#12 - Mindbites - Our Strategies To Cope With Change & Stressful Situations

Welcome back to Mind Bites. I'm Tom, I'm Joe and this is Inside a Mind. This is our high value short form episodes where Joe and I will pack as much information for you guys to take back into your day to day lives. And the topic we're discussing today is a really important one, and Joe and I have discussed this loads off camera and we can't wait to share it with you. And it's coping with change and the strategies you can use for adapting with change. And I think it's such an important thing because you can have change in a positive way and change in a negative way. And I just want to start this off, joe. What does change mean to you? And like, how have you, what have you experienced in your day to day life like different contexts, your personal change, professional change.

Yeah, so for me, I remember back to our sort of first pod we did together where you sort of interviewed me way back when and, and for me the one of the biggest catalysts for my anxiety growing up was change or any any form of change would be good or bad.

I, like you, are so reliant on, on my routine and whenever that routine is upset, either the better or for the worse, that really threw threw me.

So I really battled to sort of struggle.

I struggled to sort of with any form of change in my life and I was so happy to keep within a structure and a format that I was sort of settled with. And it was to my detriment because I didn't really allow myself to grow in many ways until I sort of dropped what was really holding me back and once I allowed for change to happen more than I maybe did at the start, when I was sort of in my early teens, all the way up into my mid-20s I was holding myself back a lot on what I was capable of doing because I was so scared for change, um, on all levels of my life, whether it be personal or all the way through to work, and I know that you're big on um your routine as well yeah, massively on routine, because I think that doesn't come naturally to me and you sort of wanting to tell you quite like, not necessarily doing the same thing over and over every day, but having that structure in place where you can go and, like, push things around and succeed around.

It is so important to both of us. Yeah, change is a funny one, just on, just on my side. I love you touched on earlier in life but, but going through we haven't discussed this much, but going through from school to university was a massive change for me and going from a highly structured environment to somewhere where you can literally do whatever you want. I had I was very lucky that I had rugby, uh, where you'd have to be up very early, and that gave me a bit of structure. But that really ruined my sort of like outlook on life, if you can say that first year at uni, because I didn't know what to do, I was just incredibly like.

I was like, well, I don't have to go to this lecture, I don't have to do this and please, please, if you listen to this, go to the lectures, because it's a very silly mistake of mine, but that's what it's just. Having that change was massively negative. But I also think having that change, although it was negative, has turned into a massive positive further down the line looking back at it. So I think it's a very funny thing. But that would be my one from from earlier, probably about three, four years ago now just adding on to that.

I think it's about sort of accountability for all the young people when you go from a school environment where the information is sort of spoon-fed to you and what it was for me as well and that lack of accountability where you have to get up at six in the morning to go to rugby training or you have to get up at whatever time it is um for lectures, particularly when the the culture around alcohol is so big at university, and that sort of the effort to get up in the morning for an eight o'clock lecture when it's, however far away uh, either off or on campus you just wouldn't go and that sets a precedence and that mindset then is quite hard to get out of in that cycle. So, like you say, it's really hard when that routine is upset. And also, you were at university around that COVID period or yeah or it was.

That was my first year.

I think that's why most, some, most people universities and colleges and school in general just struggled so much, because it was change for everyone, no matter who you were or where you came from. Globally, there was so much change in every single person's every day-to-day life so there was no one person who wasn't affected by it why do you think I'll move on from the covid point?

but what, coming back to covid, of like the mental health side of covid? Why do you think change affects our mental health so much, even if it is a positive change?

because even that causes high levels of stress again, coming back to what you said a second ago, I think it's just we are such creatures of habit and routine that when that routine is upset, we naturally assume that something bad will happen as a result of it. Therefore, we, we panic, and we go into this sort of flight or flight situation where, uh, it's panic stations and all hell's going to break loose unless we can stick within these parameters, what we're comfortable with with, sorry. So we have these, um things, we want to stick within these boundaries, and whenever something goes slightly outside of that, we, we just completely freak out, particularly in sort of western society where a lot of the information and stuff is just handed to us. So when something comes along and it's foreign, we're not used to it. Therefore, we out, particularly in sort of western society where a lot of the information and stuff is just handed to us. So when something comes along and it's foreign, we're not used to it. Therefore, we just panic and freak out.

So, um, I think it's probably down to that do you think you need to build resilience for your stress levels?

yeah, I feel like you need to go.

I feel like you need to go through a lot of stressful situations to be less stressed, if that makes sense yeah, 100, and I feel like we.

That's why I think, um, we're sort of being labeled as a bit of a snowflake uh generation, because you've not really been through a lot.

We get handed a lot of this stuff and then sort of guided through life by our peers and our parents and whenever something bad comes along, we're a bit like, well, what do we do now?

We're not used to this and sort of put out into the big bad world and told to get on with it. So we are sort of at the demise of our parents and our grandparents for not giving us the or not facilitating a generation where we're able to deal with stress better. But you're right, we do need to go through things in order to come out the other side and have that suit of armor to cope with it better on, later on in life. And you and I are sort of like because, without being too cringe, living proof of that where you've gone through a situation in your life, whether it be a young teenager or mid-teenager or mid-20s or even later on is taking ownership of that and then either seeking help, like you and I have done, and then it gives you the tools and the sort of thicker skin to be able to cope with it later on. So yeah, resilience is is huge for coping with stress one million percent do you think more people have sorry?

do you think different people have thicker skin than other people as well? Yeah, one million percent that's a nurture thing or a nature thing I think it's a population, both.

I think it's due to your upbringing and just your, your, your genetic, like your genetics. So I think it's how you're raised and you as a person. For me, some of my family members cope with certain situations better than I do and equally, if you put me in an environment, I would cope better than them. So I feel like it's just certain situations, pegs, square pegs around holes. Sometimes I feel like in certain environments I'm going to really struggle, like public speaking, I'm going to be naff, whereas put me in front of a camera talking to you, I can talk about it far easier. So it's just where some people might be the opposite. Yeah, it's nature and nurture. I feel like it's a combination of both.

Do you think because I read a stat and it said 60 to 90% of doctor visits are stress related, which I think is crazy Do you think that having the right coping mechanisms for dealing with stress, so obviously we can talk about some now, is like crucial, or do you think it's kind of like not a one-size-fits-all but people need to find their own coping mechanisms? Obviously we'll suggest some from our point of view in a second, but what do you reckon there?

yeah, I feel like there are certain things that everyone should do, like moving. I mean, I expect we spoke about movement a lot this week and mental health awareness week movement is the sort of the, the theme of, of the sort of the theme of the year, so to speak. So I feel like it's that and, aside from the obvious bit, with the moving and the walking and the, you know, exercising, in general, it's the moving, the part of the brain that's stopping you from doing it prior to that. So, um, moving is the obvious one and, even speaking to people like jamie clements, is the the breath work side of things and the breathing and how important that can be in stress. Those things are the really obvious ones that I'd say that everyone should or could do.

Um, and secondly, I feel like there are other methods that might work better for you, that don't work best for me, like playing the cello, for example, playing the piano, that for me might just be absolutely nothing, that for you might work really well. Do you know what I mean? So, like there are some yeah, exactly, um and other people going out for a run. I hate running. Some people like going for a run that de-stresses them. Mark, uh, rackley loves a run. He can go for a run that really stress, de-stresses him. That me, that for me wouldn't work. Um, for me it's going to the gym and everyone's different for me it's an ice bar thing.

I find a lot of peace in that on how I feel afterwards. But I also think that I talked about this on the last uh mind bite we did. But I think the biggest thing for me again if you missed that one, I'll say it now is if I am stressed, I will sit down and I have a calendar on motion, uh, which is just like a bog-standing calendar, and I will highlight the things in like an orange color that make me stressed and I will go through them and deal with them like one by one. I'm not sure what. I'm sure other people think this as well.

It can't just be me, but if I'm stressed about something and I let it sit the next day, I'll be like three, four times as stressed. The day after I'll be four, five times as stressed again and it builds up. If I just nip it in the bud really quickly, I find that super effective. Uh, just sitting down and like I find it so draining. Having to be like this is stressing me out. I need to do this, I need to get rid of it as soon as it's done. It's almost just like it's been whooshed away from me and I think that's a massive thing, especially for me and, I'm sure, a lot of people listening to this One million percent.

I think people that are listening to this and friends of mine have had this conversation beforehand, where they would come to me and it comes up in conversation and they say something like oh, I just feel so stressed but I don't know why, and as a person, as a friend, you don't quite know what the right thing to say is. However, I've learned to sort of say see someone, speak to someone and find out what your triggers are. Find out what it is you think that's in day-to-day life that's triggering you. It could be, it could be a member of your family that's saying the wrong thing, it could be your boss, it could be, I don't know, your commute to work, and I feel like finding these sort of these, these really key triggers, that could be helping that and that could be a real um sort of cue to helping yourself but also finding a way around it and you're coping with those stresses better and also, when you feel those stresses coming on, you'll know better how to deal with it next time.

Awesome, mate. Well, we hope you guys found this valuable. This has been our Mind Byte episode on coping with change and our strategies, from our subjective point of view, on dealing with change. Change can be stressful, positive or negative, but in the long run and you have hindsight doing these stressful things make you such a stronger person and make you so much more resilient to be able to deal with stress and change down the line as well. If you guys did enjoy this, leave a comment below. I'd love to hear everyone else's strategies on how they cope with change as well. We find it so interesting talking to you guys on youtube and stuff, so thank you so much for that, and if you want to follow us on instagram or any social media, it's at inside of mind pod. Thank you so much for listening. I'm tom, I'm joe and this is inside of my mind bites. Take care, guys.