Learning to navigate

Truths about stress & how to handle it

presented by
Sukh Kalsi
One-third of this room will experience a stress-related mental
health problem

People with a mental health

problem caused by stress

The “lucky” people without a

mental health problem -
they might still be stressed!

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What do we mean by “stress”…

SLIDE 3
?
Stress is an experience you have - it is inside you

physical
tension & fatigue

Stress
mental emotional
scatter unrest
& fog

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Stress isn’t fun to experience and it hurts our immune system

“even one five-minute episode of

anger is so stressful that it can
impair your immune system for
more than six hours”
Source: Huffington Post, 6 April 2014

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Stress is caused by perceived threats around you…
It persists until you are away from the threat

Stress in the person Stressor in

1. Observe the stressor the environment
2. Understand the danger
3. Feel stress as thoughts,

"
!
as emotions & in body
4. Takes action until threat
has disappeared

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Retreating from stressors will reduce stress but not achieve
outcomes

Stress in Stressor in
the person the environment

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If you can reduce your stress response, you will ‘perform’ better in
life because you handle stressors more easily

100%
Remember this is how
we experience stress

physical
tension & fatigue

Stress

STRESS mental
scatter
& fog
emotional
unrest

0%
Ability to perform

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Flow is the opposite of stress

physically
energised

Flow
mental emotional
clarity ease

SLIDE 9
Changing your stress response creates space for flow to occur
naturally

100%

FLOW
/ 50
50

STRESS
0%
Ability to perform

Unable to perform Peak performance

Chronic stress Peak state
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How do we truly change stress?

physical physically
tension & fatigue energised

?
Stress Flow
mental emotional mental emotional
scatter unrest clarity ease
& fog

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Consciously altering your thoughts, emotions & physiology will
shift your state and change your experience of stress

different
physiology

physically
physical energised
tension & fatigue

Shift Flow
Stress
mental
scatter
emotional
unrest
State mental
clarity
emotional
ease

& fog different different

thoughts emotions

Avoidance &
 High Focus &

Disfunction Peak Performance
Change your
stress response
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 P
Box-breathing slows down your nervous system and
provides your body with more oxygen T E

Box-Breathing // Breathwork // Physiology

How to do it Why try it

1. Exhale for a count of 4
2. Hold breath for a count of 4
3. Inhale for a count of 4
4. Hold breath for a count of 4
• It will calm down and regulate your autonomic
nervous system, according to the Mayo Clinic. This
system regulates temperature and blood pressure.
• It will oxygenate your body
• It will ease anxiety
• It will ease Insomnia use it at night before bed
• It will help with pain management

5. Go to step 1

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Practicing Gratitude blocks out negative emotions and creates
a “lucky” mindset
Gratitude // Journal // Emotions
How to do it
1. Open up a journal or a new note on your phone
2. Ask yourself these questions & write down the first
things that enter your mind:
⁃ What are you grateful for?
⁃ Why are you grateful for this thing/person/experience?
⁃ What do you like about feeling this way?
3. Repeat step 2 until you have done it 3 times
4. Read out what you’ve written focusing on where you
have this feeling of gratitude
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P
T E
Why try it
• This exercise can rapidly change the way you feel
about anything / everything, especially when
practiced regularly because you cannot be both
grateful and angry at the same time
• The more that you practice feeling grateful the
more that your brain finds things to be grateful for
- it is trained through your conscious repetition
• It creates a sense of feeling “lucky” which is a great
mindset to have in combating stress, anxiety &
depression

Priority-setting creates clarity on what is important to you and
gets you taking actions - thinking without action is wasteful
Set a priority // Journalling // Thoughts
How to do it
1. Open up a journal or a new note on your phone
2. Answer this question: “What is important for you to do
today?” Keep writing until your mind is empty
3. Look at the list. Underline the most important ones.
4. Out of these few, pick one - it doesn’t matter which one
because these are all important and they will all be done.
But we will do them one at a time.
5. Now that you have a priority, spend 15-30minutes
working on it. If it’s a problem, you can focus on creating
solutions. If it’s a desire, you can work on creating it.
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P
T E
Why try it
• This technique is about taking action with clarity
instead of being overwhelmed by options and
avoiding action
• Writing down everything that you are trying to hold
in memory will clear your mind
• Limiting your decision-making to today and only to
the next priority will train decisiveness, as well as
direct focus towards action and finding solutions
• This exercise bridges your internal state with the
outside world which makes it easier to maintain
higher state for longer
Use ‘The Basic Flow’ at the start through to the end of your day and
you will condition yourself to have a less stressed state

Box
breathing
i

The Basic
Flow
iii ii
Set a
priority Gratitude

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To make ‘The Basic Flow’ a habit, sign up for my mini-course and
daily reminders for free…

Online stress reduction programme

Sign up at…
SukhKalsi.com/find-your-flow

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 Got questions?
email me at hi@sukhkalsi.com

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