It’s so easy to get caught up in news and developments globally and predictions fraught with uncertainty. Indeed it’s worrisome!
There seems to be an unspoken demand in all of it asking each of us individually to solve the world’s problems. That silent shackle puts us on high alert. But there’s one simple and powerful way to untether from it all and regain clarity on what we really can and should be doing individually. That is to calm your nervous system!
What that means is to take a step outside of feeling like you have to do something and to do absolutely nothing!
Yes, doing nothing is of great value. It is the best way to calm your nervous system. It takes you off of high alert and allows you a few moments where you are not trying to solve the world’s problems. You wrap yourself in a space where you take a time out. You stop trying to solve your own personal challenges. It’s giving yourself permission to completely let down.
It can be thought of as something akin to putting yourself in a cocoon that allows you to draw silence into your soul and recharge. It’s not about knowing the purpose of what you will do with a regenerated, revived and refreshed you. It’s just a personal reset that can only come from doing nothing.
To calm your nervous system you only have to do one thing: stop.
That can happen by laying on the couch with the cell phone on silent for 10-minutes. Close your eyes and feel peace. Sit on a park bench and breathe a little slower. Feel every single part of your body relax. Calm your nervous system by standing still for even a few moments somewhere in nature in a place where you just feel good being in it. Watch a tree sway in the wind. Soak in a sunset. Daydream by a creek.
My simple go-to is to just lay in bed before I go to sleep at night and stop.
I stop thinking. As best as I can I put worrying about anything on hold. I imagine going into that personal cocoon of silence and relaxing every part of my body. My body sinks into the sheets. I feel my whole “on alert” shut down and shut off. Zero energy is being put out. It’s all coming in.
No problem is solved. No worldly situation is changed. I feel myself truly getting ready for a new beginning, a new resolve that can only come by calming my nervous system!
Now it’s your turn to try it!
This Shed Talk explores how to calm your nervous system and why it’s so important!
Join us at Mark Allen Coaching for calm but serous training!
I am the Founder and CEO at Mark Allen Coaching. I am proud to have been voted in an ESPN global poll "The Greatest Endurance Athlete Of All Time." During my multi-sport career I won the Ironman Triathlon World Championship six time, the inaugural Triathlon World Championship at the Olympic Distance in Avignon, France, and at one point in my career I won 21 straight races across every derivation and distance. It was a great career, but that's all it would ever be unless I was able to share all of the experience and methodology we invented long before smart watches, power meters, and flashy uniforms. That's why I started Mark Allen Coaching, as a way to return to others at least the part of the gifts I received.
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