If you’ve been living for some time in a stressed anxious state, or if you can always remember worrying about things since you were a child, it’s likely that you have absorbed a certain belief that your worry, anxiety and stress are normal and even necessary. When worry becomes a habit, and living under stress is the norm, people fall into the trap of believing that there’s no other option. If you didn’t worry about your family’s dramas you’d be selfish, if you didn’t take on your workload the company you work for would suffer, if you said no to social commitments you’d hurt and upset people. These are all misbeliefs.

Part of learning to be calm involves learning to reframe these entrenched beliefs that have been creating fear in your life. A major part of real calm is being yourself, and you cannot be yourself if you are beholden to others. You won’t be cold and clinical when you are calm, and neither will you be so laid back that you’re irresponsible and inefficient. Learning to lead a calm life also benefits others around you. Real calm is about looking after ourselves as individuals so that we can also look after others and be valuable to the world.

So let’s clarify what that means.

YOU DESCRIBE LIFE AS BALANCED

When you think of the epitome of a calm person, it’s very likely that the image that will come into your head is that of a Buddhist monk. But this isn’t helpful on an everyday basis is it? You’re entirely right: it’s not practical, viable or even desirable.

It’s a Buddhist monk’s job to be calm. In any religious order, monks and nuns devote their lives to contemplation, living away from modern life and leading a very simple existence. That’s their choice, not yours. It’s more than likely that your choice is to create the best life you can for yourself in the midst of modern life.

If your job is in any way demanding, competitive, exciting, pressurized, your priority will be to learn how to thrive under stress. To do this you’ll be looking to balance the demands of work with activities outside work that benefit your body 
and mind. And the key is the word balance. If one area of your life is more pressurized, another needs to be more 
restorative.

“We need to strive for a pragmatic balance in our 
lives, between go-go-go 
on one side and relaxing, re-energizing and renewing ourselves on the other. This means looking at our time 
and making decisions 
about it.”

Miriam Akhtar, positive psychologist

Balance, however, doesn’t just come from calculating what we do in different areas of our life. Balance also comes from cultivating a certain mental and meaningful approach to life. We might not be Tibetan monks, but a degree of contemplation about the meaning of our lives can enrich them and provide balance. Life doesn’t have to be a treadmill. What’s it all for, what’s it all about, what’s the point, what gives you satisfaction, what makes you happy, what gives you joy, who can you give joy to – these are far from self-indulgent questions, they are essential for a calm life.

YOU CHOOSE WHEN YOU WANT TO BE CALM

Yes, calm is a choice. If there’s only one thing we hope you take away from this book it’s that you can learn to feel calm when you want to be so – which isn’t always.

“Calmness is a positive attribute but not at the cost of our vitality. If you’re calm in a floppy, disengaged way where is your vitality?”

Charlie Walker-Wise, RADA in Business trainer

When you lead a calm life, essentially you know how to avoid dramas – internally and externally. Life is calm because there is an absence of unnecessary conflict, enabling you to handle the unavoidable problems that come up with disputes. If you’re embroiled in dysfunctional friendships and relationships which are stressful, or if you voluntarily take on far more than you can handle, then the reality is you’ll feel too drained to deal with a demanding job. Strip away what drains you and that job might be rewarding, satisfying and even exciting.

All of this is about fine tuning the various elements of your life and how your mind responds. Only you know this.

Make sure the decompression routine does not involve your smartphone or computer and that you are fully immersed in it – whether it’s singing along to your favourite song or watching the birds outside the window or savouring a cup of green tea.

YOU EMBRACE STRESS

Within limits you can harness stress into a positive energy because the same symptoms as excitement underlie stress. Just describing your anxiety as excitement will make you feel better. As Professor Robertson points out in his book,³ we don’t always read our emotions accurately. Many emotional states share similar symptoms: anxiety, sexual arousal, anger – and excitement – have similar symptoms. By recognizing and renaming your emotions you are their master rather than being controlled by them.

“We want to be calm because stress is unpleasant. But stress is also necessary for us to perform.”

Professor Ian Robertson, psychologist and neuroscientist

A study by Alison Brooks at the University of Pennsylvania, published by the American Psychological Association,⁴ confirmed that people who get excited and think about what can go well instead of focusing on what can go wrong perform better in situations provoking anxiety. The study reported on a number of experiments at Harvard University with students and local community members. The participants in one experiment who were told to repeat ‘I am excited’ before delivering a speech were rated by independent evaluators as more competent, persuasive and relaxed than those who had to repeat ‘I am calm’. In another experiment involving a difficult mathematics test, the group instructed to ‘try to get excited’ performed best. In a karaoke trial, 113 participants were randomly told to say they were anxious, excited, calm, angry or sad before singing karaoke on a rated system. Everybody’s heart rate was monitored to measure anxiety. The excited group were rated 80% by the video game system, while the calm, angry, sad groups scored an average 69%, and the anxious group scored 53%. The excited group also felt excited and confident.

By rebranding what you’re experiencing from stress to excitement, the science shows that not only can you deal with stress effectively, you will also perform better. Rather than experiencing calmness, you are not experiencing horrible stress.

“The symptoms of stress are similar to excitement: a fast pulse, a dry mouth, a churning tummy. If you can tell yourself you are excited about taking on a challenge, the chemistry in your brain changes because you are not under threat.”

Professor Ian Robertson, psychologist and neuroscientist

YOU’RE A GREAT COMMUNICATOR

Dealing with other people is one of the biggest reasons people feel they need to calm down. Whether anxiety makes you withdraw from the world, or stress has you barking at anyone who tips you beyond your limits, you’re suffering as a result of not being able to communicate. You feel resentful because you’re not heard, or guilty because you unleashed your voice in order to be heard.

Calm communication doesn’t mean you’ll be clinical. On the contrary you will be more engaged and effective. Neither does calm communication mean you have to learn to master anything that (for the moment) seems stressful, like public speaking. As we’ve outlined in our definition of real calm, it’s about being you and the biggest part of you is how you communicate. Both RADA in Business trainer Charlie Walker-Wise and RADA/BBC coach Jeremy Stockwell do not train their business clients to deliver presentations in a set way.

‘I try not to give my clients generic advice,’ says Stockwell, himself a performer and theatre maker. His emphasis is on training all clients, whether they are actors or come from the business and political world, to be themselves in the moment, focusing on a calm and natural connection with their audience.

Life when you’re calm doesn’t mean you’ll morph into a Buddhist monk or that you’ll be floating around in the clouds. You will be living and experiencing your life as balanced, and feel that your life is meaningful. Stress won’t frighten you; on the contrary, you’ll have the energy to take on exciting challenges, the ability to recognize when you need to pull back, and the skill to master rebranding stress that you do feel into excitement. You’ll be communicating effectively and confidently, not only avoiding conflict, but confidently getting across your message.