Happy Soma Global Spiritual Art Center – Sunil Gamage- Director

Covid -19 has inflicted enormous stress into individuals, families, groups, companies; the way what they have been doing in everyday life. Human factor enhances in everyday life when they engage and sustain positive behavior with qualities of focus, empathy, collaboration, inclusion, etc. However, people cannot access to those qualities and traits when they are in uncertainty, anxiety, stress, and when they are in perpetual fight or flight mode. Even in this difficult time it is important to find human factor put into place and build from there onwards. Individuals need to nurture his daily work or day more resilient. More critically the person need to put himself into a place where he will operate from a place of strength, calm and empathy, which will boost his resilience. Without this vital human factor; even the most cutting edge technology will not succeed in aspect of future. Prioritizing individual well being and not feel guilty about is important. It is not selfish, it is the best way to be at our best for all our other responsibilities. The advantage here is when the individual well being, and resilience in place, as most of employees and individuals work remotely; individual integrity at work will start performing.

It has much to thrive in many areas due to Covid 19 as it has compounded with  injustice, climate issues and economic uncertainties. Individuals, parents, children at this time stretching more with schooling responsibilities with hybrid version of engagement of school activities of children. In order to lead children forward, they need empathy and courage from parents. It is quite hard children to coping with the new challenge and parents need empathize them and need to be positive to help them with the toxic stress they have been experiencing. In many work places silo working styles crumble almost overnight in responding to Covid 19. Teams became more cross functional. Societies craving for leadership. Leadership for greater good need follower ship. Trust has been in need to follower ship.  

Now we are in a time in which all major three institutions of work, family, and school are all occurring in one place. So the challenge is how to live and work sustainable way in which we are not stressed out of our minds. Technology has been playing a bigger role in our lives and incorporating technology in place. Same time we need to find ways to disconnect with technology and connect with families as well.

Covid 19 pandemic and battle for social justice has increased anxiety that many of us feel everyday. The stress is interfering with our ability to do our best work, but with the right breathing exercises anybody can learn to handle stress and manage negative emotions. It has been revealed breathing exercises are best to manage short and long term stress reduction. The impact of breathing exercises on well being found as significant.

Breathing exercises: Just different breathing exercises along has has improved calm and resilience of individuals.

Mindfulness-based stress reduction: Meditation technique used to train the mind to be aware each moment and will not judge the moment.

Foundation of emotional intelligence: Teaches techniques to improve emotional awareness and techniques.

Overall individuals practised breath meditation experienced best mental health, social contentedness, positive emotions, stress levels, depression mindfulness benefits. In terms of stress management meditation has shown proven results. Furthermore, they have developed and instilled with a buffer against anxiety typically associated with stressful situations. This meant the individuals able to think clearly, more positive emotional states, effectively perform task at hand.

When somebody stressed the pre-frontal cortex of brain which is responsible for rational thinking will be impaired. So logic seldom help to regain control. This can make it hard to think straight or emotionally intelligent with your team. But with breathing a person can get control over the mind. Emotions are associated with different breathing. When somebody feel joy the individual breathing would be slow, deep and regular. When the individual in anxiety the breathing would be shallow, short, fast and irregular. Physiologically how does this work? Changing individual breath signal relaxation. Slows heart rate and stimulate the vegus nerve. It runs from the brain stem to abdomen. It is part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the rest and digest activities. Triggering parasympathetic nervous system start to calm down ,feel better, and think rationally will improve.

Individuals can reduce stress practically. The method is so simple. An individual will calm down by changing the ration of inhale and exhale ratio. This is common one practice to reduce stress level of a person. When inhale heart rate speeds up and exhale it will slow down. Breath in for four counts and exhale in eight counts which will slow down the individual nervous system. This simple technique will help individual to support greater well being and lower the stress level at work and daily life.