Reduce Stressors, Boost Mind-body Performance

Are you feeling tightness across your shoulders and neck as you work? Stressors can tighten their grip daily and don't go away. Stress actually takes away your ability to focus and pay attention. The hormone cortisol floods your brain and body when you worry, panic, fear, feel anxious or pressured, or run the fast track too long. Here's how stress affects your brain...

Older adults who experience high levels of cortisol, perform poorly on memory tests and their hippocampus, the seat of learning and memory, literally shrinks. For younger adults and teens, an acute increase in cortisol can lead to reversible memory impairments.

"This explains why some older adults show poor brain function while others perform very well," Dr. Sonia Lupien, of the McGill research team conjectures. "Perhaps, through early interventions, we can modify the cortisol levels and enhance brain function of the at-risk individuals."

Good news is that recent research reveals that Integrative Body-Mind Training (IBMT) works effectively against stress. So how does IBMT work?

The technique avoids struggles to control thought, relying instead on a state of restful alertness, allowing for a high degree of body-mind awareness while receiving instructions from a coach, who provides breath-adjustment guidance and mental imagery while soothing music plays in the background. Thought control is achieved gradually through posture, relaxation, body-mind harmony and balanced breathing. The authors noted in the study that IBMT may be effective during short-term application because of its integrative use of these components.

Interestingly these techniques help shift your brain's focus by using musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial and intrapersonal intelligences. Since it takes very sharp concentration to fix your mind in four areas to do the IBMT exercises, you can use the same technique to change focus immediately when a stressor hits or keeps nagging. Here's how...

Musical... play an uplifting song on your iPod
Bodily-kinesthetic... Get out of your seat and walk down the hall, breathing deeply and concentrating on deep breaths
Spatial... Picture in your mind your very favorite vacation spot
Intrapersonal... Ask a question of yourself... "What can I do during lunch or even the next break to be good to me?"

Choose any one of these strategies to cut down your stress.

What strategy do you use to quickly move out of stress's tight grip?