RELAXING BODY AND MIND

 

You continually encounter many things in the world that can make you feel anxious, uptight, or off—balance. These include interactions with people, personal problems, difficulties at work, and many other situations. Similarly, you are exposed to many sources of stress from such things as the responsibilities of raising children, keeping up a house, demanding work, the great amount of social change, and general high pressure living in a fast-paced world. In fact stress usually results from any significant change in your life, whether the change is positive or negative. Thus stress may come from getting a new job, being fired, getting married, getting divorced, taking a trip or moving, death of a friend or family member, change of lifestyle, and illness or injury.

 

Stress and anxiety, particularly when excessive, have widespread effects on the body. They produce a general weakening of the body so that you probably won’t live as long and are more susceptible to many diseases such as the common cold and some forms of cancer. Stress and anxiety can also cause and/or aggravate a multitude of specific problems including ulcers, high blood pressure, heart disease, headaches, menstrual disorders, asthma, arthritis flare-up, digestive problems, skin ailments, and colitis (inflammation of the large intestine). Whatever organ or system is somewhat weak will be affected by stress and anxiety. No wonder doctors often recommend that their patients relax more. Remember the word “disease” as “disease.”

 

In addition, stress and anxiety have great effects on the mind. They can cause you to feel uptight or unhappy and can lead to a wide variety of psychological disturbances. Stress and anxiety will impair your perceptions, your thinking, and your understanding. They also cause your mind to race, such that you can have trouble falling asleep, avoiding unwanted thoughts, or finding the best solution to a problem.

 

Thus it is very important that you be able to relax your body and mind. For most people this is the most important thing they can do for themselves. But Very few people know how to relax. You generally don’t learn how to relax in schools, although it would be good if you did. Vacations and holidays are not the answer because there aren’t enough of them. Also vacations often increase stress because of all that a person does on the vacation. Many people, not knowing how to relax, resort to drugs such as alcohol, cigarettes, barbituates, and marijuana. Similarly, people with sleeping problems often turn to sleeping pills. But many sleeping pills if taken continually actually cause insomnia. America is a drug-oriented culture. Drug companies, many doctors, and many advertisements offer us drugs as a solution to our problems. But although they may be a help in some situations, they are seldom a solution. Thus as you learn how to relax you can phase out any drugs you use for relaxation.

 

This chapter will teach you well—proven ways to relax. But you must do it, not just read about it. Learning to relax is a skill that takes time and practice. You can do it if you are patient and stay with it. In a couple of weeks you will probably already notice improvements and benefits. Then, with more time and practice1 you will earn even greater benefits.

 

The next chapter will show you how to use relaxation in your everyday life to reduce anxiety and stress. Later chapters will build on these two chapters. For example, chapter 15 will show you how to overcome specific fears, such as fear of flying or fear of public speaking. But first you must learn to relax.

 

There are many ways to relax. Some settings may relax you such as being in the woods, hearing certain music, soaking in the bathtub, or smelling incense. You might relax by some activity such as singing, reading, or exercising. You might learn some special technique to relax, such as self-hypnosis or imagining pleasant scenes. This chapter describes three of the best ways to relax: deep breathing, muscle—relaxation, and meditation.

 

RELAXATION AREA AND TIME

Using principles of cue control from the last chapter, set up a specific relaxation area in which to practice relaxation. This could be a little—used room, such as a guest room or large closet, or a part of a room. Then set up specific cues that you associate with your relaxation practice, such as a chair that you only sit in when relaxing or special clothes, smells, and lights. After a while when you set up these relaxation cues (for example, put on your relaxation robe and light some incense), it will help get you in the “mood” to relax.

 

Arrange it so you won’t be distracted while practicing relaxation. Choose a time of day with few distractions, and do things such as take the phone off the hook and put a “do not disturb” sign on the door. It is a time to do nothing but relax. If your mind tells you that you are “wasting time,” this is a sign of a mind that needs to relax!

 

Set up a regular schedule to practice relaxation; consistency is very important. If possible, it is best if you practice at the same time each day. It is good if you can practice twice a day.

 

Be comfortable in your relaxation area. Remove tight clothing. Remove glasses.

 

DIAPHRAGM BREATHING

How you breathe influences how relaxed you are. Understand the important difference between chest breathing and diaphragm breathing. In chest breathing it is primarily the action of the chest going in and out that forces air in and out of the lungs. Breathing is usually shallow. The shoulders are often hunched over and the abdomen is often sucked in. Chest breathing is common in emotional and threatening situations. Diaphragm breathing is based primarily on the rising and falling of the diaphragm, a partition of muscles and sinews between your chest cavity and your stomach cavity. Diaphragm breathing is deeper and slower than chest breathing. With correct diaphragm breathing the abdomen swells, the rib cage expands, and at the end of the inhalation the upper chest expands. To check yourself, stand and put your palms flat against your lower rib cage with the middle fingers just touching. Inhale deeply and see if your fingertips are forced apart. With good deep breathing they will separate by an inch or two. Diaphragm breathing is more relaxing than chest breathing and is also healthier because it is more effective at getting air in and out of the lungs. Diaphragm breathing is a critical part of yoga.

 

Stop and experiment with chest and diaphragm breathing until you can clearly feel the difference. Which type of breathing do you usually do? Practice being aware of the type of breathing you are doing in different situations. If you do a lot of chest breathing, then switching to more diaphragm breathing will help you relax and breathe better.

 

DEEP BREATHING

Now let us turn to a specific deep breathing technique that helps relaxation. Be sure to do it now. Sit quietly, close your eyes, and focus your attention on your breathing. Use diaphragm breathing and breathe through your nose if possible. Gradually let your breathing become slower and deeper. Then inhale deeply to a count of 4, hold your breath for a count of 2, exhale to a count of 4, and then hold for a count of 2 before inhaling again. Exhale as slowly and completely as possible and let the inhale occur naturally. Keep your attention on your breathing and let yourself relax and feel calm. Stop reading now and do this for a while until you are deep breathing with a steady rhythm.

 

Practice deep breathing for a few days in your relaxation area. Practice 5 to 10 minutes each time, preferably twice a day. You may find it useful to repeat to yourself over and over the suggestion “calm and relaxed” while you deep breathe. One way is to say “calm and relaxed” instead of the counts of 2. After practicing in your relaxation area for a few days, practice deep breathing at other times and in other places, such as riding the bus, walking, and waiting in lines. Obviously you do not need to and should not close your eyes in all these situations.

 

The next step is to use deep breathing in practical situations. Practice noticing situations in which you start to feel stress or anxiety. When this occurs, focus your attention on your breath and do deep breathing. Sometimes this will be enough to relax you; sometimes it won’t. But with practice there will be more and more times when it will be enough.

 

MUSCLE RELAXATION

Relaxing your muscles is one of the most effective ways to relax your body. And relaxing your body helps to relax your mind. Here you will learn a set of exercises to relax your muscles. At first it will take some time to do these exercises, about one half—hour a day. But after a couple of weeks you can do them in much less time, and then eventually you can relax just by willing it. Everyone can benefit from doing these exercises for a few weeks, even if now or later you have another way to relax, for these exercises will put you more in touch with your body and also give you a sense of what a relaxed body can or should feel like.

 

The exercises should be done in your relaxation area if possible. They are usually best done in a lounge chair with your feet on the floor. However, they can be done in other positions such as lying on the floor. It is usually not good to do them lying in bed since you will have a tendency to fall asleep. Do the exercises at least once a day, twice a day if possible. Take your time when doing the exercises. For many people it takes 30 to 45 minutes at this stage. Try not to fall asleep. If falling asleep is a concern, set a timer or alarm clock to wake you up when necessary.

 

In these exercises first you will tense a muscle very hard for 5 to 10 seconds and then relax the muscle for 20 to 30 seconds, releasing the tension as fast as possible. When tensing the muscle you should focus your attention on the feelings of tension. Feel the tension! When relaxing the muscle you should focus your attention on the change from tension to relaxation. Feel the tension flow out of the muscle. Feel the change from tension to relaxation. Feel the relaxation in the muscle. The information in this paragraph is the most important for the exercises. Be sure you know and practice it. This practice will put you more in touch with your body, help you identify earlier when you start to feel tense or anxious, and thus help you learn self—control over tension and anxiety.

 

Below is list of muscles to go through with this procedure. Use this list for a while, as it has been well tested. If you have any special physical limitations, such as a trick knee or spinal injury, be sure to check with your doctor before doing any of these exercises. If you have certain muscles that tend to get cramps, do not tense them as hard as other muscles. Feel free to spend extra time with those muscles of particular interest to you. For example, if you get tension headaches, spend some extra time with the muscles of the shoulders and neck. As you do these exercises you will become more and more aware of your body and muscles you wish to work with. For example, you may find out over time that as you worry you tense muscles in your stomach, or jaw or forehead. Then you would want to do extra work with these muscles, which then helps you worry less. Eventually you may even devise whole sets of special exercises for yourself. The suggested readings may help here.

 

Sometimes when you relax your body you may experience unusual body feelings such as muscle twitches or the sensation of floating. These are common and nothing to worry about. Just let the feelings go, notice them, and continue to relax. Remember in doing these exercises you are always in control for a few people, doing these exercises makes them more aroused rather than more relaxed. If this happens to you, decrease how hard you tense the muscles. Gradually and slowly tense until you feel the slightest increase in tension; then stop tensing.

 

Now it is time to actually do the exercises. Go to your relaxation area. Close your eyes and do some deep breathing. Then begin muscle relaxation using the muscle list below. Keep your eyes closed as much as possible. Go through the list one muscle group at a time, tensing very hard the muscles as described. (Alternative ways of tensing some of the muscles are given in parentheses. You may wish to try these alternatives later on.) Tense and relax each muscle group twice in a row, tensing and relaxing as described above with your attention on the feelings of tension and relaxation. Each time after you have tensed and relaxed a muscle group twice, relax and give yourself suggestions to feel “heavy, calm and relaxed.” Then move on to the next muscle group on the list. Each time you see “deep breathing”on the list, spend a couple of minutes doing deep breathing. Let yourself relax even more with each outbreath. Let each outbreath say “relax” to you.

 

When you complete the list stay quiet and relaxed with your eyes closed. Then slowly count yourself down from 1 to 5, letting yourself relax even more with each count. Then stay relaxed for a few minutes. After this, slowly count yourself back from 5 to 1 and slowly open your eyes. Get up slowly and pay attention to all your feelings. Remember you are always in control.

 

You may find it useful to have someone else or a tape you make give you all the above instructions to tense and relax, which muscles to tense, and when to do deep breathing. This allows you to put full attention on your feelings without thinking about what to do next. However, the counting from 1 to 5 and back to 1 you should always do yourself.

 

MUSCLE RELAXATION LIST

The following is the list of muscle groups to be tensed and relaxed. Alternative ways of tensing are in parentheses.

deep breathing

deep breathing

deep breathing

 

MUSCLE RELAXATION PRACTICE

You should do the above exercises for about 2 to 3 weeks. Then you can start to shorten the exercises by combining muscle groups and tensing several groups at once: both hands and arms together; forehead, eyes, mouth, jaws, and neck together; shoulders, back, chest, and stomach together; and then legs. Here you will need to develop your own best way of combining the muscle groups for tensing, the way that suits your needs and interests. With the exception of combining muscle groups, the rest of the practice should be the same, including keeping your attention on the tension and relaxation and the use of deep breathing.

 

After you have done the above exercises with combined muscle groups for at least 2 to 3 weeks, you can move to the next stage. Here you should practice going through the list of muscles and relax them, but without tensing them first. That is, you do everything the same as at the beginning of these exercises but leave out the tensing. Be sure to include giving yourself relaxation suggestions such as “calm and relaxed” while relaxing the muscles. Then every couple of days do the exercises with tensing. Continue to practice this until you can relax your muscles at will.

 

Finally practice relaxing combinations of muscles without tensing them. Then move toward relaxing your whole body at one time.

 

Some people find that it helps their relaxation if they add the imagining of a relaxing scene. The imagined scene might be sitting on a sofa in front of a fire on a cold winter night, lying on soft grass on a warm spring day and looking at the clouds float by, lying on the beach on a warm summer day, or lying in a tent listening to a light rain. We now have four components to help relaxation: muscle relaxation, deep breathing, suggestions to self to relax, and imagining relaxing scenes. Experiment with different combinations of these four until you find the combination that works best for you.

 

As you learn to relax, practice relaxing at different times and in different situations. Practice being aware of how relaxed your body is and then relaxing it more when needed. Practice being aware of your breathing and use diaphragm breathing and deep breathing when needed.

 

After you have spent some time relaxing your body (at least have gotten a good start), you can begin to relax your mind with meditation.

 

MEDITATION

Meditation is a powerful way to relax your mind, which also helps relax the body. As described here, meditation is not a religious or occult practice. No philosophy or particular beliefs are required. However, if you are a Christian or Jew, meditation may help you pray and listen to God. But here I am describing meditation as a simple, yet very effective, way to quiet and get control of your mind so you can use it better.

 

Meditation will improve your perception and understanding of things, enhance your thinking and creativity, improve your concentration, and reduce the uncontrolled racing of your mind. Later in the book we will build on what you learn here.

 

There are many forms of meditation. Here I will describe one of the simplest, which is also one of the best. Later you may wish to try other meditations to find what works best for you; but it would be best to stay with the one described below for a number of months first. Instruction in meditation is offered in many places including some community groups (e.g., some YMCA’s), some churches, many universities, meditation retreats, and meditation organizations.

 

A special relaxation area or meditation area is important. You need a place or setting in which you do nothing but meditation. It might be a special area in your house or a particular way you set things up for meditation. For example, you might set up a special table with flowers next to a cushion or chair you only sit on for meditation. These become associated with meditation and eventually help cue you into that mood.

 

Wear loose and comfortable clothing. Do not meditate when you are sleepy, very hungry, or too full from eating.

 

The first step in meditation is to sit down. You can sit in a straight-backed chair with your legs uncrossed and feet on the floor. You can sit crossed- legged on the floor with a cushion under your behind. However you sit, two things are very important: you must be physically relaxed and your back must be fairly straight and vertical. Some people meditate better lying down, but for most people lying down makes it more likely they will fall asleep.

 

After you sit down, rotate around a little until you find a good firm position in which you are sitting straight, not leaning right or left or forward or back. Keep your head straight forward (nose in line with navel) and let it relax and drop forward somewhat. Keep your mouth lightly closed if possible. Rest your hands in your lap in whatever way is comfortable. One way is to put your hands on top of each other palms up, left hand on top of right (or right over left if you are left-handed), fingers on top of fingers, and tips of thumbs gently touching. Relax your abdomen. Use diaphragm breathing as much as possible. Breathe quietly and through the nose if possible. Close your eyes and keep them closed most of the time. Later you can experiment with meditating with eyes open.

 

After sitting down as described above, take a few deep breaths and let yourself relax as much as possible.

 

The next step is to focus your attention on your breathing. You can do this by focusing on the rising and falling of your diaphragm. Or you can focus on the feeling of air at the tip of your nose as it goes in and out. Try these two different ways and see which seems best for you. Then stay with that way for a while; don’t continually switch back and forth.

 

What you need to do now is keep your attention on your breath, follow your breath. You may find it useful to say to yourself “in” when the breath comes in and “out” when it goes out, or “rising” when the diaphragm rises and “falling” when it falls. (When the diaphragm rises, the stomach usually goes in. And when the diaphragm falls, the stomach usually goes out.) Or it may be useful to count your breaths. Count each time you exhale and say “in” when you inhale. Count up to 4 or 10, and then start counting at one again. But just let your breathing go naturally by itself and follow your breath.

 

While you are trying to keep your attention on your breath, your mind will continually run off to various thoughts, memories, plans, evaluations, sensations, and so forth. The mind has been described as a drunken monkey running wildly from one thought or sensation to another. You will probably be surprised at how your drunken monkey runs about and how difficult he is to tame. But this is all natural and true for everybody at first. Through meditation you will tame the monkey.

 

So what you do is sit quietly and put your attention on following your breath. When your attention is pulled away by a thought or sensation, gently bring it back to your breath. Sometimes you will be lost in thought for a little while before you realize it. When you do realize it, return to your breath. Don’t spend time thinking about how you were lost in thought. Just return to your breath. Sometimes you will fall into thinking about how well or poorly you think your meditation is going. As soon as you realize you are doing this, return to your breath. Each time you get pulled into remembering, planning, evaluating, or any other form of monkey business, gently return to following your breath. Don’t try to stop thinking; just don’t get caught up in thinking. When a thought occurs, just notice it and return to your breath. Don’t evaluate or judge the thought; just notice it and return to your breath. Be very patient. Over time the thoughts will have less pull on you; you will get less lost in thought. This will improve your concentration and thinking. But you must be patient and practice meditation.

 

Similarly, many sensations will arise and pull your attention to them. You will hear various sounds, such as street noises. You will feel various feelings, such as itches. Treat sensations like thoughts. When you realize your attention has been pulled away by a sensation, gently return to following your breath.

 

When a sensation arises, just notice it and return to your breath. You will find that many sensations, including itches and pain, lose their power over you when you don’t attend to them. But if you simply must scratch or move, go ahead and do it. Notice all the sensations that go with your scratching and moving and return to following your breath. You may encounter unusual sensations while meditating, such as colored lights or feelings of cobwebs on your body. None of these is important. No matter what sensation or thought arises, just notice it and return to your breath.

 

You will learn many things about yourself as you meditate, for as you quiet your mind things can get into your consciousness that are ordinarily kept out. This is an opportunity for great self—discovery. But during your meditation time don’t think about what you discover. Just notice it and return to your breath. You can think about it later. You won’t forget it if it’s important. (If you really must, you can keep a notebook next to you during meditation to make notes. But this is not recommended.)

 

Although almost everyone can profit from meditation, a few people should not practice on their own. Some people can be overwhelmed by learning too much about themselves. Some people encounter too many negative things too quickly. Some people are too mentally fragile to meditate alone. So if meditation is unpleasant for you or you feel overwhelmed, stop meditating until you seek help from a competent meditation instructor or a psychologist familiar with this. On the other hand, meditation is not an escape from life or going into a trance. Meditation should bring you more fully into life. If you are using meditation as some type of escape, stop meditating. It is necessary to include this paragraph of warnings, but they really only apply to a few people.

 

Every meditator needs to watch for the tricks of the drunken monkey. He (or she) does not like to be tamed and will try to trick you out of meditating. One way he does this is by trying to keep you from following your breath by giving you things you “want” to attend to. If you want memories of the distant past, he might give you such memories. If you want personal insights, flashing lights, feelings of weightlessness, or whatever, he might give these to you just to distract you. Remember, no matter what he throws out to you, just notice it and return to your breath. Another common monkey trick is to give you reasons why you should not meditate. Perhaps he will tell you that you are too young or too old. Or he might tell you that you are doing so poorly at it that you can’t do it. One of his favorite reasons is that it is a waste of time; you could be doing something better instead. Since the monkey is your own mind, he will give you whatever reasons are the most convincing to you. If such reasons arise during meditation, just notice them and return to your breath. If they arise at other times, recognize them as monkey business.

 

When you meditate, just follow your breath. Don’t try to accomplish something; just follow your breath. Don’t evaluate how you are doing; just follow your breath. Relax. Accept yourself as you are. See things as they are. Being in a hurry or discontent with yourself or your meditation only slows down your progress. Relax. Follow your breath. Make friends with yourself as you are.

 

Start meditating for about 10 minutes and then gradually meditate for longer and longer. Experiment around and find the best times of day to meditate. Try to meditate at the same time each day if possible. Meditate twice a day if you can.

 

The effects of meditation are subtle and gradually build up over time. You must be patient. You will feel that you have good days and bad days, but in fact they are all of help to you in the long run. Stay with it. Gradually you will notice improvements in your meditation and then gradually you will notice benefits in your daily living. The effects are subtle at first but eventually become very powerful and significant. You will become aware of a greater clarity in your perception and thinking. You will find your mind more relaxed and open, but not gullible. You will find yourself cultivating a greater awareness and peace of mind.

 

When your meditation period is over, slowly open your eyes and then slowly get up. Try to be aware of all the sensations and thoughts that arise at this time.

 

After you have been practicing meditation in your meditation area for a while, look for other times and places to meditate. You can meditate while riding the bus, waiting in an office, or sitting at the beach. Your breath is always there. Stop at different times during the day and quiet your mind. Practice paying attention to how quiet your mind is at different times. It will vary from very quiet to the monkey running wild. Eventually you will be very aware of your mind and when it is not working at its best. Then you can quiet it, tame the monkey, and use your mind to its full potential.

 

It is very important to periodically carefully reread all the above meditation instructions after you have started to meditate. Reread these instructions once a week during the first 6 weeks of meditation and then periodically after that.

 

This chapter has described several interrelated ways to relax body and mind: deep breathing, muscle relaxation, and meditation. This combination is extremely powerful and will yield great benefits from improved physical health to better mental capabilities. But you must do it. You must practice. You must have patience. You can’t rush to learn to relax. The next chapter will show you how to use these relaxation skills, but first you must learn to relax.

 

SUGGESTED READINGS

 

The book edited by White and Fadiman briefly describes many different ways to relax and handle stress. The Rosen book is a step-by—step self-help program in muscle relaxation, similar to that described in this chapter. Bernstein and Borkovec’s book on muscle relaxation is a brief, yet detailed manual written for professionals, such as psychologists. The detailed descriptions will be helpful to some of you. LeShan’s book is a good introduction to the nature of meditation and describes many different practices of meditation you can do.

 

The previous chapter described several ways to relax. After you have spent a few weeks learning those skills, you can continue with this chapter which shows you how to have a calmer and more relaxed life.

 

Learning to be more relaxed in your everyday life will bring you many benefits. You will enjoy life more fully. You will get along with people easier. You will think more clearly and understand better. You will be more effective at making decisions and handling conflict, and there are all the physiological and psychological benefits discussed in the previous chapter.

 

Becoming calmer and more relaxed does not mean losing your ability to feel emotions and react to things. On the contrary, becoming more relaxed will make it easier to fully experience the positive emotions such as joy and love. Relaxation also gives you the skills to better handle negative emotions and reduce or eliminate them if you wish.

 

Although anxiety may be useful in some cases, such as danger situations, we are too anxious too often. We often feel hurried, uptight, or off-balance. We need to be more relaxed. This chapter and the previous chapter discuss how to relax more. Chapter 15 discusses how to deal with specific fears.

 

PRACTICE IN RELAXATION AREA

In the last chapter you learned how to set up a relaxation area and relax in it. Hopefully you have been doing this for a while. It is important first to learn to relax in a situation that does not cause much anxiety or tension. Now it is time to learn how to use relaxation as a tool to control or reduce anxiety, tension, and stress.

 

First go into your relaxation area and relax for 5 to 10 minutes. Then with eyes closed imagine being in a real life situation that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable. This could be a situation involving another person; it could be a situation from work or school. It must be a real situation from your life which causes some, not a lot, anxiety or stress. Imagine the situation as realistically as possible. Live the situation as if you were actually in it.

 

Pay careful attention to your body and your feelings of relaxation as you do all of this. Note changes in your body feelings as you imagine the uncomfortable scene. The changes may be very noticeable or fairly hard to detect at first. But they are there. Look for them. Going from being relaxed to imagining the uncomfortable scene may cause an increase in perspiration, an increase in heart rate, a tightening of the stomach, or general feelings of tension in different parts of the body. Learn to identify the feelings in your body that show you are becoming less relaxed and more anxious or tense.

 

If you have trouble doing this there are two solutions. First, try spending more time during your relaxation practice tuning into the feelings of your body. Second, use an imagined scene which causes more anxiety.

 

After learning your body signals, the next step is to practice re-relaxing yourself. What you do is go into your relaxation area, relax yourself, imagine an uncomfortable scene, and notice your body become less relaxed. Then stop imagining the scene, use your skills to relax yourself more, and notice the feelings in your body move toward more relaxed. Practice this set of steps over and over again with different imagined scenes of the same low anxiety. Keep practicing this until you can easily identify becoming less relaxed and easily turn the anxiety off and become more relaxed again.

 

Continue this practice using imagined scenes that produce more and more anxiety and tension. Start with situations that produce a small amount of discomfort and gradually work up to situations that cause a lot of discomfort. (About 15 to 20 scenes is a common number to go from low to high anxiety.) Stay with this practice until you can relax, imagine a very uncomfortable scene, notice the changes in your body, stop the anxiety and stress, and relax again. Remember our strategy of small steps. Take your time as you gradually imagine scenes that get more anxiety—producing. If you feel too uncomfortable imagining a scene, stop this scene and go back to a less uncomfortable scene. Then gradually work back up again.

 

What you are learning here is self—control of anxiety, an extremely useful skill. It puts you in charge. In addition, the above training program can be applied to any emotion you want more control of, emotions such as anger or jealousy. To learn self-control of anger use the same set of steps above only use a sequence of imagined scenes related to anger rather than anxiety.

 

You will probably be surprised at how much the anxiety-control skills you learned with imagined scenes carry over to real life situations. You will find that being able to relax to an imagined situation of anxiety or stress will greatly help you relax when you encounter a similar real life situation. If you can control your anxiety or anger when imagining interacting with a particular offensive person, it will help you control your emotions when actually encountering the person. But to make your skills even stronger we now add some additional ways to bring your relaxation into the world.

 

INTO THE WORLD

Relax yourself before going out into the world. Then stay as relaxed as you can for as long as you can. The more you practice doing this, the better you will get. Also look for times and places during the day to practice relaxing. You might take a break from work to do some brief muscle relaxation or yoga exercises. You might use a bus ride to practice quieting your mind. You want to make a point of practicing relaxing several times a day in a number of different places and situations.

 

Next take the type of practice you did with imagined situations and apply it to real life situations. Practice being aware of body feelings that tell, you that you are becoming anxious, tense, or whatever. Then practice stopping these feelings and becoming more relaxed. Some of the situations you encounter will only produce a small amount of discomfort that you can easily relax away. Good. Do it. Some situations will produce more discomfort that you can handle with some effort. Great. Do it. Working with these situations is often where you can produce some important benefits. Some situations will produce more discomfort than you can currently handle with your relaxation skills. Fine. Don’t worry about these. You win some and you lose some. Just try to be as aware as you can during these times of your feelings and thoughts.

 

With time and practice your skills will get stronger and you will gradually be able to handle more and more situations that you could not previously handle. With practice you will eventually be able to handle any situation you want. You can be as relaxed as you want.

 

Learning these skills requires practice. But after a while you will have learned them well enough for it all to happen automatically. That is, after sufficient training your body will automatically begin to relax itself more than it did before. Your body and mind will become more alert to sources of discomfort and will deal with many of them without your needing to be aware of it. You will become aware of more and more subtle causes of discomfort that block you from living most effectively and happily. And as you overcome these blocks your life will improve as you wish. But first you must practice as described above.

 

OTHER AIDS

There are, of course, many other things you can do to help have a calmer and more relaxed life. Here are some further suggestions.

 

SLEEPING PROBLEMS

Many people have problems falling asleep and/or sleeping well. Most such people can eliminate or reduce these problems with the procedures discussed below. Therefore these approaches should generally be tried first. Other people need other types of help for their sleeping problems. Let us consider these cases next.

 

Some people’s sleep problems are caused by psychological disturbances, such as emotional problems or depression. Some of these people can reduce the psychological disturbances using parts of this book, while others should seek professional psychological help.

 

Drugs can often disrupt sleep. Excessive use of alcohol, marijuana, or amphetamines often impairs sleep. Continual use of some sleeping pills can disrupt sleep. In these cases treatment needs to involve a decrease in use of the drugs.

 

A few people need professional help from a sleep specialist. Such specialists can be found by referral from your doctor or from a university medical school. There is also a list of sleep disorder centers in the suggested reading. The following are examples of people who need to see a sleep specialist: The person with excessive daytime sleepiness who takes frequent naps. The person who can not sleep and breathe at the same time. This results in periods of non- breathing (20-100 seconds) followed by gasps for air and causes the person to be tired during the day. Or the person who has constant body twitches while sleeping, particularly in the legs. Occasional twitches are normal. But continual twitches are not and often result in the bed clothes being all messed up and/or frequent kicking of the bed partner.

 

Some of these sleep problems are best detected by having someone watch you for a few days while you sleep. If necessary, see a professional. But most people can improve their sleep as follows:

 

Begin by keeping daily records in a sleep log. Keep a week of records before beginning any change program. Then continue to keep daily records during your program. Much of the ‘information in the sleep log should be written in the morning. Your log should have these headings: pre-sleep activities, relaxation, thoughts, and sleep times. Under the activities heading, list all the activities you did during the evening (such as after your last meal) before going to bed. Under relaxation indicate how relaxed you were when you went to bed. You might use a 5-point scale here (l=not relaxed; 5—very relaxed). Under thoughts write what you thougnt about in bed and what you said to yourself about falling asleep. Finally, under sleep times record approximately what time you went to bed, what time you fell asleep, how many times you woke up, what time you got up, and the total amount of sleep.

 

RESTRICT . The first step of the change program involves the technique of restrict, discussed in Chapter 5 (Change of Scene). This means that with the possible exception of sex, the bed should only be used for sleeping. Do not read, eat, watch TV, or do anything else in bed. These other activities become associated with the bed and keep you awake.

 

SCHEDULING . As much as possible get on a regular sleep schedule, going to bed at about the same time and getting up at the same time. Help your body learn a regular schedule for sleep. Use an alarm to get up at the same time each day. Do not nap much, or at all, during the day. Watch your log to see how well you stay on schedule.

 

RELAX . Put the day’s work behind you before going to bed. Finish what you can and then make lists or reminders for the next day of things to do, consider, or be concerned about. Then put all of this out of your mind for the night.

 

Analyze your pre-sleep activities as recorded in your log. Are you doing things that keep you from relaxing? Are you doing too many things before sleep? Are you doing things that are disturbing? Try to do just a few relaxing things in the hours before going to sleep. Just prior to going to bed, do some activity that is particularly relaxing, such as taking a bath or doing some pleasure reading.

 

When you get into bed relax your mind and body using procedures such as those discussed in the previous chapter. Keep track of your success here in the relaxation column of your log.

 

THOUGHTS . Watch your pre-sleep thoughts as recorded in your log. Practice quieting your mind using the meditation skills of the last chapter. One way would be to relax your body and at the same time quiet your mind by focusing on the feelings of relaxation in the body.

 

If your mind is still upset by uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts, then see the section on “reducing undesired thoughts” in Chapter 11 (What Do You Think).

 

Finally, don’t get caught in worrying about not falling asleep. This only makes things worse, for the more you worry the harder it will be to get to sleep, which gives you more to worry about, and so on. Stop these thoughts and worries. Relax your mind. Go to sleep.

 

SUGGESTED READING

 

This book is useful for people who have trouble sleeping. Some of the topics discussed are current sleep research, physical and mental relaxation, procedures to use to return to sleep when awakened, the sleep environment, reducing daytime stress, and a list of sleep disorder centers.

 

GETTING MOTIVATED

 

There are many ways you can improve your life, including ways suggested in this book. But if you don’t do something about it, you won’t make much progress. Therefore, you need to motivate yourself to do something now. It is very important that you make a firm commitment to yourself to begin a change program moving you toward your goals.

 

It is often hard to get started and/or remain on a change program. Perhaps people are telling you that you can’t do it. Perhaps you think you are too old, too nervous, too weak—willed, too busy, too fat, too uneducated, or.... Forget all this and let’s get on with making changes.

It is not enough merely to want to change; you must begin a change program. It is not enough to finally want to stop smoking cigarettes; you must choose to work at becoming a non-smoker. Wants go back and forth. It is the commitment to change that must stay consistent. You may waver. You may make progress sometimes and fall back sometimes. You will win some and lose some. And you may have to keep improving your change program. But you must stay committed until you reach your goals.

 

Make a list of reasons for change. Post this list and review it each day. Add and subtract to the list over time. If you plan to decrease nail-biting, possible reasons for change are being ashamed of people Seeing your hands and having trouble picking up small things. Reasons to stop smoking might be related to health, money, odors, or addiction. Reasons for losing weight might include feeling better or looking sexier. Religious reasons might include giving up drinking alcohol for Jesus or giving up aggression as part of your Buddhist practice.

 

If you keep putting off doing something, make a list of reasons for doing it on one side of a piece of paper and a list for not doing it on the other side. You will probably find that the reasons for doing it are more important and more in number than the reasons for not doing it. The problem then is you are too caught up with one or two of the reasons for not doing and have let these influence you too much.

Choose to begin your change program when you are really ready to begin; but don’t wait too long. You might begin your program on a day that is important to you, such as your birthday, the birthday of someone else, the beginning of Lent, or a holiday. You might begin on a day of beginning, such as the first of the month or the first day of spring. You might begin as a present to someone else, such as giving up smoking on your wedding anniversary as a gift to your spouse.

 

When you begin, make your commitment to change known to your family and friends. Get their help and support for your program. Review the section on “social support” in Chapter 5 (Change of Scene).

 

REWARDS

A useful and pleasant way to help you start and stay on your program is to reward yourself for doing it. Give yourself rewards along the way for staying with your program and doing what you should. Wouldn’t you reward a friend for accomplishing something worthwhile? Aren’t you one of your own best friends? (If not, you should be.) So reward yourself. For example, if you are trying to get into the habit of reading more, you might reward yourself by buying a small piece of clothing when you complete a particular book.

 

Now some people think they should stand up to their problems and overcome them with will—power, without any help or aids such as rewards. This approach may work with some people; but it is usually not very effective and usually not very pleasant. It is more pleasant to work on a difficult task when you sweeten it up with nice rewards for yourself. And the more pleasant you make it, the more you will enjoy doing it and the more effective you will be. Have a good time. The use of rewards can be a useful tool to help you change and learn new skills and behaviors. Eventually such rewards will no longer be needed and the changes in your life will be rewarding in themselves.

 

Another reason for rewarding yourself for what you want to do is that many of the rewards currently in your life may be working against you. For example, it may be more rewarding to eat a second piece of cake right away than not to eat it, even though the longer-term rewards of better health and appearance favor not eating it. So you reward yourself for staying on a weight control program that outlaws eating the second piece of cake. This continues until the long term rewards have a greater effect than the short term pleasure. Hence it is often useful to reward yourself for positive ‘changes in order to offset rewards that are keeping you stuck.

 

TYPES OF REWARDS

There are many types of rewards and you need to determine which work best for you.

 

One type of reward is material things such as clothes, tools, records, books, sports equipment, and plants. It might be something you had planned to get anyway, but now you will require yourself to earn it. Or it might be something you would not ordinarily get, but. it is a suitable reward for your accomplishment. The reward might be something that will help support the changes you make, such as clothes that only fit when you are smaller or a manicure set when you stop biting your fingernails. Or the rewards might be things you already own but now give to a friend to hold until you earn them back through your change program. For example, you might give a friend three sets of your favorite clothes and records to be earned back only by losing weight: one set back when you have lost 5 pounds, the second set back at 10 pounds, and the third back when you have reached your goal of 15 pounds lost.

 

Another type of reward is activities, things that you enjoy doing such as talking on the phone or reading a magazine. Activities are good rewards because they usually cost very little and because your life is filled with many such rewards every day. Practice identifying the rewarding activities that occur each day and start using them to reward yourself for doing other things. If on Saturday you plan to do yard work, which you don’t like, and go jogging and ride your bike, which you do like, then require yourself to finish the yard work before you run or ride.

 

The following are some possible rewarding activities: reading, listening to music, phoning, napping, bathing, writing letters, knitting, cooking, looking at pictures, doing crossword puzzles, playing a musical instrument, practicing relaxation exercises, ‘working on a hobby, playing with pets, gardening, working on a car, shopping, dancing, going to the movies, biking, jogging, hiking, and playing sports.

 

A third type of reward is rewards from others. In addition to support and praise, someone else may want to do something for you if you progress on your program. This might be doing one of your household tasks for a week when you get your exercise program up to jogging for a mile. Or it might be washing and waxing your car when you have gone 3 months without a cigarette.

 

A fourth type of reward is points, which can be saved for other rewards. If you don’t like to write letters but need to write a number of them, then reward yourself one point for each letter you write. Plan in advance what the points can be exchanged for, such as going to the movies when you get 10 points. The advantage of points as rewards is you can reward yourself all along the way for each part of your program. You can then have small rewards you can get for a small number of points and/or a large reward that requires a lot of points.

 

We have looked at a number of different types of rewards. What are good rewards for you? Stop and make a list of rewards that could be useful for you to accomplish what you want.

 

SIMPLE CONTRACTS

The way to use rewards is to make a contract with yourself, an agreement of what you must do in order to get the reward. The following are examples of simple contracts: After I iron five shirts I will reward myself by reading two chapters in my novel. When I complete my relaxation training for the day, I get to call my friend on the phone. First I will wash the dishes, then I will read the morning paper. If I practice the piano for half an hour, I may play solitaire for half an hour.

 

This type of contract, although very simple, is very powerful. One reason is that most people tend to do the opposite. They tend to do the rewarding things first and put off what they need to do. Or they do the rewarding activity first hoping it will put them in the mood to do the other. Thus a student might watch TV in order to get into the mood for studying. But this does not work. he should save the TV watching as a reward for completing studying.

 

As you get experienced at using contracts in the right way, you will find many opportunities each day to make simple contracts with yourself. Then the more you use such contracts, the more efficient you will be; you will get more done. You may also find that you feel less guilty and, enjoy your rewards more, for now when you are having a reward you know you earned it and you are not feeling guilty about things you are putting off.

 

Have a number of different rewards you can use. Don’t rely on one or two rewards over and over again. You don’t want to overuse and get tired of the same reward. The more rewards you can choose from the better.

 

After you have been using simple contracts for a while, you can move into the more complex contracts described next.

 

COMPLEX CONTRACTS

Complex contracts are for projects and programs you will be working on for a while, such as a long range exercise program. These contracts specify exactly what you will require of yourself at each step along the way and what you will reward yourself for doing it. It is important that these contracts be written down so you don’t rely on your memory.

 

The first step is to specify exactly what you are requiring of yourself. This includes what you should do and what you should not do; but try to put the emphasis on what you should do. Be as exact as possible, such as requiring yourself to lose one pound per week, wash 4 windows each weekend, or do at least one half hour of relaxation exercises each day. Don’t just say you want to study more. Be exact about the number of minutes each day you will study. Don’t put in your contract you should write more letters. Be exact, such as stating you will write at least 3 letters per week.

 

Remember our strategy of small steps. Have your contract start with where you are and gradually build up to where you want to be. If you want to write more letters and are currently writing none, don’t suddenly require yourself to write ten letters in a week. Build up slowly, such as requiring yourself to write one letter the first week, two the second week, and so on until you are writing four or more a week.

 

The next step is to specify what rewards you will earn by fulfilling your contract. This should include small rewards along the way as well as a few big rewards for when you get to significant points. Thus you should have daily rewards for staying on your weight loss program and large rewards for when you reach certain weights. Or you might have weekly rewards for staying within your budget and a big reward if you do it for 3 months. Points are often good daily and weekly rewards.

 

Next you should write up your contract including all requirements and all rewards. Then post the contract in a very visible place, such as on the refrigerator door. This is a good time to tell others what you are doing and to ask for their help.

 

It is often useful to put up signs and notes to remind yourself of your contract and what you are trying to do. A sign on the refrigerator might remind you about overeating. Or a note in the bathroom may remind you to floss your teeth. Graphs are also very useful to give you a good picture of the progress you are making. Thus you might graph how many chapters of a text you read each day, how many times you bit your fingernails each day, or how much you weigh each day. Put the graph up where you will see it often. This will act as a reminder of your program and will also be rewarding as you see your progress.

 

When you have made a contract with yourself, stick to it. Be very careful to avoid exceptions to what you agreed to or excuses for why you didn’t fulfill the contract. Once you start coming up with a lot of exceptions and excuses your contract will fall apart. Be firm with yourself. On the other hand, if you do mess up, be aware of what you did and how you can keep it from happening again. But don’t dwell on blaming yourself.

 

The first time you make a complex contract it probably won’t be the perfect contract. You might not be specific enough. You might not take small enough steps. The reward you choose might be too big or too small. Or there might be complications you did not think of or expect. Don’t worry about this. Just redesign your contract and start again. With practice and experience you will become a good contract maker.

 

In some cases people can’t come up with rewards that are strong enough to get them to do what they want to do or should do. In these cases you might want to set up a punishment contract. This would specify a punishment you agree you must get if you don’t do what the contract says. The punishment might be doing some extra chores, giving away a favorite book or record, not going to a party, or not going bowling. You might give a friend checks made out to an organization you don’t like. Then each time you don’t fulfill the contract, the friend mails off one of the checks. You can also write a contract that contains both rewards for doing something and punishments for not doing it.

 

Making contracts with yourself, simple and complex contracts, is one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself. Sometimes this is all you need for your change program. For you know what to do and have the skills to do it, but you need the motivation to get on with it. Sometimes increasing motivation is necessary but not enough by itself. For example, if you want to lose weight you shouldn’t just reward yourself for weight loss. You also want to change your eating habits, as described in Chapter 16.

 

This book tells you various things you can do for self-improvement. This chapter tells you how to get motivated to do these things. Thus you can reward yourself for record keeping, relaxation practice, organizing your life, working on nervous habits, or anything else. Start today using the ideas in this chapter. You can certainly be doing some simple contracting right away.

 

EXAMPLE

Susan was a 34—year old married woman with two children and an afternoon job. She realized she was not getting as much exercise as she should and her body had lost a lot of muscle tone. She also did not feel quite as good as when she used to be more physically active. In the last six months she had tried a few times to exercise more but was never motivated enough to keep at it. It was hard to get past the initial resistance. So she used some of the techniques of this chapter.

 

First she made a list of 9 reasons for getting more exercise, including “feel better,” look better,” “don’t look pregnant,” and “tenth anniversary is coming.” Looking better and not looking pregnant was related to her need to tone up her stomach muscles, as with situps. In a few months her tenth wedding anniversary was Coming up and at that time she and her husband, Bob, Were going to renew their vows, love, and plans for each other. Susan wanted to be in good physical and mental shape at this time. She posted her list of reasons on the door to her clothes closet and over time added more reasons to it. Each day she would read and think about one of the reasons on the list.

 

Susan began her exercise program on the day her children began school again in the Fall. She picked this time so she could be starting something new at the same time as her children. She also had more free time then and the weather was getting cooler, which she preferred for outside exercise.

 

In the past husband Bob was skeptical. of her exercise programs because she seldom stayed with them. But this time she was determined and got Bob to help, encourage, and praise her, rather than discourage her.

 

Realizing the principle of starting where you are and taking small steps, Susan began her program easily. The first week she had to exercise on 3 different days, with each day consisting of walking one half mile and doing 5 sit-ups and 10 leg-lifts. The second week she had to do this on 4 days out of 7 and the third week on 5 days of 7. In later weeks she increased how far she walked and the number of sit-ups and leg-lifts. She also slowly added other exercises. For days when the weather was bad Susan had worked out how many minutes of jumping rope inside would substitute for the walking.

 

Susan thought a lot about her program and what rewards she would give herself for doing it. She then formalized the program and rewards into a contract which she wrote up and posted next to the bathroom mirror. According to the contract, on exercise days she had to do her exercises before reading the newspaper. She enjoyed leisurely sitting and reading the paper after her husband and children were gone for the day. Also each day she did her exercises she put a red X on a paper posted with her contract. When she got 10 X’s she would get to buy a new record, but could only listen to one side. When she got 10 more X’s, she could listen to the other side. Ten more and the first side of another record, and so on. Music was a very good reward for Susan and her program resulted in about two new records a month, which she could afford. Bob got involved and said that when she got to 50 total X’s he would take her out to a dinner and movie of her choice.

 

To insure she did not slip, Susan also added a potential punishment into the contract: If any week (from the third week on) she did not exercise on at least 5 different days (unless she was sick), she would watch no television the next week. Susan did not watch a lot of television, but enjoyed the national news each day and her favorite science fiction series where her heroes boldly went where no man had gone before.

 

Over time she altered the contract as she changed the exercise requirements. One time she made the mistake of adding in too many new exercises too fast. But the whole program worked well. She never had to use the punishment of missing television, although it came close a couple of times when she thought she was too busy for exercise. But she always managed to find the time.

 

After about three months the exercising was part of her life and easy to do. She no longer needed the contract. She was feeling healthier, she looked good, and she felt better about herself. These rewards kept her exercising. As a result Bob started an exercise program for himself. And on their 10th wedding anniversary they were both very pleased and excited about their next decade together.

 

GETTING ORGANIZED

 

Getting organized means structuring your world, your time, and your tasks in such a way that you become more efficient and effective. It doesn’t mean becoming compulsive about organization so that you lose time with all your organizing. It simply means finding an efficient way to do what you want to do.

 

Organization buys you freedom. As you become more efficient you will have more time to do other things, you will have less to remember, and you will become a more reliable person.

 

Each person needs to work out his or her own system of getting organized. Below are some suggestions.

 

MEMORY AIDS

A memory aid is a device to help you remember something, a reminder. It guarantees you won’t forget something and so you can stop trying to remember it. One example is putting out clothes at night for the next day. Then in the morning, when you might be tired or rushed, you don’t have to remember what you want or need to wear.

 

Car keys are a useful aid. If you want to remember to take something when you leave in the car, put it with your car keys.

 

Things out of place can catch your attention and act as reminders. A frypan on the floor can remind you there is a chicken cooking in the oven. An alarm clock upside down could remind you of something to be done first thing in the morning.

 

Notes to yourself are good memory aids. Notes can be putin pockets or taped where you are sure to see them. A note with a seldom—used appliance can remind you of some special way to handle the appliance. A note under your car keys can remind you of something to do when you leave in the car. Notes that require fairly immediate attention should be put in noticeable places such as on a mirror or on the refrigerator. Small magnets, which come in many forms and designs, are good for putting notes on the refrigerator and on the dash boards of some cars. Notes that deal with long term concerns, perhaps something to think about or something that won’t happen for a while, should all be kept in one place. A small bulletin board is good for this. Finally, if you are going to be using a lot of notes, it is good to have note paper and pencils handy in many places. Thus jt is useful to carry notebooks in places such as purse, briefcase, and the car’s glove compartment.

 

Perhaps the best memory aid is a daily calendar with space for each day to write in daily events, special occasions, notes, and reminders. This can be, among other possibilities, a small calendar you carry in your pocket or purse, a bigger calendar that you keep at home and take to work, or a large wall calendar that hangs in the kitchen or study. In your calendar you can keep track of such things as appointments, social plans, and television specials. You can record birthdays, anniversaries, when the rent is due, when to change the furnace filter, or when to service the car. You can also include advance warnings, such as a two-week notice to buy a birthday present. You can put in reminders of things to do for your self—improvement program. You can include things you want to think about, check on, or worry about. This allows you to put these things out of your mind until it is time to consider them. For example, it may be that if you haven’t heard from a particular person (or organization) in three weeks you need to contact him. Now, rather than think about this every day or so, put a note in your calendar for three weeks later and then you need not think or worry about it until then. You will find your daily calendar is a powerful organization tool that will become more and more useful as you learn how to incorporate into it more of the things of importance to you.

 

Another useful memory aid is a timer, such as a kitchen timer, which can be set to ring after a set number of minutes. The timer can tell you when food is done, when a show is on television, or when it is time to call someone. The advantage of a timer is that once you set it, you can forget about time and do something else. Thus if you need to leave home in 40 minutes, you can set the timer for when you want to leave or get ready to leave. Then you can do something else, such as read or listen to music, and totally immerse yourself in that activity. Similarly, you can eliminate unnecessary worry by setting a timer for when it is time to worry. For example, if you need or want to be concerned if someone hasn’t come home by a certain time, then set the timer for that time and don’t worry until then. Thus the timer can be a useful tool for practicing being in the here and now, putting your full attention on what you are doing right now and not thinking about the future until it is time to.

 

LISTS

Making lists is a critical part of getting organized. It is a good way to help you remember things and better organize your time. A list of projects to do around the house helps you keep track of what needs to be done. Also by looking at the list you might find projects that can be combined or projects that require your buying supplies at the same place. A list of books you want to read helps you choose more effectively, rather than just reading what is most recent or what comes to mind. Most grocery shoppers use a list. But you can also have a general “buy” list for other things. Then when you are going shopping you can look at or take your buy list. Similarly, if you don’t go downtown very often, you might keep a “downtown” list of things to do when you go downtown. Such lists should be kept in one or two central places; you don’t want to misplace lists. A bulletin board is a good place for some lists. If you have a lot of lists, you may want to have a list of your lists.

 

Other possibilities for lists include the following: things in storage boxes or cabinets, things in a safety deposit box, various service people such as house or appliance repair, presents given to people, gift ideas, and meals served to people. Some lists, such as a buy list, are temporary, while other lists are more permanent. For example, you might have a perma— nent “travel” list which contains things you might want to do in preparation for a vacation and things to consider taking. This list could be continually added to and altered over time. After a while you will have a list to consult before traveling which will save you considerable time.

 

Three-by-f ive cards are useful organizers because you can make or buy (as in an office supply store) a box for them. You can also make or buy alphabetical dividers. Such a box of cards is useful for keeping and filing recipes that are written and/or taped on the cards under general categories such as desserts and appetizers. Another box of 3x5 cards might be for people, alphabetically by last name. A person card could have the person’s name, address, phone number, birthday, age, or anything else you want to know. A 3x5 card box is also very good for keeping permanent lists, such as those mentioned above. Such lists are filed alphabetically by their headings (for example: Travel, Safety Deposit Box) with a card in the front listing all the headings.

 

PRIORITIES

Nothing is more important in getting organized than learning to assign priorities. You can not do everything you want to do!! Stop and think about the significance of that. Of all the many things you can spend your time on, you can only do some of them. Therefore you must choose those most important to you. You must choose to do some things over others. The ineffective person chooses things based on current moods or what is most recent. The effective person works from a set of priorities.

 

Assign priorities to things on your lists. For example, on your “project” list mark the projects high (H), medium (M), or low (L) priority. Then primarily do the high priority projects first. If there is a medium or low priority project you would enjoy or prefer doing, then do a high priority project first and reward yourself by doing the preferred project next.

 

If the list is one you are keeping for a while, then periodically check your priorities. After a while a low priority item might become high priority, or a medium might become low. If you keep a priority list for a while, one of the things you will probably find is that many low priority items will lose importance or take care of themselves. What a time—saver, to end up not needing to do something that without priorities you might have done!

 

Schedule your time during the day to fit your priorities. Remember Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. If you don’t have some structure or schedule to your time, you may be spending much more time on various tasks than is really necessary. You may be wasting time. If you are not doing things that are important to you, you are not assigning priorities to your time. Schedule your time according to your priorities. Schedule time for such things as work, recreation, relaxation and meditation, or whatever. Use your daily calendar for your scheduling.

If you are spending too much money or somehow don’t have money for what you want, you need priorities for your spending. Keep track of what you spend and what you earn. Then work out a budget that assigns priorities for money. Decide how much money you need and want to spend on such things as mortgage or rent payments, insurance, food and drink, clothes, and recreation.

 

You can’t do everything you want. You can’t buy everything you want. You probably can’t go everywhere you want. You probably can’t read or learn everything you want. You must choose; and choosing by priorities helps you get and accomplish what is important to you.

 

SUGGESTED READING

Winston’s book contains many helpful suggestions for organizing in home and office, with emphasis on the home. Topics include managing time, setting up a work area, handling paperwork, managing money, using space and supplies well, and getting help from your children.

 

Lakein has written a very readable and useful book on getting organized, including such topics as setting goals and priorities and organizing and using time well. The book is somewhat geared toward business people, but there is useful information for everyone.

 

OUT OF HABIT

 

A habit is something we do automatically, with lit- tie or no thought. In many cases we are not even aware when the habit is occurring. A “good” habit is one that we wish to encourage. A “bad” habit is one we wish to decrease or eliminate.

 

GOOD HABITS

Cultivating good habits is usually fairly easy to do and can pay high rewards. For once something is made into a habit it is usually easier to do; and once it becomes automatic you do not have to think about it as much. For example, you might realize it is good to floss your teeth daily. But you find that it is somewhat of a chore that you aren’t really good at. So you only do it occasionally. But this keeps it a chore and you feel somewhat guilty for not doing it more. It soon becomes more and more unpleasant and so you do it very seldom. By now you may have come up with some reasons for why it is not as important as you once thought.

 

But it is different if you make it a habit. First you experiment and find the time of day you most prefer to floss. Then you require yourself to do it every day at this time. Soon it becomes a habit that is easy to do. The daily practice makes you good at doing it and any unpleasant associations gradually drop away. Now it is just something that you do.

 

The key to developing a habit is to be consistent, to do it every time. If you want to develop the habit of wearing seat belts in your car, then wear them every time you are in the car. This will make it an easy habit and lead to your being quickly aware if you forget. Also beware of excuses for not doing. If it takes a little bit of work or is somewhat unpleasant to get the habit started, your mind will come up with excuses for not doing it. Be wary of these excuses. You might tell yourself it is too much trouble to put on your seat belt for the few blocks you will ride to the store.

 

It is bad practice to give in to such thinking. And in this case the reasoning is false: You need your seat belt for short rides, since this is when many accidents occur that can be reduced with seat belts.

 

For more complex things you can develop whole habitual rituals. For example, you might have a house check ritual, a sequence of things you want to check in your house before leaving it. This might include where the pets are, whether the coffee maker is off, and whether the doors and windows are closed. Making it a habit consists of having a set sequence of steps of checking that you go through in a set order every time you leave the house. Once it becomes a habit it can be done quickly with little thought, thus saving you time. Also later on you don’t have to try to remember if you checked something (Did I leave the oven on?) because you know it was part of your ritual, thus saving you worry.

 

BAD HABITS

On the other hand there are many undesirable things we do out of habit, such as biting fingernails or automatically lighting up a cigarette after dinner. The rest of this chapter deals with ways to get out of these habits, from simple nervous habits such as shoulder jerking to more complex desires such as craving for sweets.

 

NERVOUS HABITS

Nervous habits are simple habits that occur quite automatically, habits such as pulling on eyelashes or facial twitches. They are called nervous habits because for some people they occur more often when the person is nervous. Thus a very important first step in reducing one of your nervous habits is to observe and record (see Chapter 3) whether your habit is triggered by feelings such as nervousness, anxiety, or tension. If this is true, some or most of the time, then you must begin by learning ways to deal with these emotions (see Chapters 6 & 7).

 

After you have worked with the nervousness or found that the habit is not affected by emotions, then you can reduce or eliminate the habit by the following procedures.

 

The most important thing is to learn to be more aware of when the habit occurs, particularly since many nervous habits often occur without your knowing it. But with practice you can become more aware of it. And you must be aware in order to stop it. One way to increase this awareness is to count, as with a wrist—counter or written record, every time the habit occurs. This counting makes you more aware. Also you might ask friends or others to point out to you when you are doing the habit.

 

In addition to counting the habit it is important to do a more complete assessment of it (see Chapter 3) Observe and keep records of the situations in which the habit occurs and any possible things that result from the habit. Pay very careful and detailed attention to the habit so you know all about its different forms in various situations. If there are certain cues that trigger off the habit, consult Chapter 5 (Change of Scene) for possible ways to change these cues.

 

After assessment the next step is overpractice. This consists of intentionally doing the habit over and over again as realistically as possible. If the habit is shoulder-jerking, then you sit down and intentionally jerk your shoulder over and over in the same way it occurs naturally. Of course, do this in a way that does not hurt you. Thus if your habit is scratching your arm, then you might wear gloves during overpractice.

 

Overpractice does two things. First it helps you become more aware of whenever the habit occurs. Second it reduces the habit itself to some degree. Sometimes overpractice is enough to eliminate a habit. To get the most out of overpractice you should do it at least once a day for a week or two. And when you do it, you should do it over and over and over again until you feel quite tired of doing it.

 

The next step is to find an act which is incompatible with the habit, an act which if you do it you can’t do the habit. For fingernail biting and eyelash pulling an incompatible act is putting your hands at your sides and clenching your fists or grasping and squeezing an object. For jerking or shaking your head an incompatible act is tensing your neck muscles, perhaps by pulling your chin in and down. An incompatible act for shoulder jerking is pushing your arms and hands down, perhaps against your legs if standing or against your legs or the arms of a chair when sitting. Other examples of incompatible acts are closing the mouth and jaws for cheek and lip biting, relaxing face muscles and blinking intentionally for eye squinting, and dropping jaw and breathing through the mouth for teeth grinding.

 

Once you determine an incompatible act for your habit, then do this act for 3 minutes every time your habit occurs, for 2 minutes every time you are about to do your habit, and for one minute every time you are even tempted to do the habit. Practice using your incompatible act until it becomes a habit and becomes easy and automatic. This is a critical part of breaking a bad habit.

 

In addition to using your incompatible act in real life situations, also spend some time practicing it in your imagination. From your assessment you know situations in which your habit often occurs. Sit down, close your eyes, relax, and imagine yourself in one of these situations. Notice any tendency for you to do the habit and if so then practice the incompatible act. See the next chapter for more on this type of mental rehearsal.

 

Finally, if necessary, use some of the motivation procedures from Chapter 8 to encourage you to do this change program. If you do all of the above, you can eliminate any nervous habit you wish.

 

DESIRES

A desire is a craving, a yearning, an addiction, an attachment. It is a felt demand or expectation that yearns to be satisfied. A desire is based on something you want. Most people have desires for certain foods, such as eggs, chocolate, or peanut butter. Most people have desires for one or more drugs such as caffeine (as in coffee and cola), nicotine, alcohol or marijuana. Most people have sexual desires related to certain people, sexual objects, and/or fantasies. Most people have desires for security, sensation, and power. Thus everyone has a complex set of desires.

 

Desires are perfectly natural, but they can easily get out of control. Examples of desires out of control include the person driving around at two in the morning hunting for a place to buy cigarettes, the person who tends to perceive most people of the opposite sex in terms of a potential sex object, and the person who sees other people as he wants them to be rather than how they are. When some of your desires are out of control, you become a slave to them. They influence your perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions. Therefore it is important for everyone to understand his desires, eliminate some of them (such as a desire for cigarettes), and get some under control (such as overeating).

 

The goal is not to become desireless, but to have the desires under control. Then you can choose your activity, rather than it choosing you. Then you can enjoy life more, being content with what you have rather than obsessed with what you don’t have. The free and happy person has preferences and likes and dislikes which affect what he chooses to do, but he is not thrown about by uncontrolled desires that distort reality and cause discomfort until they are satisfied.

 

In fact much of this book deals with desires in their many forms. Here I summarize a few points and add some additional ways to work with desires that are somewhat or largely out of control.

 

The first step, of course, is to practice observing and recording your desires (see Chapter 3, Know Yourself). You should see the situations that cue your desires, external situations as well as your feelings and thoughts. In some cases you can change some of the external cues until your desires are under control (see Chapter 5, Change of Scene). In some cases you can change your thoughts that cue desires (see Chapter 11, What Do You Think). Very often desires result from anxiety, nervousness, or tension. If this is the case, then these emotions should be dealt with first (see Chapter 5, Relaxing Body and Mind, and Chapter 6, Calm and Relaxed Living). In addition to all of this there are three other approaches for reducing desires: disrupt the sequence, overloading, and unpleasant associations.

 

DISRUPT THE SEQUENCE

When a desire begins it often stays until satisfied, with the person responding like a robot under the control of the desire. Something cues the desire, a sequence of behaviors begins to fulfill the desire, and this continues until the desire is satisfied. To get free from this, practice stopping or interrupting this automatic sequence. When you have a thought about a snack or something else cues the desire for a snack, don’t immediately and automatically go for the snack. Either don’t get the snack at all or delay getting it Until later. Work on delaying various urges for longer and longer, until you are choosing what you want, not Jumping to a desire. If there are things you do too fast, such as eating, slow down and stop occasionally. Build in pauses of a few minutes. Break free of automatic sequences of behavior.

 

Learn to play with your desires as you master them. Sometimes give in to them and sometimes make a point of not giving in to them. You want to be able to eventually have this choice with little effort or discomfort. Be sure that some of the times when you don’t give in to the desire are times when you are giving yourself all sorts of reasons for satisfying the desire. But don’t make a big thing of all this; just work with your desires, relax, and observe all your feelings and thoughts.

 

Approach all of this as a personal challenge, an opportunity to get more free and develop will power. Refuse to be controlled by a desire, such as a desire for a cigarette. Become master of your life.

 

OVERLOADING

Sometimes when we have too much of something we like, it makes us “sick” of it, so that later we don’t want it or perhaps don’t even want to think of it. Too many pieces of pie at Thanksgiving can keep us from eating pie for a while. Too many martinis at a friend’s party may eliminate our gin drinking for a few days. This is called overloading, consuming something pleasant until it loses its appeal. The effects of overloading may last from a few hours to many years.

 

You can intentionally overload yourself as a way to break something’s hold on you, at least temporarily. If snacking peanuts is your downfall, get a lot of peanuts and eat them until you don’t want any more. If you are too caught up in desires for French fries, then eat many French fries for a few days until they lose their hold on you. Overloading usually only has a temporary effect. Thus it is seldom a complete treatment by itself and should be part of a broader program.

 

You should not use overloading on yourself with dangerous drugs such as alcohol and tobacco. And if you have any concerns about any form of overloading, don’t do it or check with your doctor.

 

UNPLEASANT ASSOCIATIONS

The final way of reducing desires is by associating something unpleasant with them. This is done through the use of imagined, unpleasant scenes. To be effective these scenes often need to be offensive or gross, such as the examples below. In this procedure you sit down, close your eyes, relax, and imagine as realistically as possible a common situation in which the desire arises. For example, a person who wishes to reduce smoking would imagine a situation in which it is very likely he would have the desire to smoke, such as sitting at the table after dinner or talking on the phone to a friend. You must imagine the scene in detail and experience and live it as if you were actually in the scene, not just seeing yourself in the scene.

 

While imagining this scene notice the desire arise, notice an intent to do something undesirable. As soon as the desire or intent arises, you now imagine a scene which is very unpleasant to you. For example, the smoker might imagine himself at the dinner table desiring a cigarette, putting a cigarette in his mouth, and then getting sick and vomiting all over himself and the table. The aversive scene must be imagined and experienced in detail.

 

A person who drinks too much might imagine himself in a favorite bar and then getting drunk and acting in a way he is ashamed of. A person who wishes to reduce homosexual desires might imagine people who are homosexually attractive to him forcing him to drink urine. The aversive scene must be a scene which is aversive to you, such as falling in a cesspool or being attacked by rats. It could also be based on a possible future that might result if you don’t control the desire. A smoker might see himself in a nursing home with lung cancer. An overeater might see himself as fat and losing his girlfriend.

 

This practice should be done almost every day for a few weeks. Each day that you do it, do it a number of times. Imagine several different common situations in which the desire arises. Associate the desire with your unpleasant scene. Live all your imagined scenes in detail. This practice will reduce these desires.

 

Next, when you are in actual situations that cue the desire, then call up your unpleasant scene. A smoker who feels the desire for a cigarette might imagine getting sick and vomiting. This will reduce the desire for the cigarette. With practice you will find that by doing this you can readily turn off any desires you want. After a moderate amount of experience doing this, you will find you are able to turn off the desire simply by willing it, without needing to use the unpleasant scene. And later on all of this will be automatic (a good habit) and you won’t have to pay any attention to it at all.

 

You have been programmed with various habits and desires. By freeing yourself of this programming you can make your life more free, more happy, and more effective.

 

SUGGESTED READING

 

The Azrin and Nunn book gives a comprehensive program for reducing nervous habits such as nail- biting, hair-pulling, and stuttering.

 

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

 

In this chapter you will learn more about your thinking. You will observe and evaluate your thoughts, identify thinking that works against you, and learn how to control and change your thinking. But first we will consider the importance of positive thinking.

 

POSITIVE THINKING

If you were to read all of the self-help books and attend all of the personal growth training programs, you would find one principle that is stressed more than any other: the importance and power of positive think If you think of yourself as a person who is physically well or getting better, your health will be better than if you think of yourself as a sick person. If you think of yourself as a friendly, outgoing person, you will be friendlier and more outgoing than if you think of yourself as withdrawn. If you think of living as a happy and exciting adventure, your life will be more pleasant than if you think of living as unpleasant and filled with obstacles. Positive thinking works!! It works for many reasons that go under such words as expectancy, placebo, confidence, and faith.

 

What you think and believe affects the way you act, which affects how people and the world act to you, which then supports your thinking. If you think of yourself as unhappy, you will act in an unhappy manner. People will then respond to you as an unhappy person, which then convinces you further you are or should be unhappy. On the other hand, if you think of yourself as a happy person, you will act in a happy manner. People will then more enjoy being with you, feel and act happier around you, and respond to you as a happy person. This then strengthens your thoughts of yourself as a happy person, which leads to even more happiness.

 

How you think affects how you see and react to situations, to people, and to yourself. To a large extent you live in a world of your own thoughts. If these thoughts are negative, you will live in a less pleasant and rewarding world than if the thoughts are positive. Happy people live in a happy world. Unhappy people live in an unhappy world. If your thoughts are filled with fear and hate, you will bring these on yourself. If your thoughts are filled with love and understanding, you will bring these on yourself. This is a universal law found in most major psychologies, religions, and self-help programs. Try it. It will work for you!

 

Positive thinking is not fooling yourself, trying to convince yourself of something that is not true, or refusing to accept the reality of a situation. Rather it is seeing things as they are from a positive standpoint. Then you may choose to change things, as with the tools you are learning in this book.

 

BASIC PRINCIPLES

The following are some basic principles for cultivating positive thinking. The more and more you practice these basic principles the happier and more effective your life will become. These are things to do, not just read about. The more you practice these principles the more you will learn about them and about yourself.

 

1. Live in the here and now . Don’t dwell on things in the past which can’t be changed. Don’t worry about mistakes you made in the past; rather be concerned about making fewer mistakes now. You are only a slave of the past to the extent that you think you are. Let the past go. Be here now. What are you going to do now?

 

2. Accept yourself . Most negative thinking centers around people's bad thinking about themselves. Most people are better friends to others than to themselves. Make friends with yourself. See yourself objectively and realistically, including things you want to change. But don’t get upset and judgmental by what you see. Accept yourself as you are, for that is reality. A good friend of yours knows many of your strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and plans for change; and this friend likes you as you are. Make friends with yourself.

 

3. Develop positive thinking . Practice thinking of yourself and the world in terms of positive, loving images and concepts. Use the tools of the rest of this chapter to better observe your thinking and change it toward more positive thinking.

 

CHANGING YOUR MIND

Let us consider ways you can learn to think more positively and generally be able to improve what you think. This involves six basic processes: developing mental flexibility, quieting the mind, observing thinking, evaluating thoughts, reducing undesired thoughts, and increasing desired thoughts.

 

DEVELOPING MENTAL FLEXIBILITY

In order to improve your thinking, problem-solving ability, and creativity, it is important to cultivate mental flexibility. You need to be ready to change your thinking. It is OK to have been wrong. It is OK to change one’s mind. Everyone’s mind is somewhat resistant to change. We have a tendency to justify and defend our past and current ideas and beliefs rather than change our minds as better ideas come along. This resistance reduces mental flexibility and slows up personal progress.

 

Don’t hold onto old attitudes, opinions, ideas, and beliefs just because you once considered them important or right. If a better thought comes along, let the past go. Be willing to change your mind. Be willing to have been wrong. This doesn’t mean accepting everything that comes along, being gullible, or being unreasonable. Rather it is a matter of being flexible to new thoughts that you consider better, based on your reason and values. Thus you might change your mind about women at your work, issues of national politics, ways to discipline your children, how to be a loving spouse, or what is important for you to accomplish in your life.

 

QUIETING THE MIND

If the mind is always rushing about like a drunken monkey it is very difficult to observe the thinking and get free from old and troublesome thought patterns. It is important to quiet the mind down and get control of it. Once you have control of it you can use it more effectively as you wish. Ways to quiet and relax the mind are discussed in Chapter 6.

 

OBSERVING THINKING

Few people observe their thoughts or their thinking processes. Instead they just think. Thus most people spend much of their time lost in thought. But in addition to just thinking, with practice you can learn to also observe the thoughts you think. That is, thoughts are behaviors you can observe just as you observe other of your behaviors such as walking and eating. It would be useful here to review Chapter 3 (Know Yourself) and think about how it applies to your thinking.

 

Observing your thoughts is a skill to be developed. The more you practice observing your thoughts, the easier it will be and the better you will be at it. You will find out many new and interesting things about yourself as you observe your thoughts. One point is very important to remember: Observing your thoughts means just to observe them, not think about them. Thinking about thoughts is more thinking. Observing your thoughts is just quietly being aware of your thoughts. Later, after you have learned to observe your thoughts, you will be able to observe your processes of thinking. Here you will find some very basic things about yourself.

 

As in all cases of learning to observe yourself, it is useful to use written records, such as a notebook or log, to record types of thoughts that are of particular interest to you. For example, if anxiety is a general problem you want to work on, you might keep records of what you say to yourself when in anxiety situations and when thinking about anxiety situations. A useful form for written records about thoughts would include (1) the situation you are in, (2) the thoughts you have in this situation, (3) the feelings and actions that result from these thoughts, and (4) the thoughts that accompany or follow the feelings and actions.

 

If you are interested in your smoking, you want to observe any thoughts that lead to smoking or justify smoking. If you want to become a more loving person, you want to observe your thoughts in situations where you find it difficult to be loving. If you are interested in expanding your consciousness, you should practice observing your thoughts in all situations

 

EVALUATING THOUGHTS

Assuming you have spent some time (ideally a few weeks) observing and recording your thoughts in situations of importance to you, it is now time to evaluate the thoughts. Carefully study your written records of your thoughts. See what you can learn and discover. What types of thoughts often occur? Which of the thoughts would you consider undesirable? The first step in evaluating your thoughts is to determine which of the thoughts are true or false. Consider a person who feels anxious at work. After observing and recording anxiety-related thoughts, he finds that the thought “My boss does not like my work” is a major source of anxiety. Well, this is the type of thought that should be checked to determine if it is true or false. If false, as many such thoughts are, then it is an unnecessary source of anxiety that should be eliminated. If true, then the question is what should be done to remedy the problem.

 

If a thought could be true or false, then find out for sure. Get the facts. Ask yourself how you can prove or disprove the thought. What type of evidence would be relevant?

 

The second type of evaluation is to identify those thoughts that are basically negative, self—defeating, and/or irrational. These are thoughts to be decreased or eliminated, as with the procedures described later. One type of such thoughts are those that are simply untrue. This includes such thoughts as “Healthy people do not get upset," or "Nobody likes me.” A second type are those thoughts that are ah overgeneralization or overstatement that can’t always be true. Examples include “Someone with you or against you” and “Every problem has a perfect solution.” Other examples include making a generalization about a person based on one thing he does or making a generalization about a group of people based on a few members of the group. A third type are those thoughts which express an unreasonable expectation of yourself. Examples include "I should always be at peak efficiency,” "Everyone should like me,” and “I should be the perfect parent (or lover, or friend, or...).” A fourth type are those thoughts that are negative in tone, the opposite of positive thing. Examples are “I wish I were someone else,” "If people get to know me, they won’t like me,” and "Because of my upbringing I can never change.”

 

The following are some very common undesirable thoughts that are negative, self—defeating, and/or irrational. See if any of your thoughts are like any of these. Also think about what is undesirable about etch of these thoughts.

I have to be unhappy to know when I am happy. The purpose of life is to work hard, not be happy. My emotions cannot be controlled. Self—discipline is too hard to achieve. It is others’ responsibility to solve my problems. Will power alone can solve all of my problems. Although often self-defeating, anger is unavoidable. Others may have problems, but they are not like mine. To ask someone for help is to display weakness. I can’t benefit from professional counseling. Bad situations only get worse if you stand up to them. My value as a person depends on what others think of me. I am no good because... can’t face living because... would be really happy if only... If only...

 

TAKE ACTION

After observing, recording, and evaluating your thoughts, it is now time to take some action. Look at your undesirable thoughts and beliefs and add to your program for yourself a course of action to offset them. If many of your thoughts are about not taking chances, go out of your way to take a chance. If you tell yourself never to ask for help, practice asking favors. If you have thoughts and feelings about being left out of things, then make the first move and don’t wait to be asked. Remember our rule of taking small steps. Begin by taking small chances or asking small favors. Then gradually build up to bigger chances or bigger favors.

 

Now let’s turn to some general ways to decrease undesired thoughts and increase desired thoughts. This is important because undesired thoughts are often unpleasant in themselves and because they impair positive thinking. Also undesired thoughts lead to undesired feelings and actions, while desired thoughts lead to desired feelings and actions.

 

REDUCING UNDESIRED THOUGHTS

The first procedure is thought stopping. This is a tool to disrupt unwanted thoughts when they come into your head. It is easy to learn and easy to use. It may seem a little strange at first; but it will work well for you. For example, say you did considerable damage to your new car which really upset you. Now you find that when you are trying to think of other things, thoughts of the car keep coming into your mind. Thought stopping is a way to disrupt this.

 

The way to do it is to sit quietly, close your eyes, and let thoughts of the car come into your mind. AS soon as these thoughts appear, shout “STOP” out loud. You will see this stops the thought. Practice doing this a few times. Then practice doing it while you shout “STOP” inside your head, not out loud. If YOU practice this for a few days, you will find you can use it to stop any thoughts you wish. After you have used thought stopping for a while you will be able to will thoughts to go away without saying “stop.”

You can shout things other than stop. Some people prefer to shout “GET OUT.” Also some people find it best to shout “STOP” or “GET OUT” three to five times each time they do it. Other people find it useful at first to bang their fist on the table when shouting, while other people wear a rubberband around a wrist and snap it on the underside of the wrist when they shout.

 

Thought stopping is a good way to disrupt and temporarily stop unwanted thoughts. But for more permanent thought control it is also useful to use negative countering (discussed next) and procedures to increase desired thoughts.

 

Negative countering is a way of dealing with irrational thoughts. Each time an irrational thought occurs, you counter it by saying something to yourself which is contrary to the irrational thought.

 

One way to do this is by attacking the content of the thought. If you have problems falling asleep, you may find that thoughts such as “I’ll never get to sleep” Come to mind while trying to get to sleep. Such thoughts help keep you awake. So when a thought like that occurs YOU immediately counter it with another thought such as I am resting and will be asleep soon.” If the irrational thought is too strong, you use thought stopping first, followed immediately by negative countering. For example, in a social situation a person might think They are talking about me.” If this thought is too Strong for just negative countering, it would be best to first disrupt the thought with thought stopping and then Use negative countering. If you have an irrational fear in some situations, you may find that when in those situations, irrational thoughts arise that tell you to be afraid. When such a thought arises, counter it with a thought such as “There is no need for fear in this situation.”

 

A second way of doing negative countering is to attack the irrational thought as being destructive or self—defeating. Now when an irrational thought occurs, you counter it with a thought such as “This thought only hurts me and does not help” or “This thought is pointless” or “This thought gets me in trouble with my friends.”

 

Now make a list of some of your common irrational thoughts. For each one write down a countering statement that makes sense to you. Practice in your imagination doing negative countering. Imagine being in a situation where your irrational thought might occur. Let the thought occur and immediately replace it with your countering statement. Do this Imaginary practice on many days for a few weeks. Then start doing negative countering in real life situations whenever irrational thoughts occur. Continue to add irrational thoughts to your list and add or change countering statements.

 

INCREASING DESIRED THOUGHTS

One way of increasing desired thoughts and positive thinking is through the use of affirmations. These are statements that give you a positive attitude or mood toward such things as the day, your life, or living in general. Below are some popular affirmations. See if any of them speak to you. Find or make up other affirmations which appeal to you.

After you have one or more affirmations that are suited to you, make a point of saying them to yourself several times each day and several times each time you do it. You might say them to yourself when you get up jn the morning, when you go to bed at night, and periodically throughout the day. Some people put their affirmations to a tune so they can sing it out loud or to themselves. It is useful to have signs or reminders to say your affirmations, such as a sign on a cabinet door or a reminder in your wallet or notebook. Over time change your affirmations and add new ones.

 

A second way of increasing desired thoughts is the use of reasons for change . This consists of making a list of reasons for changing whatever it is you wish to change. Thus if you are working on losing weight, you would make a list of reasons for weight loss, reasons that are true or important to you. Weight loss reasons might include better appearance, increased sexual appeal, better health, longer life, less fatigue, and not being a bad example to the children. If you are trying to avoid spending so much money, your reasons for change might include having a better use for the money, not wanting to borrow money, not being overdrawn at the bank, avoiding money-related fights with your spouse, and the development of self-control of spending.

 

You should make a list of reasons for change, reasons in your own words that are good reasons for you. Then post this list and each day read through the list and think about the reasons. When you are in a situation and have thoughts going against your change program, such as thoughts to eat or spend too much, then stop these thoughts and mentally review some of your reasons for change. Finally, continually add and subtract from your list of reasons as new reasons come in and old reasons lose some of their Strength.

 

A third way to increase desirable thoughts is by positive countering . This consists of saying positive statements in place of negative ones. The following are examples of positive statements. You could use One or more of these or make up your own.

Now when an undesired thought occurs, you stop it and replace it with one of these positive countering statements. Again get out your list of your common irrational thoughts. Now for each one write down a positive countering statement that you would use. Practice using it in your imagination and then practice using it in real life.

 

ALL TOGETHER

Putting together the last few sections gives us this overall approach: Observe and record undesired thoughts of importance to you. Observe and record the situations in which these thoughts occur. Next, when an undesired thought occurs, stop it as soon as possible using thought stopping and/or negative countering. Then immediately replace the undesired thought with a desired thought such as an affirmation, a reason for change, or a positive countering statement. You may wish to carry a list of desired thoughts with you for use in such situations.

 

First practice using the above approach in your imagination. Imagine yourself in various situations in which the undesired thoughts might occur, let them happen, and then practice the above approach. After practicing in your imagination for a number of days, begin using this approach in real life situations.

 

Look for ways to reward yourself for all of this: reward yourself for practicing thought stopping and positive and negative countering, reward yourself for saying your affirmations, and be sure to reward yourself whenever you apply this in a real life situation. The reward might be praising yourself or feeling personally satisfied, the reward might be a little treat of some type, or the reward might be a mark in your notebook to be added to other marks for a bigger reward. Chapter 8 (Getting Motivated) discusses various ways to reward yourself.

 

TALKING TO YOURSELF

Although talking to yourself out loud is not always a good idea, everybody talks to themselves in their heads. Talking to yourself, when done in a positive and helpful manner, can be a very useful thing to do. One good example is learning to ask yourself questions about various situations. What will be expected of me at the meeting? What sort of things should I expect at the party? Have I had too many drinks? Such questions help you think things through and plan ahead.

 

Another good form of talking to yourself consists of giving yourself instructions about various situations. Examples include’ the following: Relax. Listen. Stop and think. Stop thinking nonsense. Think positively. Be less critical. I don’t need to prove myself. Getting upset won’t help. I’m not going to let him get to me. Slow down eating and pay more attention. Drink slowly and take smaller sips.

 

What you think influences how you feel and act. Use this chapter to learn more about your own thinking and how you can make it more positive and useful. This will help make your life more pleasant and more productive.

 

SUGGESTED READING

The first two books (Ellis & Harper, Lazarus & Fay) discuss irrational assumptions and undesirable self— statements and suggest some ways for dealing with them. Maltz’s book emphasizes the influence of a person’s self-image on his personality and behavior. Maltz suggests ways to use the imagination to reprogram the self—image. Newman’s book similarly deals with a person’s attitudes, self—concept, and self—esteem. He also utilizes the imagination and suggests ways to reprogram the unconscious. Burns’ book deals with overcoming depression.

MENTAL REHEARSAL

 

Mental rehearsal is the practice of imagining what you are going to do or say in a future situation. It is a common, powerful practice that helps you be prepared and overcome obstacles. If you are going to ask your boss for a raise, it may be useful to practice beforehand in your imagination what you are going to say and how you will respond to different things he might say. If there is a person who gets you angry by his kidding, you can practice in advance how you might handle this kidding without getting angry, particularly if getting you angry is a main reason he kids you.

 

Mental rehearsal is a very old technique that has been practiced for centuries in many cultures. You will find it very useful and easy to do if you follow these four steps: relax, live realistic scenes, practice variations, and take small steps into the world.

 

1. Relax. Mental rehearsal should be done when your are relaxed and have plenty of time for the practice. Close your eyes and relax your body and mind, as with the procedures of Chapter 6. While relaxed do mental rehearsal as described below. If at any time you notice yourself becoming non-relaxed, such as anxious or tense, stop the mental rehearsal and relax. After relaxing you may start mental rehearsal again.

 

2. Live realistic scenes. In mental rehearsal you want to imagine situations as realistically as possible. Make the imagined scene as detailed as possible and use as many different senses in your imagination as possible. If you are imagining asking your boss for a raise, then imagine in detail what it is like to enter the boss’ office. See the details of the Office and your boss. See the details change as you Come in and sit down. Use other senses in your imagination if possible. Hear yourself knock on the door. Hear the boss talk to you. Feel the chair as you sit During all of this it is very important that you live these scenes Do not just imagine yourself in the situation as if you were watching yourself on a movie screen. Rather, be in the scene and live it as realistically as you can.

 

3. Practice variations. Practice different variations of the situations you are mentally rehearsing. Practice with variations of the place. Practice with variations of how the people react to you and what they say. For each situation practice what you would say to yourself (see Chapter 11), what you would say to others, and what you would do. This practice with variations prepares you for the various things you might encounter. Consider a person who is easily talked into spending too much. Mental rehearsal for him might consist of visualizing sales situations and salespeople and how to handle them. Variations would include imagining being in different stores and imagining different things salespeople might say. Mental rehearsal would include imagining what would be said to these various salespeople, being polite but resisting buying. Or consider an unassertive person who feels uncomfortable asking a waitress for extra service, such as more sour cream for his potato. Mental rehearsal would consist of realistically imagining being in a particular restaurant and wanting more sour cream. Practicing variations would include imagining different conditions of the restaurant (slow to busy) and different reactions of the waitress (friendly to unfriendly). Mental rehearsal here would reduce the anxiety and give the person practice in what to do or say in various situations.

 

4. Take small steps into the world . Remember our general strategy of taking small steps. After you have practiced mental rehearsal it is often useful to gradually approach the real world situation. For example, if your mental rehearsal has centered around resisting pressure to spending money, the first step into the real world might be to go to low pressure stores with just a little money. Then you can gradually work up to more difficult situations. If you have trouble asking a waitress for extra service, then start with a small request to a friendly waitress at a non—busy time. Then work up to harder situations.

 

During mental rehearsal and going into the world stay in tune with your feelings and thoughts. If you start to feel an unwanted emotion, such as anxiety or anger, notice it, relax, and practice turning it off as best you can. If your thoughts become irrational, negative, or self—defeating, notice them, relax, and practice replacing them with positive thoughts.

 

EXAMPLES

Bob was concerned about the working conditions at his off ice and had ideas for improvement. But he felt very anxious about suggesting his ideas to his supervisor, a bright woman who was usually very busy and seemed easily bothered when someone interrupted her work. Bob felt anxious around her and usually did not say exactly what he wanted. With mental rehearsal Bob practiced approaching her and making some suggestions. This allowed him to reduce much of the anxiety and practice what to say in various situations. Then Bob worked out a gradual set of steps for the real world, starting with just saying hello to his supervisor, to a short chat, to making a minor suggestion, and eventually to discussing with her some of his real concerns. When he was done he had eliminated the anxiety, developed a better relationship with his supervisor, and improved his working conditions.

 

Ann often got upset by Jack’s sexist attitude toward her. However, getting upset caused her not to deal with Jack in the best way. She would later think of a better thing to have said or done. Using mental rehearsal she practiced various ways to respond to Jack without getting upset. This helped her deal with Jack more effectively and reduce his sexist approach.

 

Mental rehearsal can also help skills such as hitting a tennis ball or playing music. This is a common practice among professional athletes and musicians. For example, a golfer might mentally rehearse playing a few holes of golf, realistically imagining a particular course, the weather conditions, the lie of the ball on a particular hole, the club in his hand, and the hitting of the ball. Such mental rehearsal, if realistically imagining the correct way to play, may improve his golf game.

 

VARIATIONS

Finally, there are some variations of mental rehearsal that might be useful to you.

 

Small steps in the imagination. When imagining a Situation in mental rehearsal you might find that you feel a moderate or large amount of anxiety, or some Other unwanted emotion. Or you might find that when Such an emotion occurs, it is difficult to relax and Shut it off. In either case you should apply our strategy of small steps to the imagined scene. That is, Start your mental rehearsal with a scene that only Causes a little anxiety (or whatever emotion) and practice turning it off and relaxing. Then gradually imagine scenes that cause more and more anxiety. But don’t move to a new scene until you can imagine the current scene without feeling anxious. If you use small steps during mental rehearsal, it is very important that you use a lot of small steps when going into the world.

 

Imagining others. If at first you find it difficult or unrealistic to imagine yourself doing something, then start by imagining someone else doing it. Pick someone who has the characteristic you wish to develop and/or acts the way you wish to act. This person could be a friend, celebrity, athlete, religious figure, or someone else you respect or admire. If you have a choice of different people, pick the one who is most similar to you. Now your mental rehearsal should have three stages and you should master each stage before going to the next: (1) imagine this other person acting appropriately in the various situations of concern to you; (2) imagine seeing yourself, as on a screen, doing what the other person did; and then (3) live and experience the scene, imagining yourself actually acting, talking, feeling and thinking the way you wish.

 

Imagining others can be readily combined with taking small steps in the imagination. Here you begin by imagining the other person gradually dealing with more and more difficult situations. Then you imagine yourself in the same gradual sequence of situations.

 

Role-reversal. Role-reversal consists of imagining being someone else in one of the situations you are using for mental rehearsal. That is, you imagine yourself in the role of one of the people you have trouble with. Thus you might imagine yourself as your boss being asked for a raise. Or you might imagine yourself as a very busy waitress being asked for more sour cream. Role—reversal is something you would do periodically along with your mental rehearsal. Role- reversal helps you better see from the other person’s point of view and recognize some of his problems. This then helps you better understand others and interact with them more effectively.

 

SUGGESTED READING

Lazarus’ book describes the use of imagery and mental rehearsal for a variety of personal problems, including overcoming anxiety and being more assertive.

NUTRITION AND EXERCISE

 

Although the emphasis of this book is psychological, it is important to remember that the body and mind strongly influence each other. Thus the condition of your body affects how you feel and how you think. For example, if you are sick you might be more irritable and not think as well. Or if your body is sluggish and out of condition, then your style of living may be sluggish and your thinking may be sluggish. On the other hand, getting your body physically fit will probably improve the way you feel about yourself, give you more energy, and lead to being more alert.

 

GETTING IN TOUCH

Most people are surprisingly out of touch with their bodies. They are not aware how many of the things they do affect their bodies. And they are not aware of the ways their bodies affect their minds. Thus the first step is to get more in touch with your body. Make friends with your body. Treat your body as a temple to be respected and kept clean and in good shape.

 

Pay more attention to your body. Practice being more aware of your feelings: how they start, how they feel, how they change over time, and how they influence your thinking. Practice being aware of how psychological conditions, such as anxiety and tension, affect different parts of your body. Practice being aware of how different physical activities affect your psychological condition. Here the procedures of Chapters 6 and 7 (Relaxing Body and Mind, Calm and Relaxed Living) should be useful.

 

Learn how the following affect your moods and the Way your body feels: what you eat and drink, things you smoke, any drugs you use, different types of exercise, and aspects of the climate, such as temperature and humidity. Experiment with yourself by changing Some of these things and noticing the differences. Alter your diet for a while and see how it influences your mood. Eliminate an unnecessary drug (such as alcohol) for a month or so and notice changes in your body and mind.

 

Get in touch with your body. Treat it well. Make friends with yourself.

 

NUTRITION

What you eat and drink has a tremendous effect on your body and mind. For example, not getting enough of some vitamins can cause such things as poor vision, circulatory problems, skin problems, lack of appetite, diarrhea, headaches, sleeplessness, impaired memory, nervousness, irritability, and mental confusion. In some cases a person is not getting enough of the vitamins in the foods he eats and thus needs to change his diet and/or take vitamin supplements. In some cases a person’s body has a deficiency in being able to utilize the vitamins in his diet. This person might need more vitamin supplements than the average person.

 

Lack of adequate protein in your diet can lead to lack of energy and slower reactions. Inadequate protein in a child’s diet might lead to brain damage and/ or failure of the brain to reach its potential.

 

Change in a person’s blood sugar level can have dramatic effects on moods, such as causing a person to feel very depressed. Thus many people, particularly people with diabetes and hypoglycemia, need to learn how their diet affects their blood sugar level and how this affects their moods. For example, if a person with hypoglycemia eats too many carbohydrates it causes a decrease in blood sugar level below what is needed. This then could lead to symptoms such as being weak, nervous, irritable, or aggressive. It can lead to the person being overweight yet undernourished. (Similar symptoms could have many other causes such as some diseases and infections or problems in a neurological or endocrine system.) If hypoglycemia is identified by a doctor, it may be treated with a high protein, low carbohydrate diet.

 

For some people, moderate to large amounts of caffeine can lead to nervousness, irritability, and insomnia. Caffeine is often found in coffee, tea, cola drinks, cocoa, and aspirin. For some children food additives, such as artificial coloring, may lead to hyperactivity, a general nervousness and difficulty in staying still.

 

There are great individual differences in how people react to food. A person can have a strong reaction or allergy to something usual or unexpected. For example, for one person eating chocolate may cause him to be more aggressive. There are also many foods that might cause headaches: fats, fried foods, chocolate, wine, oranges, MSG (monosodium glutamate), nitrates (as in hot dogs and other processed meats), to mention only a few possibilities.

 

Thus it is very important for you to learn how what you eat and drink affects The above examples are just a few examples of many. You need to experiment with yourself and learn how nutrition affects you.

 

GENERAL NUTRITION PRINCIPLES

Learning more about nutrition can be very helpful to you. Unfortunately there are many different, often contradictory, points of view about what is good nutrition. These points of view are influenced by cultural differences, research findings, personal experiences, and religious beliefs. The books in the suggested reading at the end of this chapter provide a sample of some of the different points of view. I leave it to you to decide. However, there are some general principles of good nutrition.

 

First, as mentioned above, is the importance of experimenting with your diet to find how what you eat affects you. However, if you have any question about any of this, or if you are considering any dramatic change, be sure to check with your doctor or nutrition specialist.

 

Become more aware of exactly what you are eating. Carefully read labels of ingredients. Note that the ingredients listed first are generally those in the highest amounts. Watch for artificial preservatives and additives. Notice how often sugar is an ingredient! Be careful of too much sugar and/or salt. Be careful of highly processed foods, where many nutrients are lost in the processing and then some are added back in. If someone other than you fixes the meals, ask about what went into the meals. Be careful of overcooking foods as this often can result in loss of many nutrients.

 

Eat a balanced diet. Be sure you get enough of the basic nutrients: carbohydrates, fats, protein, Vitamins, minerals and water. Also eat enough raw foods and fiber. Some unbalanced diets, such as some weight— loss diets and some “spiritual” diets, could be harmful to your body.

 

Finally, moderation is generally good advice. Be wary of anything you eat or drink a lot of, such as Soft drinks or candy. Consider reducing all excesses and in some cases try removing the problem food from your diet for a few weeks.

 

WEIGHT LOSS

There are three basic variables that influence your weight: eating habits, calorie intake, and exercise. If you take in more calories than you use up, you gain weight. If you use up more calories than you take in, you lose weight.

 

Thus exercise, discussed below, is an important component of a weight loss program, since exercise uses up calories. However, exercise by itself is not enough, since most people do not or can not exercise enough to offset the calories they can easily take in. A piece of cake can quickly offset the calories used up in an hour of exercising. Therefore it is necessary to become more aware of the calories you take in and find ways to reduce these calories. The best way to do this is by changing your eating habits as discussed in Chapter 16 (Eating and Weight Control).

 

If you wish to lose weight, change your eating habits, exercise, and reduce the calories you consume. Learn how to determine the calories in what you eat: see the calories listed on labels, get a book that gives calories for various foods, and learn to estimate the amount of food. Reduce the calories you consume, but don’t eat an unbalanced diet. Reduce the calories you take in, but not below the needs of your body, which for many people is at least 1200 calories per day. Check with your doctor or nutrition specialist about the calories your body size needs and the effects of any weight loss or special diet. Finally, remember that reducing calories need not mean less appealing food. Find other good tasting food and recipes with fewer calories.

 

EXERCISE

As mentioned above, exercise can help you feel better, both physically and mentally. Exercise can be good recreation and relaxation which helps your mental and emotional well-being. Other possible benefits of exercise include better balance and coordination, less fatigue, sounder sleep, reduced emotional tensions, better sex life, lower blood pressure, and longer life. But you must be patient! Many of these benefits you may not begin to notice until after a couple of months of exercise.

 

Next let us consider five different goals of exercise: general conditioning, muscle tone and posture, flexibility, burning calories, and meditation.

 

GENERAL CONDITIONING

General conditioning, also called aerobic conditioning, is exercise that strengthens the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Strengthening the respiratory system increases lung capacity and improves breathing. Exercising the cardiovascular system strengthens the heart (which is a muscle) and improves circulation, as by enlarging and strengthening the arteries and by slowing the build-up of cholesterol. General conditioning thus improves the overall health and functioning of your body. It is the form of exercise that is probably the most useful for most people.

 

The general conditioning (aerobic) exercises are those that increase your heart rate and cause deeper or heavier breathing. Your doctor or physical fitness expert can help you pick the exercises that are right for you relative to your present physical condition. You can learn how to take your pulse to monitor the effects of exercise.

 

Good general conditioning exercises include walking, running, jogging, bicycling, swimming, skating, cross country skiing, jumping rope, dancing, and many running sports such as tennis and racquetball. There are many good aerobic books on these and other exercises. Usually these exercises are best done in a rhythmic, repetitive, and sustained manner. That is, continually and smoothly do the exercise for a period of time each time you do it. It is usually good to do general conditioning exercises three or four times a week.

 

MUSCLE TONE AND POSTURE

It is useful to do a variety of exercises that use a variety of different muscles and develop muscle tone. These exercises help keep the muscles in good shape and health and ready for use when needed. It is important to do a wide variety of exercises so that you work with as many different muscles as possible. Calisthenics and isometrics are good exercises for muscle tone, as are more general exercises such as walking and swimming.

 

In addition you may want to do specialized work on certain muscles. You may want to develop muscles that have gotten weak due to disuse, an accident, or an operation. You may want to strengthen muscles to prevent possible problems such as strengthening muscles to keep a joint from dislocating. Or you may want to work with muscles to improve your appearance such as situps to tighten your stomach. When losing weight it is useful to shape up your figure or physique.

 

Good posture is important to help hold organs in their proper place and help them function more effectively. Become more aware of how you hold your body, as when walking and sitting. Look for ways to improve your posture, such as keeping your back more vertical and not leaning or slouching in any direction.

 

FLEXIBILITY

Flexibility is the ability of the body to easily move in many different ways in a wide range of directions. Many young children have great flexibility because they do a wide variety of activities. As people get older they become more restricted in how they move their bodies; and so they gradually lose flexibility. When a person leaves his teens he needs to pay more attention to flexibility. A common error for people in their 30’s and older is to emphasize muscle tone too much and flexibility not enough. Flexibility also helps minimize sports injuries.

 

The key to flexibility is to do a wide variety of body movements that emphasize moving in natural, non— harmful ways in which you usually don’t move. The best flexibility exercises are slow, rhythmic stretching exercises in which you stop at the point of any discomfort. Exercises specifically geared toward flexibility include aspects of calisthenics, dancing, yoga body positions (specifically hatha yoga), and martial arts such as karate and tai chi.

 

BURNING CALORIES

All exercise uses up calories which helps in weight loss and weight control. The exercises which burn up the most calories are those that require the most total work, not necessarily the most speed or vigor. The general conditioning exercises listed above are good calorie burners.

 

Some people who are trying to lose weight are concerned that exercise will cause them to “work up an appetite” and eat more. In fact it usually works the other way around. Exercising before a meal may decrease your appetite. Exercising in general may overall cause you to be less hungry. Active people often eat less than inactive people.

 

MEDITATION

Your physical exercise can also be a meditation exercise (see discussion of meditation in Chapter 6). When exercising, gently keep your attention on the exercise: how your body feels, how you are breathing, how your body moves. If other thoughts or sensations come to mind, such as plans for later in the week or worrying about some problem, notice these thoughts or sensations and then gently bring your attention back to your exercising.

 

Depending on the type of exercising you are doing, look for opportunities to do things such as the following: Be more aware of the feelings of breathing, your diaphragm rising and falling, your chest going in and out, and the flow of air through nose, mouth, throat, and lungs. Be more aware of the many feelings in your body, including sensing, touching, holding, stretching, pushing, working, tiring, and relaxing. Be more aware of the movement of your body. Notice in detail all of the various sensations involved in even the simplest movement. Be more aware of how your body moves around in the space you are in.

 

Let your movements become more fluid and graceful. Many exercises can be treated as a fluid art form, exercises such as running, swimming, dancing, and bowling. If the exercise involves equipment such as a racket or bat, let the equipment become an extension of your body. Rather than the racket just being something you are holding, let it feel as if it is part of your body.

 

Gently keep your attention on the feelings of the exercise. Pay attention to how your body actually not how you think it feels. Practice being totally in the here and now of the exercise, not remembering things from the past or planning for the future. Immerse yourself in the exercise so the exercise is something your body is doing smoothly and naturally, rather than something you are telling your body to do. But don’t be so lost in your exercise you lose awareness of other things around you. This is a time to be more aware of everything, with emphasis on Your body.

 

GENERAL EXERCISE PRINCIPLES

As a general rule it is important for you to check with your physical fitness expert and/or doctor about what exercises are appropriate for you, given your condition, age, physiological limitations, and needs. This is particularly true if you have any heart or lung problems, high blood pressure, or diabetes, if you are overweight, or if you smoke more than a pack of cigarettes a day. For example, some aerobic and isometric exercises would not be good for some people with heart problems. Some flexibility exercises are not good for some people with spinal cord limitations.

 

Take small steps. Gradually build up. If you have done little exercise for a while, don’t try to go out and run a mile. Perhaps walk before you jog. Perhaps run or jog a while before joining a basketball team. Take small steps. Train, don’t strain. Do warm up exercises before doing heavy exercise. And then don’t sit down right after exercise. Walk around and cool down.

 

Practice being more aware of your body. When the exercise permits, for part of the time practice focus ing your attention on your breathing. Pay more attention to your breathing. Pay more attention to various feelings in your body. Practice getting more in touch with your body. Befriend yourself.

 

Have some variety in your exercise program. This will help you have a well-rounded program that works with different parts of your body. Altering your exercise program may also keep it more interesting and fun. However, if you have a form of exercise you really enjoy and profit from, then stay with it and vary your other exercises. You may wish to have substitute exercises. For example, you might have a program of three aerobic exercises a week. Most of the time you jog, but occasionally you substitute a certain amount of swimming for jogging. When working on your arm muscles you might be able to substitute push-ups and pull-ups for the usual isometrics.

 

Look for ways to increase the overall amount of exercise in your daily life. Be wary of too many “labor-saving” devices. The following are some possible ways to do this: Walk instead of ride. When you drive, park further away and walk more. Take stairs instead of elevators. During the day take exercise breaks rather than coffee breaks. Look for more family fun activities that involve exercise. Stand on one foot while putting on your shoes and socks.

 

Do isometrics while riding the bus. Do the housecleaning at a faster rate and/or work harder.

 

Finally, if you have trouble getting yourself to do exercises, then apply the motivating techniques of Chapter 8 (Getting Motivated), which will help you get going.

SUGGESTED READING

NUTRITION

The books below give you a sample of some of the major approaches to nutrition. Airola stresses less animal protein and more seeds, nuts, grains, vegetables, and fruits. He also recommends periodic juice fasting. Ballentine provides an excellent survey of nutrition and also combines Western science and Eastern yoga. In addition to sections on the ecology, biochemistry, physiology and pharmacology of nutrition, there is also a section on food and consciousness. Ballentine suggests a balanced diet could include drawing from the following five food groups, in approximate decreasing order of amount: grains, vegetables, legumes, raw food, food with vitamin Bl2. The Kirschmann book covers basic nutrition, nutrients helpful for various ailments, and the nutrients in various foods. Lappe discusses the need and way to get protein without meat.

EXERCISE

The Cooper book is one of several aerobic books by Cooper and his associates. These are the best aerobic books. Hittleman’s book is one of several good introductions to yoga body exercises. The Solomon and Harrison book is one of several good general exercise books.