Our nervous system is equipped to consistently scan our environment for threats. This used to be beneficial for us in the Savannah. The problem with modern day living is that we are consistently being alerted to the proverbial Tiger in the bush through every notification we receive.
This creates a series of mini fight, flight or freeze responses, which is barely noticeable but adds to a sense of overwhelm and anxiety and leaves us in a reactive state. Add to this, life is innately challenging. We have to not only deal with small "threats", but also bigger things and events that happen globally, to us personally, or those close to us.
So what can we do - other than retreat to a cabin in the mountains without Wifi, which is an enticing yet entirely impractical idea for most of us? What can we do to make our lives a little less hectic while actually continuing to live and deal with everyday demands?
A practice of centering is one way to signal back to ourselves that we are safe. When we tell ourselves that something is not actually that stressful or that we shouldn't be so anxious, our body will not just follow suit. We are precisely as anxious as we feel in this moment, and thinking we shouldn't be is not going to change that. I found starting with the body to be more helpful. By practicing to pay attention to what it is doing as a response to situations, I develop a physical reference point that I can recover to. I develop tolerance for discomfort and give myself space. Basically it goes something like this: I get stressed anyway - so I might as well be centered and stressed. I know that I will make better choices that way.
There are a lot of ways to practice centering. Some click more for me than for others and vice versa. A simple centering practice that I like doing takes only a couple of seconds. You begin by uplifting your posture, then get a sense of gravity by letting your jaw, shoulders and core drop and then shift your attention to be equal in the front and the back of the body for balance. Our attention - because our primary mode of perception is visual - usually lies in the front, so this is often quite the shift for me. I then pause to notice the response in sensation.