What's your go to thing to help reduce stress of stuff you have no control over

Hugo Morvan wrote:Very good tips.

But what if it's night  and  it attacks you and you need your sleep to keep a job. Things tend to look even darker at night.

There's a native American scripture that says, "If thy mind runneth forward to days not yet born, bring it back by naming three mercies that already are." This has helped me repeatedly.

The most effective for me if I can't get my hands in the mud to build alternative structures is to do some daily tapping. https://www.thetappingsolution.com/tapping-101/

My wife and I have a daily practice which we normally do right after breakfast: "positivity and serenity."

Every day we take time to list all the things we are happy about that come to mind. After the ideas stop coming we next list reasons that things in our lives "are globally going well." Not to say that everything is perfect, just to get us to keep perspective on things globally and not get lost in one negative event.

If there is a certain thing that we have very unsatisfied emotional needs about, we do a process we created that we call "pacification". It can be done alone, in a couple, or with more than 2 people. It is a little longer to explain that what I think most are ready to read here, but we basically start by expressing understanding for what we feel, followed by compassion and benevolence for the person with unsatisfied needs, then we express esteem for the person being pacified, and finally if we are in a loving relationship with them (or ourselves) we express our love for them. When done as our process describes, with sufficient psychological knowledge and connection to our own needs and feelings, it systematically creates a feeling of being pacified, no matter the subject.

Another technique that we use we call "find the positive side of what displeases us." Basically we dig, and sometimes very, very deep, to find the positive side of things often out of our control, but not necessarily, which deeply displease us. The psychological mechanism is that perception drives the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of needs, and the needs create our emotions. Positive emotions are felt for satisfied needs, negative emotions for unsatisfied needs. When we change our perspective, it changes the chain reaction of perception->needs->emotions and with a positive perspective brings us back to a positive mindset. For example, one day in my "past life" as an IT engineer, a sales engineer from a network equipment provider came to show me their product which we were interested in buying. I had a busy schedule every day, but I set aside about an hour for this meeting. He arrived and started setting up his computer for the product presentation, but he was struggling with problem after problem. After about 20 minutes he was still not ready to present their product and I started feeling restless and less patient. Thoughts about "wasting my time" started coming to mind. Then, I used this technique to find the positive side of the situation. I found that a part of me appreciated the break from my other work, it was an unanticipated pause in my workday. In fact, it was a welcome pause. In fact, I'm glad to have this down time after all. That switched my perspective, and I now felt calm, happy, content, thankful, benevolent and compassionate for the struggling sales engineer.

Anytime my wife or I have something really bothering us (geopolitics, climate, societal problems, whatever) we use this technique, and it contributes greatly to our overall stable, happy and motivated mindset.

We also very selectively keep ourselves informed about world events that actually matter to us. We keep in mind that the mass media makes the most money by captivating their audience, having a large captive audience, which raises the price they charge for advertising slots, which makes them more money. They use our brain's innate "negative bias" we have evolved to have, where the brain pays the most attention to what seems threatening or dangerous. This helps us survive better, but when we are bombarded with dramatic sensationalist negative news we have pretty much no control over, it sure doesn't make us happy. This evolutionary trait (the negative bias) is helpful when we have the power to act to stop the threat or danger. But when we have no power over it, it can just create psychological distress which goes beyond the helpful threshold. Distress motivates action, and as long as our action can mitigate the situation, that is useful. But distress with no way to change the situation doesn't have this useful effect. My wife and I try every day to "be the change we wish to see in the world", very literally and in every detail. We use our above psychological techniques to keep us happy, emotionally stable and motivated which is the solid foundation which underlies our life-long project: La Forêt Jardinée.

Mindful meditation...truly a Superpower. I do this every morning for 15-30 minutes and since I've started over two years ago my anxiety has almost disappeared and my ability to deal with it has been amazing. This is just one of it's many benefits I have personally experienced.

Ellie Mag wrote:Digging a hole is an awesome way to deal with stress :)
I like to clean something, especially something that isn't a constant chore- for example taking everything out of a cupboard, vacuuming and reorganizing the contents. That way the next few times you open the cupboard you get a small bit of peace.
Hanging up laundry is another good one, if you focus on lining up the seams and hanging each piece up neatly.

I also find hanging up laundry to be a therapeutic task. All day long I am doing stressful brain work sitting at a desk with no physical activity and limited sensory input, and not a lot of accomplishments day to day. It’s a relief to be bending, stretching, moving about and feeling all the different fabrics, and getting something done.

Sam, I think we might be brothers who were separated at birth...There is something about digging in dirt that just chills-out my grumpy ole self...Turning compost works too! I think it's just being out in the sunshine and fresh air that releases all those feel good endorphins...

I have her.

Works every time.

The potency never degrades.

It's not a big solution to big problems, but dancing and shadow boxing to this REM song might just just rekindle some fire in your belly. (Note the shovels in the ground!)

Stand!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKKqLl_ZEEY

T...o calm yourself

R...epetitive physical

A...ction - walk, dig, knit

N...o Mind

C...entering in the now-moment

E...nchantment embodied.

Kathleen, In a "Good News" email that I get each day, there was an article about a scientifically designed song that quiets fussy children.  One of the comments below the post stated that it also worked with Alzheimer's patients.  Here is the link; I hope it helps:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PhtxqKLvVc

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:World events are very troubling, but honestly, my biggest stress is in my own home - my handicapped youngest daughter (adult), who also has serious medical issues and is autistic and - when she's unhappy or not feeling good - screams, cries, and generally fusses like a toddler. Sometimes 24/7 for weeks (we are just starting to come out of one of those cycles, though she's still not completely out of it). Add to that, I'm not getting any younger (I'll be seventy next year), and have a bad back that has me just about crippled.

Great post and replies, all of them! Wow!
Right now I am reading Bill Bryson's book 1927. Not only is it incredibly funny, but, wow, the things that were going on were so outrageous and unbelievable that it gives me some perspective on life, politicians, human rights, quality of life. I'm sure the library police are coming for me as I've re-checked it out so many times. Time to buy a copy!

Also, I love to watch the documentary Queen of the Sun. In the first minute of the film, there is a beautiful quote  that speaks to my heart ,  we can survive to become something else.

"Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt- marvelous error!
-that I had a beehive here inside my heart,
and the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey  
from my old failures"
-Antonio Machiado

Both of these things remind me- We've come a long way, baby.