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.

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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.

Episode Transcript

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (00:00):
.In this episode, you'll discover how to
push reset so you can turn a badday around.
Welcome to Creating MidlifeCalm, the podcast where you and
I tackle stress and anxiety inmidlife so you can stop feeling
like crap, feel more present athome, and thrive at work.
I'm MJ Murray Vachon a LicensedClinical Social Worker with over

(00:22):
50,000 hours of therapy sessionsand 32 years of teaching
practical science-backed mentalwellness.

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW (00:30):
Welcome to the podcast.
Have you ever had one of thosedays where the tiniest thing set
you off?
A client of mine once told meshe knew she was in trouble when
the sound of her husband'schewing drove her nuts.
Nothing else was wrong, buteverything felt wrong.
That's what a bad day can feellike.
In this episode, you'll discoverthree things.

(00:52):
Why bad days are wired into yourbrain and body.
How to use the coping skillreset to stop the spiral, and
how to build a simple resetritual that you can use again
and again and again becausemidlife is stressful.
You're gonna have those badmoments, but why let a bad

(01:13):
moment become a bad day or evena bad week?
Let's start with the science ofa bad day.
Yep.
There is a science behind havinga bad day.
Here's what happens when yourday goes off the rail.
Your brain has a negativitybias.
What does that mean?
It means that your brain paysmore attention to what's wrong

(01:35):
than what's right your teenrolls her eyes at you before
school or your husband's chewingdrives you crazy.
Those single things change yourmood and despite all the
positive interactions, you justfeel negative.
You just feel down.
That's negativity bias at work.

(01:56):
When your brain is leaningtowards a negative, guess what
happens inside your body?
Yep.
Stress hormones, your cortisoland your adrenaline, they're
flooding your system one of myclients noticed that her heart
would pound just before she'dopen her email inbox.
Even if the email wasn't urgent.
Her body reacted like a firealarm.

(02:16):
When your body is being floodedwith stress hormones, you are
vulnerable to a bad day.
Another factor that can feed abad day is rumination.
The brain has this incredibleability to replay the same
moment again and again andagain.
It's like those vinyl recordsthat get on repeat.

(02:37):
One of my clients, left ameeting feeling embarrassed that
night, he tossed and turned,replaying the moment
in his
head.
The next day, ugh.
And by Friday when he came infor a session, he was convinced
his whole job was in jeopardy.
Rumination your brain runningamok.
Bad.
Days aren't just in your head.

(02:59):
They're also in your body.
And that's actually good newsbecause that means you have
influence over them.
So if your brain and body arewired for bad days, how do you
stop them?
That's where my coping skillreset comes in.
Reset stands for R, recognizeand reframe.

(03:20):
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 youcan do it in under two minutes,
so you can step back in to abetter day.

(03:44):
Let me walk you through eachletter and give you some
examples so you're having areally crappy day.
Are recognize and reframe.
Say it out loud.
I am having a bad day.
You might notice that the secondyou say it, your shoulders drop.
Your breath slows.

(04:04):
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 turnyour bad day around.
That's what I call teenagethinking.
Yep.
The younger part of ourself thatjust wants to be that
15-year-old
and have a

M.J. Murray Vachon LCS (04:23):
tantrum, it is terrible.
His chewing is so loud.
How can I possibly get ready forin the morning when the kids
aren't doing what we need themto do?
In midlife, that's the quickestpath to a bad day, which can
easily turn into a bad week.
So say it anyways.
Even if you don't believe ityet.

(04:44):
Then say it again.
You're not denying reality.
You are reminding your brainthat you have the power.
Go ahead, say it with me.
I'm having a bad day and I'mturning it around.
It's free and it's legal and youpretty much can say it anywhere.
Maybe not always out loud, butyou get my drift.

(05:06):
E exhale and ease.
The most underrated coping skillis breath work.
When you're having a bad day andyour mind begins to spin,
downshift your body first.
Just breathe, or simply followyour breath for 60 seconds.
Don't make this complicatedmovement works well too.

(05:28):
Take a quick walk, some armcircles, do the tree pose, even
throwing a ball for your dog.
You're telling your body we'resafe.
We can settle.
And that leads me to sself-compassion.
Let's make self-compassionreally easy.
Talk to yourself the way youtalk to your favorite person.

(05:50):
Hey, this is hard.
But you can do it.
There's a really thin linebetween self-compassion and
self-pity.
Self-compassion recognizes thedifficulty, the challenge, and
has a little bit of, you can dothis as well.
Self-pity recognizes thechallenge and often is blaming

(06:12):
or complaining that this shouldnot be this way.
So use those post-it notes.
Bad day.
Doesn't equal bad person, badday doesn't mean I'm getting
screwed.
Whatever is the path that youneed to take to self-compassion,
walk it.
It's a really helpful tool tosoften your Inner critic so your
body can reset and the next Eengage perspective ask will this

(06:37):
matter tomorrow?
Next week, two hours from now?
Is this the whole truth?
Had a client walk in a few weeksago to my office, furious that
her mom gave the family China toher sister.
When I asked her, do youactually want the China, she
said, no.
It wasn't about plates.
It was about feeling valued.

(06:58):
She did the Heroic Midlife Act.
She chose to not go there.
Here's the science.
When you take on theperspective, that's really
causing you to be unhappy, it,you engage with it.
It activates your prefrontalcortex, the part of your brain
that makes decisions.
You're literally giving yourbrain a calmer voice to follow.

(07:22):
By the end of the session, myclient said, my sister asked my
mom for the China.
I guess I could think about whatI 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 Ithink is the most helpful, take
the next tiny step, but makesure that step is pointing you

(07:45):
in the direction of wellness.
So you're in the airport and theflight is delayed.
You can spin and think now thewhole vacation is ruined.
Or you can say, what's one smallstep I could take right now that
would nudge me today in a betterdirection?
Simple.
I could go by that magazine andsit and relax and read.

(08:06):
I could walk around the airportand get my steps in for the day,
or I could treat myself to apumpkin spice latte.
One small step in the rightdirection 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 cancerwas incurable, he said, well,

(08:29):
this is good.
At least I know when I'm gonnadie.
If he could reframe death, wecan reframe a bad mourning.
Let me share with you two Hallof Fame resets one of my clients
during tense family dinners.
Instead of getting involved inescalating learn to excuse
herself for the reset, she'd goto the bathroom, clean the sink,

(08:51):
and come back all calm.
That is genius.
Another client, when he wouldfind himself frustrated and
overwhelmed with stress, wouldsay to himself, this is
frustration.
This is stress.
This is my amygdala doing itsjob.
I need to be its boss.
Don't underestimate yourself.

(09:12):
You've handled setbacks manytimes.
The grocery store run with themissing ingredient, the school
pickup, where your kid made youwait.
The long airport delay, you'vedone this before.
It's in you to do it again.
I think the best part of playingaround with reset is this, most

(09:33):
people can find two or threemicro things to do when their
day begins to go bad.
When you play with these microresets, you're going to notice
what works for you.
Then you can build a resetritual for the next time the bad
mood hits.
Let me share with you mine theother day, I came home and we
had some people do some workaround our house and they didn't

(09:56):
sweep up after themselves.
I was pissed.
I didn't wanna come and finishtheir job.
After working all day long, Istarted doing the dishes.
And my mind was spinning for awhile, and then I caught it, and
then I did my reset.
I said out loud, I am having abad night, and I'm turning it
around, which always, for somereason, makes me laugh.

(10:17):
Then I went and got a glass, andI stood by my refrigerator,
filled up the water, took a fewbreaths and stood on one foot.
Then I changed to the other foot60 seconds.
I felt better.
That's my reset.
Simple, repeatable, and itworks.
My Inner Challenge is for you tofind your own reset.

(10:41):
The next time you feel a bad daybrewing, hit reset.
Recognize and reframe.
I'm having a bad day.
Exhale and breatheself-compassion, not self-pity.
Engage your thoughts.
Will this matter tomorrow?
Will this matter this afternoon?
Will this matter next year?

(11:02):
And take the tiny step in ahealthier direction.
I invite you to step into yourpower and to know you can change
your mind, and when you do that,you are taking back your energy.
So those things that need alittle bit more attention in
your life, the schedule to geteveryone out the door, a
follow-up conversation withpeople who are working on your

(11:24):
house, you are going to have theenergy for, because you're not
going to let your bad mood stealenergy from you for the rest of
your day.
In this episode, you discoveredthe science behind bad days.
I introduced you to the copingskill reset to help you name
tame and stop the spiral andencourage you to build a reset

(11:45):
ritual.
So one bad moment doesn't takeover your week.
I Also wanna invite you to checkthe show notes for my one hour
free workshop on Monday, October13th from seven to 8:00 PM The
Good Life versus The AbundantLife.
I had love to have you join me.
And I'll be back on Thursdaywith a follow-up episode.

(12:06):
That focuses on why so many ofus try to push through midlife
anxiety and why that backfires.
Thanks for listening to CreatingMidlife Calm.