Ep. 202 Top Coping Skills to Instantly Stop Bad Days in Their Tracks—And Reduce Midlife Anxiety & Stress

Have you ever had one of those days where the tiniest thing sets you off—like your partner’s chewing suddenly drives you nuts? That’s the science of a bad day at work in your brain and body.
You don’t have to let one bad moment spiral into a bad day, or worse, a bad week.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
1.    Why midlife stress and anxiety are wired into your brain and body
2.    How to use the RESET coping skill
3.    How to build your own reset ritual so you can stop anxiety and stress from stealing your energy in midlife.
 Take 12 minutes to reset your mind and reclaim your calm—you’re worth it.

The Good Life & The Abundant Life

Free workshop Monday October 13, 7-8pm EST.

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About the Host:
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.

Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.

Transcript

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:00

.In this episode, you'll discover how to push reset so you can turn a bad day around. Welcome to Creating Midlife Calm, the podcast where you and I tackle stress and anxiety in midlife so you can stop feeling like crap, feel more present at home, and thrive at work. I'm MJ Murray Vachon a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 50,000 hours of therapy sessions and 32 years of teaching practical science-backed mental wellness.

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:30

Welcome to the podcast. Have you ever had one of those days where the tiniest thing set you off? A client of mine once told me she knew she was in trouble when the sound of her husband's chewing drove her nuts. Nothing else was wrong, but everything felt wrong. That's what a bad day can feel like. In this episode, you'll discover three things. Why bad days are wired into your brain and body. How to use the coping skill reset to stop the spiral, and how to build a simple reset ritual that you can use again and again and again because midlife is stressful. You're gonna have those bad moments, but why let a bad moment become a bad day or even a bad week? Let's start with the science of a bad day. Yep. There is a science behind having a bad day. Here's what happens when your day goes off the rail. Your brain has a negativity bias. What does that mean? It means that your brain pays more attention to what's wrong than what's right your teen rolls her eyes at you before school or your husband's chewing drives you crazy. Those single things change your mood and despite all the positive interactions, you just feel negative. You just feel down. That's negativity bias at work. When your brain is leaning towards a negative, guess what happens inside your body? Yep. Stress hormones, your cortisol and your adrenaline, they're flooding your system one of my clients noticed that her heart would pound just before she'd open her email inbox. Even if the email wasn't urgent. Her body reacted like a fire alarm. When your body is being flooded with stress hormones, you are vulnerable to a bad day. Another factor that can feed a bad day is rumination. The brain has this incredible ability to replay the same moment again and again and again. It's like those vinyl records that get on repeat. One of my clients, left a meeting feeling embarrassed that night, he tossed and turned, replaying the moment

2:43

in his

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 2:43

head. The next day, ugh. And by Friday when he came in for a session, he was convinced his whole job was in jeopardy. Rumination your brain running amok. Bad. Days aren't just in your head. They're also in your body. And that's actually good news because that means you have influence over them. So if your brain and body are wired for bad days, how do you stop them? That's where my coping skill reset comes in. Reset stands for R, recognize and reframe. E. Exhale and ease. S self-compassion. E, engage your thoughts, and T, take the next tiny step. Reset. It's simple. It's science friendly and you can do it in under two minutes, so you can step back in to a better day. Let me walk you through each letter and give you some examples so you're having a really crappy day. Are recognize and reframe. Say it out loud. I am having a bad day. You might notice that the second you say it, your shoulders drop. Your breath slows. That's your nervous system. Calming. Then reframe. I'm turning it around. Now here's the sticky part. A part of you won't want to turn your bad day around. That's what I call teenage thinking. Yep. The younger part of ourself that just wants to be that 15-year-old

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and have a

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 4:23

tantrum, it is terrible. His chewing is so loud. How can I possibly get ready for in the morning when the kids aren't doing what we need them to do? In midlife, that's the quickest path to a bad day, which can easily turn into a bad week. So say it anyways. Even if you don't believe it yet. Then say it again. You're not denying reality. You are reminding your brain that you have the power. Go ahead, say it with me. I'm having a bad day and I'm turning it around. It's free and it's legal and you pretty much can say it anywhere. Maybe not always out loud, but you get my drift. E exhale and ease. The most underrated coping skill is breath work. When you're having a bad day and your mind begins to spin, downshift your body first. Just breathe, or simply follow your breath for 60 seconds. Don't make this complicated movement works well too. Take a quick walk, some arm circles, do the tree pose, even throwing a ball for your dog. You're telling your body we're safe. We can settle. And that leads me to s self-compassion. Let's make self-compassion really easy. Talk to yourself the way you talk to your favorite person. Hey, this is hard. But you can do it. There's a really thin line between self-compassion and self-pity. Self-compassion recognizes the difficulty, the challenge, and has a little bit of, you can do this as well. Self-pity recognizes the challenge and often is blaming or complaining that this should not be this way. So use those post-it notes. Bad day. Doesn't equal bad person, bad day doesn't mean I'm getting screwed. Whatever is the path that you need to take to self-compassion, walk it. It's a really helpful tool to soften your Inner critic so your body can reset and the next E engage perspective ask will this matter tomorrow? Next week, two hours from now? Is this the whole truth? Had a client walk in a few weeks ago to my office, furious that her mom gave the family China to her sister. When I asked her, do you actually want the China, she said, no. It wasn't about plates. It was about feeling valued. She did the Heroic Midlife Act. She chose to not go there. Here's the science. When you take on the perspective, that's really causing you to be unhappy, it, you engage with it. It activates your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain that makes decisions. You're literally giving your brain a calmer voice to follow. By the end of the session, my client said, my sister asked my mom for the China. I guess I could think about what I want and ask her, and she'd probably give it to me too. Wow. Now that's a reset. And the last letter T, which I think is the most helpful, take the next tiny step, but make sure that step is pointing you in the direction of wellness. So you're in the airport and the flight is delayed. You can spin and think now the whole vacation is ruined. Or you can say, what's one small step I could take right now that would nudge me today in a better direction? Simple. I could go by that magazine and sit and relax and read. I could walk around the airport and get my steps in for the day, or I could treat myself to a pumpkin spice latte. One small step in the right direction can turn your day around. In essence, what am I saying? Be your own life coach. Reframing is a superpower. When my dad learned his cancer was incurable, he said, well, this is good. At least I know when I'm gonna die. If he could reframe death, we can reframe a bad mourning. Let me share with you two Hall of Fame resets one of my clients during tense family dinners. Instead of getting involved in escalating learn to excuse herself for the reset, she'd go to the bathroom, clean the sink, and come back all calm. That is genius. Another client, when he would find himself frustrated and overwhelmed with stress, would say to himself, this is frustration. This is stress. This is my amygdala doing its job. I need to be its boss. Don't underestimate yourself. You've handled setbacks many times. The grocery store run with the missing ingredient, the school pickup, where your kid made you wait. The long airport delay, you've done this before. It's in you to do it again. I think the best part of playing around with reset is this, most people can find two or three micro things to do when their day begins to go bad. When you play with these micro resets, you're going to notice what works for you. Then you can build a reset ritual for the next time the bad mood hits. Let me share with you mine the other day, I came home and we had some people do some work around our house and they didn't sweep up after themselves. I was pissed. I didn't wanna come and finish their job. After working all day long, I started doing the dishes. And my mind was spinning for a while, and then I caught it, and then I did my reset. I said out loud, I am having a bad night, and I'm turning it around, which always, for some reason, makes me laugh. Then I went and got a glass, and I stood by my refrigerator, filled up the water, took a few breaths and stood on one foot. Then I changed to the other foot 60 seconds. I felt better. That's my reset. Simple, repeatable, and it works. My Inner Challenge is for you to find your own reset. The next time you feel a bad day brewing, hit reset. Recognize and reframe. I'm having a bad day. Exhale and breathe self-compassion, not self-pity. Engage your thoughts. Will this matter tomorrow? Will this matter this afternoon? Will this matter next year? And take the tiny step in a healthier direction. I invite you to step into your power and to know you can change your mind, and when you do that, you are taking back your energy. So those things that need a little bit more attention in your life, the schedule to get everyone out the door, a follow-up conversation with people who are working on your house, you are going to have the energy for, because you're not going to let your bad mood steal energy from you for the rest of your day. In this episode, you discovered the science behind bad days. I introduced you to the coping skill reset to help you name tame and stop the spiral and encourage you to build a reset ritual. So one bad moment doesn't take over your week. I Also wanna invite you to check the show notes for my one hour free workshop on Monday, October 13th from seven to 8:00 PM The Good Life versus The Abundant Life. I had love to have you join me. And I'll be back on Thursday with a follow-up episode. That focuses on why so many of us try to push through midlife anxiety and why that backfires. Thanks for listening to Creating Midlife Calm.