How to stay calm during a crisis
In today’s episode, I’m going to tell you the things that I do to stay calm during a crisis. We’ve all been living through this pandemic for the past couple of years. And as we thought we were getting out of the current crisis, we got hit with another one. Russia invaded Ukraine, which is now causing not only a global panic, but a war. And there are a lot of political things going on. But I’m not going to get into that. I’m not going to talk about NATO. I’m not going to be talking about what’s happening with the embargoes, taxes going up globally, or citizens being evacuated or having to leave their homes to go to safer places, and so many other factors involved. Let’s talk about the positive things you can do.
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Here is the transcription — please excuse any typos!
This is where the first step comes in. This is at least what I’ve been doing, and although the crisis is insane and you know, this war isn’t the same. We can attach this to any crisis. It could be a small one, it could be a big one. I’m not exactly sure what you’re dealing with right now. But the first thing you have to do is don’t panic. As simple as that. Sounds, is to stay as calm as you possibly can. The way that I do this is so I take in the information that I’m getting, in this case, the Ukraine, Russia war. I take a deep breath and do my yoga in the morning and meditate in the evenings. And I realize that by getting excited or panicking or getting worried, it’s not going to help the situation.
So as difficult as it might sound, whether the crisis is personal, global, or local, whatever you’re dealing with, you have to stay calm. And if you don’t, it’s going to cause stress, which is the second thing you want to do is avoid it. You want to avoid stress. And the easiest way to avoid stress is simple. Stay positive. You know, there’s a lot of negativity in the world nowadays, especially when you’re dealing with a specific crisis. There’s going to be a lot of negative information coming toward you that you have to process. And what you can do is either avoid taking in that negative information, which is hard to do with social media and news outlets just completely bombarding us with information all day long. But you can just focus on the positives in your life. You know, what are the good things that are happening in your day, in your business, in your family, maybe your dog or your cat? Maybe you’re learning a new instrument or a new language or a new skill. Focus on that positive, the more you focus on the positive, the less stress you will have, which means that negative information is impacting you less than less. Now the third thing that I do and if you’ve listened to my podcast or watched my videos before, you know I’m a huge health nut. And this means that I eat super healthy, I exercise regularly and I go for lots of walks, not counting yoga and meditation, you know, all that kind of stuff.
Now, this is difficult for people I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately who are unhealthy or they don’t know how to eat healthy, and they don’t exercise as much as they want to. And I’m sorry to tell you this, but it’s crucial. It is crucial for you to eat healthy, exercise often. And keep your body and your mind as healthy as possible to get through a crisis. Because think about it. If you’re eating cheese steaks and pizza and french fries and milkshakes and burgers all day and you’re not exercising, your body is going to be comatose. You know, you’re going to be in this state of craving more junk food, your body’s not getting any vitamins or nutrition. So you’re putting yourself in a negative state. You’re putting your body in that negative state and as we all know when you exercise your body and your brain releases chemicals like endorphins, serotonin, dopamine. These are crucial to give you a healthy mindset and help your body feel good too.
So when you’re in the middle of a crisis, the best thing you can do is go for a long 30 minute walk while you’re listening to my podcast or amuse yourself by listening to music, your favorite music, something that’s going to uplift you and make you feel better. Take deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Take long deep breaths while you’re going for a walk or if you’re home and you’re exercising using resistance bands or a rowing machine or treadmill or an exercise bike anything at all. Do that every single day for like 30 minutes. And if you’re not exercising, go for a walk. If you’re not going for a walk, use the machine you have either way. This is a way to keep a healthy mindset is to keep your body in a healthy state through food and exercise. Okay, so the next thing is not going to be easy for everybody because not everybody has a close knit group of friends or family but this is important. Okay.
You need to have a coping strategy among a community or a group of people, whether it’s your friends, your family, an online group, maybe maybe you’re in a Facebook group or you’re on Reddit or discord or Twitter anywhere, and you can talk to people about what you’re dealing with or what they’re dealing with. Matter of fact, the first thing I noticed when this Ukrainian Russian war started as I started getting messages from family and friends from around the world, telling me what’s happening, and I’m there to kind of support them and talk to them and, you know, tell them what they can maybe do or I’m so sorry to hear that you know, anything I can do to help be there for people support them, and they’ll support you in return. And this is important. You need to find the right group of people that you can talk to to get you through the crisis to calm you down, keep you positive, right. And it goes without saying I don’t even want to make this a point because this is not a point but it should be common sense. Don’t believe everything you read online. I want you to do research. That’s important. Don’t just grab an article you see and start sharing it with your friends and family. Say this is what’s happening right now. I want you to dig deeper. I want you to really read every single news outlet about that topic. Look for different articles from reputable news sources, not third party sources, they have to be reputable. And really do your research and not only do your research but understand what the crisis is all about. Because there are some underlying details you may be glossing over when you’re reading headlines.
You know if it says your Russia invades Ukraine, well find out why. You know, just in some simple research I was doing, I realized that this was like a 30 year long thing after the Cold War and NATO has kind of not really done its job and Russia has been kind of planning this invasion for a long time and there are sanctions being put in place and again, I don’t want to get political or anything like that, because it’s not kind of I’m just not like that. But I do like to understand what’s happening. And I do like to be informed and that allows me to process the information in a factual way. I can then move on from the negativity, focus on the positive and move on with my dad. He kind of lets me get rid of the stress as quickly as possible. So I advise you to do the same thing. And the last thing I do, and I’ve been doing this pretty much my whole life as an entrepreneur for two decades, is I disconnect. Those of you who know me personally know that I don’t really answer texts or phone calls after 6pm. This might sound really strict, and it is and I do make exceptions. But for the most part after 6pm My phone is on silent and it’s upside down. I’m not looking at it. Shut off my Apple watch. So that’s not buzzing buzzing along and I focus on things that I want to do to detach meditation, taking a walk with my dog, having a healthy meal, watching Netflix or a movie or show, maybe creative writing, practicing my piano, watering my plants, and so on and so forth. I’m doing everything in my power to stay off of social media. Stop reading news, and stop listening to people you know, dramatic texts or listening to dramatic phone calls. 6pm is my cut off. A couple of hours I can relax, detach, go to sleep, wake up refreshed. Rinse and repeat. So hopefully these tips will help you stay calm during this crisis that we’re facing both the pandemic and now an invasion, potentially a war. We’ll see what happens. Remember, stay positive, stay calm, don’t get stressed out, eat healthy exercise. And I’d love to hear what other things you’re doing to stay calm during the crisis in the comments. So please leave them and I will check them out. And as always, I’ll see you in next week’s episode.
