ones. When the going gets tough, the tough need to find better tools. So let’s get to it.
Wouldn’t it be nice to outfit ourselves with the equivalent of batman’s utility belt? All the tools you could ever need to confidently handle whatever is coming at you. Thankfully, by leveraging both hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques, we can do just that. Build a suite of tools that has a profound impact on how we can effectively manage our stress. From my side of the therapy couch, I see a lot of people spending too much time in watered-down versions of fight or flight states care of the pandemic. In this state, you’re operating on full-time overload, just barely getting by. Unlike your brain, your nervous system can’t differentiate between major and minor stressors. All this piled-up stress fires up our sympathetic nervous system, the part responsible for marshals ALL our resources in a survival situation. As you can imagine, this is a bad place to be for optimal relaxation, productivity and mental performance, learning and knowledge retention, proper sleep and ideal immune system function.
The first thing I do for my clients to help them get out of survival mode is a technique called Expanded Awareness. This quick process lets them switch on their parasympathetic nervous system, the part responsible for rest and digest. In a very short while, clients find themselves with better focus, less tension in their bodies and they’re able to retain more information. The technique works by shifting us from tunnel vision, a state indicative of survival mode, and into our peripheral vision. This simple physiological change causes a rapid shift in how strong our parasympathetic response becomes. It’s easy to learn and you can use it anytime – at your desk, on your coffee break even standing in front of your laundry machine! Follow the link here to learn how to use this powerful “easy button” for yourself.
NLP has many handy processes and patterns that are the best thought of as little brain apps, they take only minutes to do, yet can very quickly shift your emotional state. Naturally, our emotions act like filters in how we interact with the world. We know this is true because a person who is constantly angry and negative is not much fun to be around and often finds themselves alone, while people gravitate to those gregarious fun-loving individuals with a smile that lights up a room. Replace the filter and you change the way you operate in the world, and the best part is that you can select the filter you want to use to improve your outcome, it’s not a luck of the draw situation.
I’m seeing many clients struggling with anxiety and stress-driven by the re-opening of communities and workplaces. The fear of a COVID exposure or the anxiety brought on by loosening pandemic restrictions are very common, and there are processes we can use to make them feel more at ease.
Unpredictability has been a defining feature of this pandemic; our lives changed from day to day as health authorities struggled to contain the virus. In adults, the need for stability and certainty are central to our balanced mental health. It's quite true that most of us aren't very big on massive changes, and oddly enough this isn't just a pandemic phenomenon. People frequently pass up good opportunities to learn or experience something new simply because they don't know if the outcome will be guaranteed.
Ever notice how quickly children pick things up, even things we don’t want them to? Childhood is largely spent in a hypnotic state, it’s why our kids believe in Santa Claus. The wonder of discovery is something precious we seek to protect in our kids, and it happens precisely because they don’t have a picture of the outcome. At some point in your life, you were ok with that, your curiosity was so powerful you just dove into new discoveries. We can tap into this resource today to help us adapt to this new post-pandemic life, and see different options and possibilities so we can respond confidently to an ever-changing and uncertain landscape. It’s why some have thrived during the pandemic, redefining themselves in a very powerful and positive way, as have some families redefined how they live and interact to bounce back strong and resilient.
The one major benefit of hypnosis is that it allows essentially a copy and paste of abilities from one facet of a client’s life into another. A perfect example of this is someone who finds themselves losing their cool at work with their boss, colleagues or clients. They would like to change this behaviour because they’ve noticed it’s holding them back professionally. In another facet of their life that person perhaps plays sports or has a full house with four kids, a spouse and live-in in-laws but is cool as a cucumber, never snapping at other players or family members. Because I know the client possesses that ability there are tools I can use to help “transfer” that into their work-life, and the result is noticeable performance changes for the better.
If you have any questions, please contact me at nate@getpastit.ca.
Nate Hager, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Nate is a board-certified Hypnotist, an NLP Master Practitioner, master level Executive Coach and Certified Life & Health Mindset Coach. Over the last ten years, he’s worked with Fortune 500 executives and entrepreneurs helping them eliminate self-sabotage to achieve peak performance, raise their earnings potential and build business empires. Appearing on Rogers Business TV and 98.5’s Good News Only Show, he’s passionate about underscoring the benefits of hypnosis in building a fitness mindset, reducing stress and anxiety, weight management and personal performance. His techniques have shaped the lives of his clients by helping them redefine their identities and bounce back from major life stressors.
