22 Jul 7 Science-Backed Ways Successful People Stay Calm
via Forbes by Tony Ewing
It’s no secret that many successful people can remain calm in almost any situation. In fact, the secret is how they actually manage to do it. From a scientific perspective, remaining calm under duress is called, “cognitive control”. And in having an abundance of it, successful people are able to make the right moves at the right times.
In effect, cognitive control means aligning our actions, thoughts and emotions so as to know when to follow the rules and when to break them.
But how can we lesser mortals do this without being stressed about remaining calm?
It turns out, greater cognitive control is learnable—regardless of how well (or not so well) you or I did in school. The key to mastering it, however, involves identifying and dealing with anxiety. At the end of the day, even a tiny bit of stress disrupts (in a bad way) our cognitive control.
That’s where behavioral science comes in. By observing the habits of successful people and seeing where they overlap with proven insights from research, we better learn how to cultivate personal strategies for remaining calm. Here are 7 such habits we should watch out for:
- Don’t try to calm down: instead, get excited. So intuitive, I know. Only not… Most of us assume our best response to a stressful situation is to force ourselves to calm down. Yet, behavioral scientists from Harvard Business School have found that’s one of the worst things we can do. They note our stress often stems from worrying bad things will happen—even if they’re unlikely. In that case, forcing calm doesn’t remove these bad thoughts it just buries them. Bad thoughts and fears get deflected and allow stress to build up. A better response is to get excited about the possibility positive things will happen. In other words, within reason, getting excited about what good might come generates genuine, calmness. The thing to remember here, of course, is preserving cognitive control. That makes dealing with bad things easier and more effective.
- Understand your multitasking limits. Of course, we’re not all equal insofar as our natural abilities to remain calm. Indeed, researchers from Case Western have found better multitaskers are better at handling stress. This is particularly the case when they face stress from others’s criticisms. How it works though, is fascinating… One might think multitaskers handle stress better because they can juggle many things at once. However, the scientists found multitaskers are able to remain calm by doing something called, ‘over-claiming’. That is, when stressed and hit with criticism, they boast—and this makes them calm down. By comparison, people weak in multitasking (’singletaskers’?) boast less when criticized and internalize more of their anxiety as a result. The important takeaway is to know where you stand as a multitasker. Suppose you’re organizing a night out with 15 or more colleagues. If you can sort out the check and suffer jabs about picking a bad venue while boasting about your firstborn, you’re a natural at using this method. Otherwise, try upping your boasting game…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE
#happiness #happy #calm #psychology #positivepsychology #success