Stress Management Tips and Techniques: Changing your strategy

In my first article on stress management tips and techniques I asked you to start noticing the strategy you employ to get into that stressed state. You’re going about your business as usual and then something in your environment triggers a response in you. You might say something to yourself, see something, hear the voice of someone in your ears, or get a particular feeling in your body.

If you keep notes on these responses as they come up during your week you’ll start to become more aware of your particular way of getting stressed, your strategy. You’ll notice a pattern. Maybe you say to yourself ‘I’ll never get this done on time’ then you see a mental image of yourself working till late and then you’ll get a dizzy feeling in your head and a pain in your stomach.

Now pay attention to the particular qualities of each part of the strategy. In NLP we call these qualities the sub-modalities. For example, if you say something to yourself notice how loud the voice seems to you, where in your body does it come from, or is it outside your body? What is the pitch, tone and emotion of the voice like?

Once you know what these sub-modalities are you can change them in order to scramble the strategy. That means that in your mind, imagine changing particular qualities of each part of the strategy. For now just stick to the first part of your strategy. For example if you are telling yourself ‘I’ll never get this done’ in an angry voice, change it to a light hearted laughing voice. If it seems loud, adjust the volume, if the pitch is low, try making it sound high like a cartoon character.

Finally run through you strategy from start to finish making sure that you use the new sub-modalities. Practice this a few times. Next time you encounter a situation that brought about the old stressful response consciously choose the new strategy. Practising it enough times will make it happen automatically and you’ll find your response is a much more productive.