Inner Game of Stress Offers Tips for Calm Thinking

This book can help you tap your inner strength.

At a book party for the The Inner Game of Stress (Random House. 2009) by W. Timothy Gallwey with Edd Hanzelik, M.D., and John Horton, M.D., we were inspired by the subtitle “outsmart life’s challenges and fulfill your potential.” We posed a scenario to Horton: What if we’ve been health-conscious our whole lives and then as we pass 40 stressful health issues start cropping up? For example, our blood work comes back with borderline-high cholesterol, causing visions of Lipitor prescriptions to dance in our heads?

“You have inner resources beyond what you realize,” Horton told us. “You need to learn to tap into your best inner resources, your more evolved self, in order to handle issues of aging and just about anything else.” Horton says a lot of stress starts and flourishes with negative self-talk. The key is to counter it with an enlightened mindset — something that we’re all capable of cultivating. For example, doomsday thoughts of, “I’m going to be taking Lipitor the rest of my life!” can be rationally reframed as, “Borderline high does not mean high. I was simply advised to exercise more and cut back on fatty foods. I’m going to be okay.”

Horton’s quick self-talk tip truly helped us go from anxious to calm, and his book features additional stress-busting tactics, such as holding off on making important decisions (a pause offers a sense of control, allowing us to gather and weigh our options) and focusing on what other people think, feel and want in order to develop empathy and kindness, which are far less stressful than anger, fear and resentment.

At the party, many of the doctors’ patients praised the tools they’ve given them over the years. Attorney and publicist Geneva Wasserman recounted a trip to a movie theater when her 4-year-old son caught his fingers in the jamb of a heavy metal door. “Before learning about some of these techniques, my inclination would be to completely freak out,” Wasserman says. “But instead I actually did what these guys say. I used self-talk. I told myself, ‘Calm down, I’m going to walk myself through this.’ ” Wasserman says she paused for a few seconds, which gave her time to gather her thoughts and act quickly. She got help and freed her son’s hand (thankfully, the injury was minimal) — all without tears, panic or screaming on her part. Since she was calm, so was her son. “I’m pretty high-strung, so this was a major victory for me,” she says.

For more stay-calm secrets, check out “Are You Headed for the Holiday Blues?” in VIVmag‘s November/December issue. And tell us: How do you silence your negative brain chatter?

Tags: Attorney, Borderline personality disorder, borderline-high cholesterol, Dr. Seuss, Edd Hanzelik, Films, heavy metal door, Horton, Horton Hears a Who!, injury, John Horton, Lipitor, W. Timothy Gallwey