Happy & Healthy

Zen in two minutes

Do you know that feeling? That the stress is almost bursting out of your ears, your head has turned into a pen with flapping chickens and you are sure that you could start screaming at any moment? Or crying? Or a combination of both?

Unfortunately, I am an expert by experience. I have the stress resistance of a chihuahua and I want quite a lot. And if I want something, I want it immediately. A combination that often turns out to be quite unfortunate.

A few years ago, I was seriously overstressed. I had written six books and two television series in six years, raised two children as a single mother, and I participated in ‘Who is the Mole?’. That last one was really the straw that broke the camel's back. I came home after three sleepless nights in Iceland (I was the first to get up, on top of that) and I just lost it. Instead of enjoying the two and a half weeks I had left off, I couldn't find my calm anymore. I consistently woke up at three in the morning, sitting up and thinking: ‘I need to do something!‘. (Sometimes I also thought: ’Who is the mole?‘ and those were the worst nights.) After that, I couldn't fall asleep anymore, which made me dead tired the next evening. And then I still couldn't sleep. And burst into tears and shouted things like: ’I'm so tired and I can't sleep and I'm so tiredhohoho.‘

Other problems I had varied from forgetting everything, really everything, not being present, dreading everything, and having obsessive thoughts (‘I must I must I must!’). Fortunately, summer was approaching and I could afford to pull the plug for a few months. I spent most of my time in a round lounge bed in my garden (renamed ‘The Sanctuary’). I didn't do much more than stare into space. There were moments when I thought I would never want to work again. That I would always remain this zombie who could do little more than take a walk with the dogs and order takeout, only to collapse again exhausted. But one day it just came back. I was sitting in The Sanctuary and got an idea for a new book (that book became ‘Jetset’, but that's beside the point). And a few days later, I simply decided to start typing.

I do notice that I have never become my old self again and maybe that's a good thing. I can no longer push through endlessly, I feel much sooner if something is too much for me or not. As if my body refuses to let it get that far again. In the meantime, I have also started meditating, my work pace is much lower, and I am much more aware of whether an activity costs me energy or gives me energy.

I learned a very good trick from Suzan van de Roemer from Mindful Matters, you can find her at www.mindful-matter.nl (don't forget that hyphen, okay). It's an exercise that takes at most two minutes, but with which you can significantly lower your stress level. So if it all becomes a bit too much for you, without taking a break, go sit on the toilet if necessary and do this exercise:

Do you know those snow globes? You know, those things made of transparent plastic that you have to shake really hard to then see how the snow flutters down around, let's say, a Dutch windmill or the Eiffel Tower?

Close your eyes for a moment. Breathe deeply in through your nose and breathe out again through your nose. And now imagine that you are in that snow globe. Visualize how the snowflakes flutter down around you, until they all land on the floor and everything is perfectly peaceful. Stay like this for a moment, in that beautiful silence and breathe in and out deeply a few more times.

Bet you can tackle it again afterwards?

Written by Marion Pauw