Stress reduces Intelligence!

Situation 1: You are stressed out with a co worker, employee or event at work

Situation 2: You are stressed because your kids or partner won't listen about helping around the house

Situation 3: You are in sales and dealing with a difficult customer or it's been a bit slow and this is stressing you out

Situation 4: You are getting yourself stressed over your health or your weight

In all of these situations choosing to be stressed actually lowers your capacity to deal effectively with the situation; stress lowers your intelligence! If your intelligence is lowered than how can you possibly get into intelligent and forward moving action? You actually cannot.

I was reviewing this incredidible information today as I was driving around doing my "Thanksgiving" errands and listening to Cell Biologist Bruce Lipton's recording "The Biology of Beliefs" Lipton states that in stressful situations a very "old" part of our brain kicks in and gets fired up (the amygdala - it actually gets hijacked!)). This is the Fight or Flight response system designed long ago to protect us from those saber tooth tigers! The fight of flight system is very reflexive which is amazing because historically under stress we had to respond immediately; see saber tooth tiger - Run!!! No time to think about that one!

This stress system does not have time to involve the conscious brain and our conscious brain is where intelligent and rational decisions are made.

Today, we are under stress many times during the day. Our ancient fight or flight systems were actually designed to handle the occasional saber tooth tiger not a whole pack and every day!

So how does knowing this help us maximize our thinking capacity in any given moment and what can we do to increase our capacity to use our intelligence under stressful situations?

1) Be Aware: Awareness is always the first step to change! Simply pausing while under stress to notice what's going or even articulating "hey I'm experiencing stress here!" dampens our fight or flight response system (not to be done if you are actually being chased by that tiger - then you really do need it!)

2) Stop, pause and breathe: This is a critical step and no longer to be reserved for the yoga studios! Taking a few moments of down time is critical to allow you to think more intelligently about choices you have and next steps to improve a situation

3) Identifying the emotions that are accompanying the stress: This is an actual emotional intelliegence tool you can use in any given stressful situations to begin calming the fight or flight response system and bringing in the conscious mind where intelligent choices and decisions can be made. Example: "Right now I am incredibly frustrated with ....

4) Begin intentionally identifying what triggers you: Begin today to really notice what in your environment triggers you. Is it what someone says? Is it how they say it? Is it when your partner leaves their socks on the floor or the bad news on TV?

Once you have identified these triggers ask yourself how you normally respond and then rehearse a new response. I recommend a notebook for this and also scheduling some deliberate time for it; perhaps 10 minutes today.

So begin now, begin today. When stress shows up realise in that moment that you have a reduced intellectual capacity to deal with what has shown up. In that moment choose a different response by using some of these techniques. Take back your intelligence and save your fight or flight system for the real saber tooth tigers!

Step into your greatness today!!

Angela