Don't Get Stressed, Reframe It

April 2020

Tenterden Osteopath Blog - Don’t Get Stressed: Reframe It
Don’t Get Stressed: Reframe It

This is the start of week 2 on lockdown. It would be easy to get despondent, its all a bit challenging suddenly being confined to barracks for an indefinite period. We are not used to having so much thinking time and it is easy to focus on the news and the future, and you begin to feel anxious and maybe angry or sad.

BE CAREFUL. Your feelings and emotions directly affect your body chemistry, stressful thoughts switch on biological processes. Levels of cortisol and adrenalin increase as the body goes into a state of arousal (think fight or flight). If this state is prolonged it becomes exhausting.

TAKE CONTROL. You probably can’t control what is happening in the outside world but there is a technique from NLP that can make a big difference to how you feel about outside events. It is called REFRAMING.

REFRAMING is a powerful technique. It has an instant effect on your inner dialogue and your internal map of the world.

Here is an example: several summers ago, a neighbour’s daughter had a security system fitted on her car (by her boyfriend). It was an American alarm that shouted, “alarm on, stay away from the car!”, when locked, and “alarm deactivated” when it was turned off. **

This young woman went back and forward to her car about 20 times a day, and she always locked and unlocked it, meaning that the strident American tones cut through the usual quiet of our neighbourhood. The thing that saved me from mental breakdown was a simple reframe: each time I heard that American shout, I said to myself “that’s one less time I have to hear that alarm”. Ten years or so later when I think back to that time I just smile because in my memory it has become an amusing story and not at all stressful.

Coming back to the COVID-19 lockdown. I have found a way to reframe the experience. At the beginning of each day this is what I tell myself:

“enjoy today because tomorrow will be worse!”

Perhaps you can come up with something better.

Bill Ferguson 

Keywords COVID, NLP, Reframing, Mental health

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Bill Ferguson
Tenterden Osteopath and Acupuncturist
Tel: 01580 762754
Email: mail@billferguson.co.uk
Web: www.billferguson.co.uk

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About Me

My name is Bill Ferguson and I am an Osteopath and Acupuncturist.

I run a private practice in Tenterden, Kent.

Bill Ferguson Osteopath and Acupuncturist Tel: 01580 762754. See here for my practice website www.billferguson.co.uk