Overcome Emotional Stress

Quick Win

Doing this simple 4-step meditation regularly can help you become more resilient in the face of life’s challenges.

Try This Today

• Recognize what is going on. Take a moment to recognize that a strong emotion is present. Is it sadness, fear, disappointment, excitement? Gently turn toward what you’re experiencing in a nonjudgmental way. Rather than being at war with yourself, acknowledge your feelings.
• Allow the experience to be just as it is. Typically, when we experience difficult emotions, we react either by incessant self-judgment or by numbing ourselves. But allowing the experience lets us soften into it and relax our resistance, without needing to condemn it or make it go away.
• Investigate with kindness. You’ve just created a space inside yourself that’s able to witness your emotion without being flooded by it. Experience your inner world with curiosity. Can you listen to your feelings and sensations? Which ones most want attention? Offer yourself kindness and gestures of compassion, such as putting your hand over your heart or addressing yourself with a caring tone of voice.
• Non-identification. Understand that your sense of self is not defined by your thoughts and emotions. Let the voices undermining your self-belief with messages of “not good enough” or “basically flawed” begin to fade. This brings about a natural sense of ease, a way to be at peace even in the middle of tumultuous times.

Why

The RAIN technique, created by mindfulness teacher Michele McDonald, helps you connect with — and eventually let go of — emotional distractions that can interfere with your focus. According to AARP’s Global Council on Brain Health report “Brain Health and Mental Well-Being,” a key component of mental well-being is environmental mastery: the capacity to cope, adjust and adapt to problems and not feel overwhelmed by stress. Excessive negative thoughts and ruminating on the same emotional wounds again and again interfere with our well-being. It’s stressful to be at the mercy of our emotions, and it may take a toll on our mental acuity too. An AARP survey that accompanied the report found that “adults age 50 or older who frequently managed stress effectively were more likely to rate their cognitive functions as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good.’ ” The ability to cope with stressors mindfully has also been shown to increase life satisfaction, in part because people feel better able to deal with life’s issues.