Get Calm Using This NLP Calm Anchor

First, a note (pardon the pun:) about music.

Music affects both the mind and the body. It affects our brain waves. When we’re relaxed, our brainwaves are slower. Music with around 60 beats per minute corresponds with the human heart at rest. Listening to some tranquil classical pieces is helpful when you wish to relax, e.g. Chopin – Berceuse in D Flat Major, or Bach’s Air on the G string.

While you wish to get into your calm relaxed state, you might play such a piece. Some people respond well to auditory stimulus. Pop in some tranquil classics before this exercise if that suits you. Baroque music is good for creating a state of relaxed awareness. Try largo and adagio passages in pieces composed around 1600 to 1750, e.g. Bach, Mozart, Handel, etc.

Our memories are stored as associations with our senses. Smells are particularly powerful. Perhaps you used to wear a certain perfume or aftershave. Now the smell of it takes you back to the time and context in which you wore it. Perhaps you overindulged in a certain drink or food to the point of illness, and now the mere smell of it makes you feel nauseous. We make positive and negative associations or ‘anchors’ all the time.

Get calm

Read through this technique before you do it, so you’re clear what to do.

Remember a time when you felt at peace and in control, when you felt really calm. Fully return to it now:

~ See what you saw
~ Hear what you heard
~ Feel any physical sensations you felt
~ Smell any aromas you smelt
~ Feel how good you felt
~ Feel how calm you felt

Can’t remember a time when you were perfectly calm? Imagine how wonderful it would be to be peaceful - calm, comfortable and in control.

Play this experience in your mind again. This time make the colours richer, the sounds crisper, the feelings more intense. When you’re feeling these good feelings, squeeze your thumb and middle finger of your right hand. In doing this you’re associating this specific pressure with this specific feeling.

Run through this memory at least another five times, squeezing your finger and thumb together as you enjoy the experience of feeling calm, comfortable and in control. You’ll know when you’ve done it enough times, when all it takes is to squeeze your middle finger and thumb together to regenerate those lovely warm calm feelings in you.

Now when you experience a situation in which you feel a little stressed or anxious, fire off that calm anchor by squeezing your middle finger and thumb together to flood your mind with feelings of easy and comfortable calm.

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'Wishing you the best in life! ?
Louise Goddard