39 Steps to De-Stress Your High-Flying Life

Time-tested techniques from science, Yoga, and Ayurveda for calming and grounding

We all know that life events like job loss, divorce, or the death of a loved one are very stressful and even traumatic. But did you know that positive milestones like a job promotion, marriage, and birth of a much-anticipated child also induce stress responses in the body?

Stress is part of daily living, and our bodily reactions to stressors are automatic. Our nervous system is constantly evaluating the internal and external environment, continuously and unconsciously scanning for cues for threats and safety and triggering automatic physiological responses.

• When we feel a sense of safety, the ventral vagus nerve allows us to calm down, relax, and engage socially with others.
  
• When we sense danger, the sympathetic nervous system is activated on high alert, and we become defensive, with a physiological fight or flight reaction, also called a stress response.
  
• When we sense extreme danger coupled with a perception of being trapped with no escape, the dorsal vagus nerve activates a freeze response, a feeling of being paralyzed, out-of-focus, out-of-body, or numb.

These automatic physiological responses to perceived threats can continue beyond what is necessary and protective, to the point of keeping you in a near-continuous stress-reactive state. Many scientific studies indicate how chronic stress affects our day-to-day living, and even leads to chronic disease. So it’s crucial to our wellbeing that we recognize stress reactions and adjust or re-set these automatic processes when they no longer serve us.

The steps below represent both passive and very active ways you can do that. Many are drawn from the ancient, time-tested practices of Yoga and Ayurveda.

Pick one technique from each grouping below, and set the intention to incorporate these into your daily living. When stress levels are unusually high, it may help to return to this list and try out more techniques.

Establish Stability

 1.  Maintain a normal schedule and structure your days. Rise and retire at regular hours. Eat meals at regular times. Establish a regular time for relaxation practices. This isn’t easy with a highly variably flying schedule – just do your best.

 2.  Make a list of the important things you need to handle each day. Try to follow the list so you feel organized and gain a sense of mastery.

 3.  Use every available resource to automate best practices: set up autopay of your mortgage, rent, car loan, and utility bills; set up automatic payment of the minimum amount due for your credit cards; bring home grocery bags full of healthier foods, with fewer sugary snacks or chips, to automate a healthier diet.

Look Inside

 4.  Don’t run from your problems! This only makes them worse. Inventory your life situation and learn to identify and monitor your daily stressors.

 5.  Keep an eye on how you might not be coping well. Are you eating or drinking more, “checking out” more, sleeping less? It is empowering to focus on finding healthy ways to specifically address the stressors that can be managed and reduced.

 6.  Learn to say NO. Usually this won’t hurt other people’s feelings as much as you think, plus it’s a way to set boundaries and assert control over your life. Trying saying “I have a prior commitment” while silently remembering that your prior commitment is to yourself.

 7.  Notice how you talk to yourself. Be patient and kind to yourself, cut yourself some slack. Ask yourself "Is that true?" and be courageous with your answer.

 8.  Start journaling, to vent. Keep a Gratitude Journal, writing down everything you are grateful for, large and small, before going to sleep.

 9.  Commit to a willingness to adapt, evolve, change, and grow. You can do it! Ayurveda can help – go to the websites of Dr Claudia Welch, Dr Vasant Lad, or Banyan Botanicals to learn more.

Take Pleasure

 10.  Find a way to laugh. Watch a comedy movie or read a funny book that makes you laugh out loud – it's very therapeutic!

 11.  Make time for music, art, photography, or other hobbies that tap into your creativity.

 12.  Listening to music, singing, chanting, doing Kirtan, and other vocal expressions are great for activating deep breathing and inducing calm.

 13.  Dance! Go to your favorite music playlist and break out some dance moves!

Connect

 14.  Surround yourself with friendly faces, family, friends, and pets. Socially engage with like-minded people you feel comfortable with, being in community, doing something together. Women especially benefit from “tend and befriend” quality time with girlfriends.

 15.  Talk frankly to your family and friends. You’ve been the strong one; now may be the time you will be able to draw upon their strengths.

 16.  Take time to connect to nature and enjoy all forms of life. Spend time in fresh air, sunshine, in field or forest, in or on the water.

 17.  Talk to someone about your stresses, frustrations, and concerns: a friend or confidante; a clergy member or leader in your spiritual community; a trusted work colleague or peer.

Care for Your Body

 18.  Ground yourself by staying in one place without moving, and by choosing thick, warm, nourishing foods like soups and stews, and root vegetables.

 19.  Exercise. Resume a favorite sport, maintain your regular workout routine, or take up walking 20 minutes a day. While away from home on trips, try walking or running up the hotel stairs.

 20.  Practice daily gentle stretching exercises or Yoga. Any style of Yoga that is breath-linked and inwardly focused is beneficial, and many classes are offered online. Don’t skimp on the most important pose, the final pose, Savasana or Corpse Pose in which you lie on your back in complete bodily relaxation.

 21.  Get a massage. Try Abhyanga, a soothing and healthful Ayurvedic practice of daily self-massage with warm oil.

 22.  Pamper and comfort yourself with a salt-water bath, or sit in hot tub or sauna.

Filter Your Intake

 23.  Some people and programs deliberately generate crisis and chaos designed to rope you in and make you feel hopeless. Look away. Turn off that program. Leave the room.

 24.  Don’t obsess about the issues giving you stress. Don’t spend hours on the computer, watching the news, or reading every rumor or article.

 25.  We are hard-wired to be sensitive to low-pitched rumbling sounds similar to a growling dog, and high-pitched sounds similar to sirens, both of which trigger a stress response. Try to reduce or eliminate noise from your environment.

 26.  Clean up an overly stimulating visual environment, whether that’s from busy patterns, activating colors, photographs that trigger bad memories, or a messy living space.

 27.  Use pleasant aromas from natural sources like fresh-baked bread or essential oils, to bring calm and comfort.

 28.  Absorb the most healthful substances possible into your body, including fresh fruits, vegetables, proteins, and less carbs. Drink lots of water.

 29.  Avoid imbibing caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, junk food, marijuana, and other drugs as your primary means for coping with stress. While they can seem to help you once in a while, regular use can be habit-forming, and even lead to addiction. See my article When Pilots and Alcohol Don’t Mix , about help for pilots who are self-medicating with alcohol and addictive substances.

Look Beyond

 30.  Volunteer, donate, and assist those less fortunate. Serving others can help put your own worries and troubles into perspective.

 31.  Remember that you are divine, have a sacred soul, and a purpose in this lifetime. Repeat an affirmation silently or out loud, or write it on a post-it, or make it a daily reminder on your phone. Try something like: I am at peace - I am enough - I can do it - I trust myself - This too shall pass - I’m learning and improving every day – God is with me .

 32.  Take up a Mantra practice, repeating the mantra silently, aloud, chanted, sung, or in the group devotional singing practice called Kirtan. Mantras are sacred sounds, and the intention you give while repeating them amplifies their effect. Simple Mantras to begin: OM - SO HUM - OM MANE PADME OM .

 33.  Connect or re-connect to a higher power, to something greater than yourself, to your God. Return to or deepen your spiritual, devotional, prayerful practices.

Calm your Nervous System

 34.  Try progressive muscle relaxation. Progressively tense and relax each muscle group in your body. Learn the difference between muscle tension and relaxation.

 35.  The aim of the physical Yoga practice is to calm, strengthen, balance, and increase flexibility in the body so that you can sit quietly with a straight spine for the breathing practices of Pranayama and for meditation. Practice sitting in this posture, especially for the following steps.

 36.  Breathing is one of the very few bodily functions that is both automatic and can be controlled, and breathing exercises or Pranayama is the fastest way to enhance deep, diaphragmatic breathing to calm the mind and body:

•  Crocodile pose: Lie face-down with your legs stretched out. Rest your forehead on your stacked hands. Breathe deeply into your belly.
  
•  Sandbag breathing: Lie face-up with your legs stretched out and your arms relaxed by your side. Place a 5-pound sandbag or other soft weight on your abdomen. Breathe deeply into your belly.
  
•  Equal length breathing: Breath slowly and deeply while counting up to 4 or 5 with each inhalation and exhalation – whatever is comfortable. Move towards making the inhalations and exhalations equal in length.
  
•  2-to-1 breathing: Slowly increase the length of the exhalations until they are twice as long as the inhalations.
  
•  Alternate nostril breathing: This is a very centering and grounding practice. Look for online audio or video guidance on this practice, or ask a Yoga teacher to teach you.
  
•  Yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar suggests, “When you inhale, you are taking the strength from God. When you exhale, it represents the service you are giving to the world.” Or, breathe in strength and breathe out tension. Mentally repeat these words or phrases: Inhale SO, exhale HUM. Or, inhale I AM, exhale AT PEACE. Or, inhale I CAN, exhale LET GO.

 37.  Try Yoga Nidra, Yogic Sleep, or iRest. This is a surprisingly powerful deep relaxation practice that is growing in popularity. There are many free online resources with guided audio.

 38.  Meditation practice can literally rewire our nervous system and change the way our brains function, resulting in feelings of less distress, more joy, less discomfort, more happiness. The mind and body get more familiar with this relaxation response, and return to it more easily and naturally. Try these techniques, and seek out online resources or a meditation teacher.

•  Visualization. There is a misconception that the goal of meditation is to empty the mind, which frustrates new meditators. The fact is, just as the heart’s function is to pump blood, one of the brain’s functions is to think thoughts. You can’t stop your brain from thinking thoughts, but you can learn to direct your thoughts to more soothing subjects. Visualization or guided imagery can help you learn to be at one with your thoughts. Sit quietly with your eyes closed, imagining the sights, sounds, and smells of your favorite place, such as an ocean beach or mountain retreat.

•  Counting breaths. Start with 1 and count breaths to 7, then start over. When you find yourself counting to 9 or 10, just start again at 1. Be patient and gentle with yourself, like training a young puppy to sit and stay.

•  Become the witness. Learn to cultivate a peaceful flow of inner awareness by taking a step back to witness the steady of stream of thoughts as they appear and pass by like clouds moving across the sky. Just watch them come, and watch them go, without latching onto those thought-clouds. Trying saying to yourself, “There’s a thought. It is saying ‘this is silly’. Here’s another thought. It is saying ‘I am not getting the hang of this’. Here is another thought. It is saying ‘my knees hurt’. Here is another thought…”

 39. During extraordinarily stormy times, these techniques might not be enough to keep you from being really distressed – please seek out the help of a professional counselor or therapist to navigate your way through . If you are concerned about how seeing a therapist might affect your FAA medical certificate, please read my article You, Your Mental Health, and the FAA and also 10 FAQs about Your FAA Medical Exam . My article Stressed Out – Reach Out may help you to understand the unique reasons pilots get stressed. Please also refer to my article When Pilots and Alcohol Don’t Mix , about pilots who self-medicate and end up with an alcohol and substance addiction, and how to get help. My article Critical Incident Response for Pilots might also be pertinent, if you could benefit from vital peer support to process the experience of an aviation incident or accident.

May your dreams take flight!

© 2020 Jenny Beatty. All Rights Reserved.

Photo credit: Anna Shvets