How to Be Calm

Most of us could find more space for calm in our lives, for those moments of being able to stand back and assess what is happening around us with a mind that is settled, patient, graceful and wise. Calm people affect other people in a positive and reassuring way; their ability to remain unfazed and focused during life's petty ordeals through to outright crises is a source of amazement to the majority of us and often we're grateful for being at the receiving end of such calmness. And yet, it isn't something that only the few have access to – anyone can choose to be calm and to foster it as an approach toward life.

Calmness can be reached through various routes, each of which may be out of balance in your life at present. For example, your diet may not be adequate in terms of good nutrition or you may be avoiding exercise in favor of slipping in a few more hours of intense work or study. Or, you may not have discovered the values of implementing activities that are aimed at bringing calm into your life directly, such as meditation, enjoying solitude or using aromatherapy. All of these sources of balance are explored in this article as a way of finding calm.

1.  Reflect upon your sense of calm right now. Do you consider yourself to be a calm person or someone who is always caught up with a sense of urgency, a need to be busy all the time and a desire to be at the heart of all things loud and dramatic? What does being calm mean to you? It's probably a good idea to write out your ideas about what being a calm person means to you, as this is something you can continue to reflect upon and work toward over time.
   • As part of your reflection, consider the psychological issues that you might confront regularly, such as panic attacks or phobias. These can prevent you from reaching a state of calm and yet they're treatable aspects of your emotional makeup provided you're willing to deal with them. Talk over the possibilities with a trusted therapist or your doctor.
2. Realize that being calm is an internal issue, not an external factor. It can be tempting to blame your external life for your lack of inner calm. After all, traffic jams, deadlines, missing socks, demanding bosses, pushy clients, queues, keeping up with the Joneses and many other facets of modern life can lead you to feel that the pressures create the lack of calm. Yet ironically, the pressures are not the source; it is a crisis driven mindset that causes the lack of calm. By being internally calm, the pressures are alleviated; they don't go away but they are all manageable and far less disturbing when you approach life with an inner calm. Feeling calm and competent leads to fulfillment and happiness. Inside, each of us has a nature that is deep, silent and stable – indeed, our natural state is to be calm. However, we make choices about how to react very early on in life and sometimes those choices usurp our inner calm, whether it's because we choose to be drama prone or the center of attention, or to express the "always busy" self to others. Recognizing that these are choices is an important step in regaining your calm.
3. Be kind to yourself. Being calm begins with being self-loving (which does not mean being self-absorbed). It's all too commonplace for us to take a negative tone with ourselves and to be our own unkindest critic. Calm cannot settle when you feel nothing but self-criticism, self-loathing and a lack of self-trust; if these are your main inner feelings, then you're too busy running internal self-deprecating chatter for calm to descend! Remind yourself frequently that it is okay to love and trust yourself.
   • Talk gently to yourself. When the self-deprecating, negative talk wells up, remind yourself that you matter and that you deserve respect and that such negative talk hasn't got a place in your life.
   • Reassure yourself with such phrases as "I can deal with this."
   • Know how valuable you are. Remind yourself daily of the virtues, strengths and beauty that you bring into the world.
   • Be kind to yourself, just as you are kind to others.
   • Remind yourself that it is human to err. It happens daily all around the world. Simply remind yourself when something goes wrong: "I am so human!"
   • Love the image staring back at you in the mirror. That's you and you matter.
4. Practice forgiveness with yourself and with others. Being unable to forgive compels you to discontent and internal war. Holding old grudges, being bitter and fueling constant anger create an inner turmoil that chains you to reliving past hurts. Do you really enjoy lugging that ball and chain around? Worst still, your health is impacted by long-lived grievances and your blood pressure, heart rate, physical and spiritual health will be suffering. It is hard to live a calm life when you constantly hate, feel a need to avenge and see ghosts in every shadow. Forgiveness allows room for kindness and self liberation. Forgiveness nurtures a sense of calm because you no longer spend a big part of your life resenting other people. Remind yourself that when you forgive, you remove the toxic feelings from your life; it is not about condoning what another person did but it is about no longer letting that person's actions run your outlook on life.
5. Be patient. Patience is the begetter of calm. Impatience is the source of agitation and turbulence. Impatience says "I want it NOW" and when "it" doesn't appear now, you're liable to lose your temper and let the blood pressure rise. Impatience is often linked to unreasonable expectations about the world and other people (you expect too much of both yourself and of other people) and is often linked to perfectionism, which allows of no space to make errors or slow down. A calm person, on the other hand, is fully aware that errors occur sometimes and that speeding things up is liable to bring on errors, not alleviate them.
6. Seek to be wise. Wisdom enables you to know when it really is okay to worry. Most of the time, it is not okay to worry. Most of the time the news, the rumors, the negativity, the volatility, the insane highs and lows of human systems are but noise. Listen to too much of it and you sink into the mire of the rat race, ever running somewhere without a clear map forward. That will create intense disquiet and unease in your life. The wise person knows what to read, who to listen to and when to ignore the rumors (most of the time). The wise person looks into the future and plans for it while remaining anchored in the present but drawing on the strengths from the past. The wise person is calm because the wise person accesses knowledge and knows how to use it for betterment of life. Responding to sensationalism and fear is "so yesterday" for the wise person.
7. Refuse to be hurried. Many people try to push, push, push and make for the exit even before the door is open. Consider all the times when a plane lands and everyone rushes to get off but all they do is end up standing in a queue. Where is the fire they're attending that it's so urgent to be the first out the door? Become assertive about your wish to not be hurried unless it's a life and death situation, in which case your common sense will inform you that it's really time to move!
   • Recognize that a lot of staying calm returns to being assertive. It takes courage to stand up and assert your need to take things more slowly and to deflect the hurry and bustle of others.
8. Find pathways to calm. Besides looking within and discovering how better to nurture yourself through kinder self-talk and practicing forgiveness and patience, there are some very real activities you can put into place that will induce a sense of calm into your life. And the more regularly you bring these activities into your life, the more that your feelings of calm will become ingrained and expected. While the following pathways are simply guidance, unless you try some of them, you won't know whether or not they'll benefit a calmer you:
   • Meditation: This is number one on the list. Meditation is a powerful means for exploring your inner self and shutting out the noise. Meditation induces stillness and allows you to explore yourself and brings you to a state of peace and calm. And meditation is best summed up as being about "being" – being rather than doing. Meditation can work for anyone as it's about learning to live in the moment, undistracted, not tied to the past or the future, your mind and emotions are under your mastery and you are truly aware. There are many forms of meditation and this isn't the place to explore them and some are likely to be more inviting to you than others, so that's an exploration you'll need to undertake. In short though, meditation is likely to be the greatest tool for bringing calm into your life.
   • Breathing: Pay attention to your breathing. Train yourself to slow it down when the pressures increase.
   • Prayer, chanting, singing and inspirational reading: Each of these can instill calm in its own way.
   • Mindfulness: Closely related to meditation, mindfulness is about being consciously aware of what is around you as you're moving through your daily life. It's about drawing yourself back into the moment.
   • Gratitude: It is impossible to be both angry and appreciative. Once you appreciate something, gratitude takes the place of unquiet and unhappiness. The negative chatter dies down because you're grateful for things around you.
   • Nature: Spending time in nature simply observing and allowing yourself to be enfolded in its presence will bring calm upon you. Notice the comings and goings of the creatures around you and listen to the trees and plants around you. Simply sink into it...
   • Self soothing: Spend more time soothing yourself to reduce the panic and fears than to the problem. The problem will usually be manageable but only when you've calmed down.
9. Try improving your diet and exercise regime. Diet and exercise are basically about taking good care of yourself; neither are about forcing you to follow a regimen that imposes unhappiness upon you, as some approaches to these activities appear to suggest. Diet is about healthful eating as a lifestyle choice while exercise is about getting out and about so that your body moves and isn't subjected to sitting positions all of the time. And both have the ability to bring calm into your life. Within your diet, it is possible to improve your mood through the types of food you choose, including foods that contain mood boosting effects – read up on the science behind foods and mood. And exercise will increase your feel-good chemicals, which bring a sense of greater calm. Not only that but the self-discipline and endurance stamina required by exercise will help to create calm because you recognize that you are physically strong and capable, able to find the energy and strength to work through anything in life.
10. Try aromatherapy solutions. Aromatherapy has proven benefits in the realm of calming and the use of particular essential oils can help to bring about a state of calmness after a period of stress and agitation. This field is quite complex and it's a good idea to read through a good aromatherapy reference if you're keen to find ways to induce calmness through aromatherapy but most people can recognize the instantaneous benefits from scented interactions such as having a massage, a foot rub, a dabbing on a perfume or a spraying a lovely room scent. A good place to get started is to try aromatherapy baths.
11. Think calm. Help your mind remain calm through keeping your thoughts calm and through keeping your mind decluttered. When you feel frustrated, smile about it and think about the sensible and calm ways you can approach the matter before you.
    • Keep to-do lists and to-get lists on paper, in a notebook or in an electronic form, freeing up your mind for more important and creative thoughts than the lists of things to do and buy!
    • Count your blessings. When the chips are down, look for the things you can express gratitude for. There is always at least one thing you can find and while you can choose to see only the negatives, ask yourself why you want to only see those.
12. Practice equanimity. Life will continue to throw stressors and curveballs in your direction, whatever you state of mind you're in. Recognize that life is strewn with critics and naysayers and they're often people who could do it better... but don't. Are you going to let such people cause you unease and discomfort? Or are you ready to practice equanimity? Equanimity is a state of being that Leo Babauta promises gets easier the more you practice it. Equanimity is about maintaining evenness of mind under the presence of pressure and stress. It requires that you maintain a positive mindset, even when under attack. This is really hard to maintain if your mindset is negative and fearful. And yet, it is liberating once you begin implementing it regularly and you will even discover that people respect you a lot more for being able to maintain an even keel and remain objectively detached from what is happening. As Leo Babauta suggests, learn to let things roll off you, don't take things personally and realize that we're not the center of anybody else's world and that there are always many other reasons for why someone attacks us in a mean way.