"Aaaak! The economy is stressing me out!"

It seems that wherever I go this week, the topic of conversation includes the economy.  People are talking about their portfolios and their losses.  And mostly, their fears.

Boy, have I ever heard some catastrophic fears.  In an effort not to scare you, Dear Reader, I won't rebroadcast the doom and gloom premonitions that people have shared with me. 

Suffice it to say that I'm literally feeling the impact of all these negative predictions.  My appetite is shot because my stomach has been in knots. My shoulders are tight.  My jaw aches.  I don't usually take even aspirin, but I've been popping it this week.

Ah, yes, the mind-body connection at work.  My body is taking the impact of the stress-fest surrounding me.  Are you feeling it, too?

Doctors, psychotherapists and massage therapists should be busier than ever, as we seek relief from the uncertainty, which has many of us tied up, on edge, and clutching for security.  It's kind of weird.  Your life is not in imminent danger, right?  No lions or tigers or bears are chasing after you, are they?  And yet your body may react as if that's the case. 

Why? 

Robert Sapolsky has done research on the way that our minds and bodies are inextricably linked.  And, Michael Gershon has studied the gut for over a decade, and shows how much it is like a brain to us.  Yet our that body-brain connection doesn't distinguish between events that are real and events that are imaginary.  So, when you go to the movies and you see a car chase, your adrenaline pumps, almost as though you were there in the car yourself.  Your heart and your gut don't get logical, like your neocortex and say, "Oh, gee, this is just a movie.  I can watch calmly and objectively."  Hah!  We just don't turn off like that.

And, likewise, even though we're not living out these fantastical scenes of imaginary Great Depressions and poverty and the like, when we imagine these, we get stressed out. 

So, how can we cure the stress that comes from looking at the economic news?

(1) Watch out for catastrophic thinking.  That's the propensity to imagine the worst.  Stop yourself when you notice that your thoughts make you feel stressed out.  They're just thoughts.  Stopping those automatic thoughts (the ones that stress you out) takes awareness. 

(2) Question your own thinking.  I LOVE Byron Katie's process, The Work, a series of four questions from her book Loving What Is, you can ask yourself about any of your thoughts:

Is it true?

Can you absolutely know that it's true?

How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

Who would you be without the thought? 

(3) Get present.  This is a good time to use all the tools you have for being present in this moment.  BEING, not worrying.  It's a good time for meditation of whatever type works for you.  Me?  I went to Spirit Rock on Monday night to find the power of meditating in community.  I feel at ease with their Vipassana teaching.  I'd also recommend books like Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now.  

All this is not to say that you can't do some planning and be smart, like sitting down with a financial advisor (I'm partial to fee-only advisors, who tend to be more objective) and rebalancing your portfolio.  Or cutting debt, as Suze Orman recommends. 

But there's only so much control you and I, or even Ben Bernanke, or Congress, has over the economy.  May as well count our blessings and enjoy what we have, rather than freaking out. 

What are YOU doing to stay sane in these tumultuous times?

Presently yours,

Susan

Dr. Susan Bernstein
Coach, Speaker & Author
www.WorkFromWithin.com
Work From Within, LLC

PS - You're invited to join me for a FREE teleclass on Wednesday, October 1, from 6-7 pm Pacific, Creating Inner Security in Uncertain Times.  For details, go to:  http://www.workfromwithin.com/innersecurity.php