Our memes tell us to keep calm but our news feeds send us into an hourly panic. Primitive humans spent a whole lot of time outrunning predators and wondering what in the world thunder and lightning might be. But today, we’re stuck using Stone Age brains to (somewhat) navigate a Space Age world. It’s safe to say the haywire factor has risen quite a few notches since the sabertooth tiger days.
Fear Factor
It’s impossible to accurately measure, but each of us may have received more data in the last year than all the data combined in history. Some of this is incredibly useful, of course. Some of it qualifies as “fake news” or at least “time wasting.” But a big chunk of today’s data has the power to terrorize us.
- Natural disasters
- Financial scams
- Terrorism, crime, war, and the ongoing threat of all three
- Seemingly a new disease each week!
All of this—and so much more—is relentlessly coming at us in tweets, texts, and talk.
Information Overload
We try to keep calm but there’s more to it than just the scary news. It’s also a war of attrition. The sheer volume of information we must process is enough to wear us down and dull our senses. Beyond the data, there’s all that sensory input.
- Chemicals in our food, air, and water
- Sounds, noises, and colors from advertisements, devices, and machinery
- Smells and odors never before experienced
- Hourly pressure to “keep up” and “stay aware”
Our minds and bodies did not evolve to manage such an onslaught. Unless we make a conscious effort to keep calm, our mental and physical health will suffer and suffer greatly.
7 Ways to Keep Calm in a Haywire World
1. Perform basic self-care
When you’re at your best, it’s easy to keep calm. To attain your best, you must attend to the basics, e.g.
- Regular sleep patterns
- Healthy eating habits
- Daily exercise and activity
Self-care creates a foundation upon which you can build a healthier view of the world’s daily goings-on.
2. Perform stress management
Running parallel to self-care is stress management. In other words, if you want to be calm, you must practice being calm. Options include:
- Yoga
- Meditation
- Tai Chi
- Breathing exercises
- Mindfulness (see #6)
3. Take regular tech breaks
There’s only so much social media anyone’s mind can handle. Take breaks often.
4. Schedule in the laughs and smiles
Humans thrive on balance. So, if we can’t stop the haywire deluge, we can balance things out with data that makes us a laugh and smile.
5. Create a supportive community
We’re all in this together. Everyone you know is trying to keep calm. Why not use that connection to create deeper bonds of support?
6. Practice mindfulness
We cannot be calm if we focus so much on regretting the past and fearing the future. In the present moment is where calm resides.
7. Immerse yourself in helping others
Some clichés are based on reality. When we focus on the suffering of others, we find peace and calm. There may be nothing more centering than kindness.
Finding a Less Haywire Environment
There’s a safe haven available to you in the midst of all this chaos. A therapist’s office can provide a weekly dose of calm that will translate into a more serene life in general. Sometimes, the first big step towards haywire relief is having a place in which you feel relaxed. Counseling sessions allow you to work out how you feel and determine what needs to be done about it. Consider therapy to be a shelter from the storm.
