The concept of calm can seem abstract and elusive. It’s a state of mind that tends to conjure up an image of a sunset from a mountain top or a beach sunrise. And yet you crave that feeling on a more constant level. You know that lighting candles and taking long pampering baths offers tranquility, but you’re after something deeper.

In the first instance, feeling calm probably means not feeling the way you do right now: worried, anxious, stressed or possibly depressed. All of these states are on a continuum, so although the extremes might be very different, individually they are difficult to distinguish. One thing is for sure, wherever you are on that continuum it doesn’t feel good.

If you could somehow not feel constantly stressed that would make a huge difference. It’s the constantly that wears you out – the looping thoughts, the knot in your stomach, the eating too much or not being able to eat, the feeling that you’re stuck in a pressure cooker or a boiling kettle. The worst part is having to appear together around other people – like colleagues, bosses or people you manage – and others you have to deal with in daily life, from neighbours to your child’s teachers.

In theory you can be honest with friends and family about how you feel, but what if you’re too busy to see them? What if you don’t want to or can’t admit how you feel? What if you don’t want to moan or ‘bother’ them? Or what if you are letting off steam or moaning and then feeling guilty?

Modern life is stressful – that’s the message we keep receiving, and that’s the message we perpetuate. Stress becomes the norm, and if it’s the norm and it makes you unhappy then you feel there’s something wrong with you. You might be thinking, ‘What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I be calm?’ We’ll aim to answer these questions in the course of this book.

But let’s start with stress. Is modern life really more stressful? Aren’t we living longer, finding cures for diseases, looking more youthful and engaging in hobbies and even new careers way into the Third Age (the stage after middle age and before old age)? 
The answer is complex. Yes, life is better and more advanced in many ways. As stress expert, psychologist and neuroscientist Professor Ian Robertson confirms, life has become less stressful compared to 100 years ago: ‘Gone are the days of hunger, daunting high levels of infant and maternal death and diseases like tuberculosis and diphtheria.’

These advances have brought about radical changes. In fact, asking the question whether life is more stressful now than centuries or decades ago is misplaced. How the nature of stress has changed, and how we as individuals and communities deal with stress, are the more pertinent issues.

“In some ways modern life is more stressful than it was a hundred years ago. We are faced with fragmented communities, broken families, work pressures and ruthless competition.”

Professor Ian Robertson, psychologist and neuroscientist

In this chapter we hope to give a starting point for calm that is relevant to life as we live it. You are unique, and what you need to feel calm is not what somebody else needs. By the end of this book we hope that you will be clear on what calm means to you and how to attain this.

CHOOSING WHAT REAL CALM MEANS TO YOU

The word ‘calm’ originates¹ from the Greek word kauma for heat which became cauma in Latin for the sun’s midday heat, the time to rest and be still. It was adopted in late fourteenth-century French as calme for tranquility and quiet, finding its way into late Middle English.

When we hear the word calm in relation to people it’s mostly because they need to ‘calm down’ and stop being angry and agitated, or anxious and stressed. In terms of word associations, calm is bookended with two more words to describe a person who is cool, calm and collected. Who wouldn’t want to be described as cool, calm and collected when it’s universally considered a positive description?

When we look at synonyms for calm, the words that come up as qualities in people are self-control and self-possession. Yet if we go back to the origin of the word calm, there’s no control in the midday heat is there? The same sea that is rough can also be calm – absolutely still with not a single wave. If you associate calm with an innate state of mind this leaves you with no leeway for change. Performance consultant and TV coach Jeremy Stockwell reminds us that ‘change is the only constant truth in the universe’ and since we too are part of the universe, inevitably everything about us as human beings changes, down to the cells in our bodies.

“When you are worried, tell yourself: this will change. 
If you’re feeling stressed, tell yourself a little while 
later you’ll feel calm.”

Jeremy Stockwell, performance consultant and TV coach

Composure comes from the word ‘compose’, which originally meant to form something through putting together elements, and then came to mean creating music. If you think of calm as (mental) composure, and composure as creating a positive state of mind from the various elements of you, it becomes more attainable.

Equanimity is a wonderful word that means to be calm and composed especially during a difficult situation. It’s a word infused with strength, choice and power. One of the worst things about feeling anxious is that it comes with feeling powerless, that sense that everything is happening outside of you and you can’t keep up or cope. So if you begin with powerful terminology with equally powerful associations you are empowering yourself.

Once you begin to choose kinder – and in fact more accurate – definitions of calm then it will seem less elusive. So long as it remains a mystery, or something that’s always been beyond you, you’re setting yourself up for a struggle. And we want to make this as easy for you as possible.

Just as a rough sea will turn calm, so will you.

FINDING SPACE IN A COLLECTIVE TIME OF TURMOIL

One of psychiatrist-psychotherapist Carl Jung’s theories was that we all share a collective unconscious. As one of the most influential figures in therapy, this aspect of his philosophy may be particularly pertinent in the time we are living now. The twentieth century experienced two world wars, but once these were over humanity took many strides forward. The very fact that Europe overcame two destructive wars and united is one of them. In the twenty-first century we have mass global concerns from global warming to terrorism, from mass migration as a result of wars, to recession and financial insecurity.

“Collectively we are living in a time of turmoil. It’s important that as individuals we find a fixed point.”

Sandra Elsdon Vigon, Jungian psychotherapist

The difference between this time of turmoil compared to previous centuries is that we are too busy as a society to take it all in. When you’re perpetually in a state of anxiety and the messages about the world coming at you are anxious also, it’s difficult to see either yourself or the world in any positive light. Positive psychologist expert Miriam Akhtar points out that it’s necessary to step back, to ‘regroup’ so that we can see the world as a whole rather than just through ‘a red mist’.

Jungian psychotherapist Sandra Elsdon Vigon views individuals in the context of their personal life and of the collective, whether familial or cultural. Collective values today demand that we fill our time with being productive to a point where people feel guilty for taking time out.

“Calm is space – that place or condition or state of no expectation, just being.”

Sandra Elsdon Vigon, Jungian psychotherapist

When there’s pressure to be productive at work, and then 
self-imposed pressure to fill time outside work productively, there is no space for calm. Just by reorienting your interpretation of calm to mean mental space, whether that’s staring out of the bus window instead of scrolling through news on your phone, or standing in a garden for a few moments instead of rushing around the house, means you are shifting mental gears. And if we all shifted mental gears and slowed down, how might that be?

How you begin to find that space on a regular basis is a personal choice, and we hope this book will give you some ideas. There is no prescriptive way, but as Vigon stresses you have to find something that helps you. Finding something that gives you mental space is much more attainable than clicking into a state of mind labelled calm.

“Having time to enjoy the moment is what the word 
calm means for me personally.”

Professor Ian Robertson, psychologist and neuroscientist

STRIVING NOT STRUGGLING

Part of life is striving to achieve something better, whether that’s a promotion, running a business, buying one’s own property, starting a family or exploring a new country every year on vacation. That’s what gives us the impetus to get up and go and that’s what makes us interesting. It’s a process that can feel good because the excitement is mounting. It’s satisfying to set yourself the goal of running a marathon to raise money for charity or learning a dance for your wedding. When you get that job, that house, or hit that target for charity, it’s a thrill. When stress sets in, though, it casts a veil on what you’re striving for. You start to doubt yourself, to worry, and you feel overwhelmed. Instead of striving you’re struggling. When life feels like a struggle every day it’s like getting up and being pushed down constantly. When this happens you forget what makes you feel good because those feelings are chipped away, and when those feelings are chipped away so is your self-confidence.

Real calm is about being able to feel excited about your life again. It’s about reclaiming the you who has lots of options and dreams.

UNDERSTANDING THE TIPPING POINT OF STRESS

The key to figuring out how to be calm is an understanding of what happens to you when you are stressed.

No doubt you’ve heard of fight or flight – the brain’s system of dealing with a threat that will have us putting up a fight when under attack or running for it. The term gets trotted out so much that it’s become more of an expression than a scientific term that we need to fully grasp. The brain has an autonomic nervous system which it activates when it registers a threat. A series of neurotransmitters – chemical messengers – are released to alert the body and enable the mind to decide whether to fight the threat or flee from it. When this happens there’s high activity in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that experiences emotions. Anything from a potential car crash to a potential financial problem can activate the entire system.

Professor Robertson explains that ‘calmness would be defined as low sympathetic autonomic arousal, low activation of the amydgala and low to moderate levels of [the stress hormone] noradrenaline’. Only it’s a lot more complex than that. If we were in this calm state we wouldn’t be able to handle life’s challenges – good and bad.

Let’s say there was a miracle pill and you could permanently be calm. How would you get fired up to go for a promotion at work? How could you motivate your team to win a new client? How could you focus on studying in your spare time for a new qualification? How could you get competitive playing scrabble or a pub quiz or charades?

The fact is we need stress. Too much stress creates health problems and feels wretched, but manageable stress is good for our health and our brain. A recent study⁴ published in Frontiers of Aging Neuroscience showed that people over 50 who scored highest in having a busy life also had the highest brain function and memory. Studies like this one (by researchers from the Center for Vital Longevity, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas and the Department of Psychology at the University of Alabama) are interesting because they provide a full perspective: how the brain is functioning and how the mind is feeling.

What we don’t need is excessive stress. Just like there’s good and bad cholesterol and the good cholesterol is essential for the body to function, there’s good and bad stress. Excessive stress is bad because you’re struggling to cope. Once you are aware that stress is a chemical reaction in your brain, you become more conscious of the ingredients that create the stress. Then you can be conscious that it’s the level of stress that pushes you over the limit, or the particular type of stress. You can monitor your maximum point. It’s a little like understanding how an oven works. And you’re the dish or the cake. A chemical reaction happens when we follow a recipe, create something and put it in the oven for a certain amount of time. Too little it’s raw, too much it’s burnt. More of this ingredient it’s more moist, less of that ingredient it’s lighter.

“Calm is a sufficiently diffuse concept that you can craft it.”

Professor Ian Robertson, psychologist and neuroscientist

As soon as you reformulate your view of stress you can observe yourself and learn not only what triggers you beyond your limit (a burnt you), but what type of situation is best for you (you turn out great). We all need a degree of ‘heat’ to thrive. You might be feeling that you can’t cope well in a competitive work arena, but maybe you love the challenge of learning a language. You might be sick with nerves and have sleepless nights before having to make a presentation, but maybe you’re the first one up at karaoke on a night out. You might worry every day about the uncertainty of your future and whether to change jobs or take early redundancy, yet be the fearless joker of your group of friends.

IDENTIFYING WHEN STRESS IS NOT THE ISSUE

When we look at people handling stress calmly, the fight or flight system is still activated and enables them to take action. Professor Robertson gathered ample evidence for his latest book The Stress Test to back up his conviction that pressure can be good for us – provided we know our sweet spot. One of the many studies he drew our attention to was a Chicago University experiment⁵ that demonstrated the importance of confidence while stressed. A group of students equally good at maths had to solve problems in front of an audience. Half were confident, the other half weren’t. Both groups produced the stress hormone cortisol, but the confident group did better. As Professor Robertson writes ‘the more of the stress hormone they produced, the BETTER they performed’.

Gee, thanks, you might be thinking if you’re not confident. But the point we want to highlight here is that for the group that didn’t do so well, it was not stress that created the problem but a lack of something else. And that something else might be easier to cultivate than an intangible calmness. The question to consider is whether it’s calm you lack when you’re wrecked with nerves, or something else like confidence. And if it’s confidence (as our Real Confidence book outlines), you can most easily develop this through focusing on learning the skill you don’t yet have, whether it’s public speaking or managing a team, or taking maths tests in a laboratory for scientists. Competence can make you calm.

The idea of a tipping point in our brain is in fact a cornerstone of psychology. Harvard psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson⁶ came up with the concept of an arousal curve in the brain in 1908. They discovered that arousal – which Professor Robertson explains is alertness in the brain – can improve performance, but if the increase goes beyond a tipping point then performance is affected negatively. Scientists have since studied the Yerkes–Dodson theory in different contexts.

Knowing your tipping point, or rather your tipping points for different situations in life, means you can use your brain’s alertness to create excitement in your life without going to the point that leaves you feeling unwell, exhausted and unable to manage your life.

That ‘thing’ that makes humans excited and competitive is in our minds. Too little and you wouldn’t be doing much with your life, too much and life is overwhelming.

Once you realize that you don’t need or want to be calm all the time, then feeling calm becomes more attainable.

We hope that our approach to defining real calm is one that immediately makes you feel you’re not so far from it. If you view calm people as those people you can’t be like because of the hullabaloo in your head, then you’re tormenting yourself with an unattainable vision. The starting point is choosing empowering interpretations of the word. Just because stress can feel like it’s constant doesn’t mean that the antidote is constant calmness. Real calm is a skill you call on when you need it. And in a world that’s anything but calm we need to carve out space to restore ourselves, to maintain our inner equilibrium.

Real calm comes down to feeling good about life. When you’re flourishing in your life, you can handle pressure and are able to thrive on the right amount of stress. Understanding the chemistry of stress, and specifically learning how much you can handle to thrive and where your tipping point lies, can propel you forward to achieve your ambitions and enjoy life. Ultimately real calm is a skill rather than a state of mind. It’s a skill we hope you are keen to master through reading the rest of this book.