Practical Tips for Controlling Stress

Last week I wrote about anxiety and the frontal lobe, relating how that part of the brain is responsible for humans’ ability to project into the future. Missing that function would relegate us to a perpetual present, preventing us from predicting and planning.

That function is also a source of anxiety, however, causing us to worry about what may or may not happen. Typically, we worry – often excessively – about jobs, money, relationships, illness and death. Anxiety disorders affect over 40 million Americans and stress is almost pervasive.

I believe all that anxiety and stress is an obstacle in our search for God.

So here are some practical tips for minimizing feelings of anxiety. (I understand that it’s easy for me, a retired guy, to give advice to people who still have to make a living, compete, start or raise families and pay bills, but look at it this way: I have the leisure to think about such things and the hindsight for insight. I also understand that some of these tips may appear to be mere clichés, but there is wisdom even in clichés.)

·        Force yourself to be rational. Calculate the real risk that the bad things you worry about will actually happen.

·        Put your worries in perspective. This is particularly applicable when worrying about money in light of the fact that nearly 2.4 billion people in the world live on less than $2 a day. Do you live in a house or apartment? Do you drive a car? Do you eat when you want to? Then you’re privileged, and comparatively, your life is a walk in the park.

·        Count your blessings. When feeling sorry for ourselves, we often entertain the notion that “everyone else” is doing better than us, and that we are bound to have more bad luck. We ignore the many good things in our past and present, which are predictors of good things to come.

·        Adopt the attitude of the old song, “Que Será, Será, whatever will be, will be.” Worrying can’t change anything.

·        Connect your worry to your search for God, remembering the gospel passage I quoted last week, in which Jesus says,  “Therefore I tell you, don’t worry about your life and what you will eat, or about your body and what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Notice the ravens: they do not sow or reap; they have neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds them. How much more important are you than birds! Can any of you by worrying add a moment to your lifespan? If even the smallest things are beyond your control, why are you anxious about the rest?”

·        Take your anxiety to God in prayer. You may not be sure that God is there to hear you and may have the feeling that you’re “praying to yourself,” but the Nike logo is relevant here: “Just do it!” Pray, especially, for faith and for the gift of seeing things as they are.

·        No matter what, no matter how distant you may feel from him/her, know that God won’t forget you. The author of Isaiah, Chapter 49, makes that clear when speaking on God’s behalf: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”

I’m reminded that much of what we know about Alzheimer’s disease comes from The Nuns Study, a research project of the National Institutes of Health of 678 American nuns. I read a fascinating book a few years ago on the subject called, “Aging with Grace: What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives,” by Alzheimer’s researcher David Snowdon. I was moved by his story of an aging nun who had recently been diagnosed with the disease talking to another nun who was a long-time friend. “I’m afraid I’ll forget Jesus,” the first nun told her friend. “Don’t worry,” the friend answered. “Jesus won’t forget you.”

Anxiety is controllable. If it weren’t, people wouldn’t spend billions on drugs and therapists to help them do it. Of course, it’s not completely controllable. The evolution of human frontal lobe made sure of that. It’s natural and beneficial for us to be able to predict what will happen in the next hour, day or week, and that often causes anxiety. Exaggerated anxiety, based on distorted and unrealistic predictions about our future, is the problem.

This blog is not about psychology, of course, and I’m no therapist. I’m interested in how anxiety affects faith, and I believe it robs us of our ability to focus on our search for God. It doesn’t allow the time or calm necessary to discern our own mind and feelings and relate them to the bigger questions.    

So, relax, be happy and remember that the search for God is two-sided. From all we know about God, he/she is also searching for us. And thank him/her for the frontal lobe. We would be severely disabled without it. But we’re its masters, not the other way around.