Change your state to change your experience

In the last couple posts we explored how the stories you tell and where you direct your focus can change your experience. The last experience-shifting idea I want to talk about is “state,” which is actually a combination of mental state, emotional state, and physical state.

Emotional state: This includes positive states like happiness, calm, or joy, and negative states like anger, stress, or fear.

Mental state: This could also be called cognitive state.  On one side are qualities like clarity, focus, ability to think through things, and being engrossed. On the other are qualities like feeling scattered, unfocused, distracted, and confused.

Physical state: On a moment to moment time scale, this is about experiencing high or low energy. In a longer time scale, it also includes good health versus illness.

Each of these can influence the others. For example:

• When you’re stressed or feeling anxious, the part of your brain responsible for critical thinking is less engaged.
• If the stress or anxiety is chronic, they can affect your energy levels and even your health.
• If your energy is low, say because you are sleep deprived or your diet is high on junk and low on nutritious food, it can affect both your emotional state (ever been hangry?) and your ability to think clearly.

In the context of the broader series of posts here on how to change your experience, each of these has a profound impact on how you experience your day-to-day life.

State change

Your state is fluid and ever-changing. Sometimes you’ll be firing on all cylinders, other times you’ll be sputtering and backfiring your way down the road. Whatever your state, there are countless possible points of intervention for shifting it in a positive direction.

To give you a taste for how varied and wide-ranging the ways you can take state-changing action are, here is a tiny sampler platter of examples.

 60-second breath break: For sixty seconds, or for a count of six deep, slow breaths, focus on your breathing. This counters the stress response, naturally shifting your nervous system into chill mode (no, not the technical term). It also brings you back into the present moment.

Music: Put on some energizing music. Even better, put on some energizing music and take a dance break.

Help someone: The simple act of doing something good for someone else can have an energizing effect. There is even a name for the feeling you get when you help – the helper’s high.

Take a shake break: Stand up and shake your arms. Let that progress to a full-body shaking. Keep at it for 30 seconds to a minute. (It always amazes what a difference this makes.)

Laugh: Gut busting belly laughing can be a great energizer. It doesn’t even need to be real. Just laughing, even if there’s nothing funny, can both energize you and improve your mood.

Guided meditation:There is a wealth of guided meditations of various lengths available that you can use to feel more grounded and relaxed. Do an online search for “guided meditation” and take your pick.

Reach out for emotional support: When things go sideways, when you feel frustrated, or angry, or scared, or worried, sometimes all you need is somebody to be there for emotional support.

Multiple time scales

The examples above are immediate interventions, but you can also think about state-changing activity in the medium and long term.

Let’s say you have crashed emotionally, mentally, and physically because you have eaten nothing but junk for the last week.

An immediate intervention would be to eat a healthy snack to at least give your body something to work with. A medium-term intervention would be to go home and eat a healthy dinner and a healthy breakfast. A long-term intervention (more of a foundation, really) would be working to create healthier eating habits over time.

Try this: Two of the immediate interventions I find people respond to most when I introduce them in workshops are the sixty-second breath break and the shake break. Pick one of those and do it at various points throughout the day for the next week. See how it feels. Check in with yourself on any difference you notice.

If you like it, add it to your toolkit. Pull it out regularly to help you keep moving your experience in a positive direction.