Here’s a quick technique that helps reduce stress. If anything here is confusing, please post a comment to the blog or contact me directly.
Meet Carol, a manager at Jaberwocky Widgets, who is stressed about having to deliver some bad news to her boss, Lewis. Carol thinks, “Lewis will be soooooo incredibly upset. I don’t want to tell him. But if I don’t, it will be even worse. I’m the manager, and I need to be the bearer of bad news.”
Then Carol learns about the Blah Blah Technique and tries it.
Blah Blah Technique
1. Think about the stressful situation. Then out loud, say what you’re thinking.
Ex. Carol says, “Lewis will be soooooo incredibly upset.”
2. Then convert the syllables into the word “blah” and only say the blahs.
Ex. “Lewis will be soooooo incredibly upset” would convert into the following.
“Blah-blah (two blahs since “Lewis” has two syllables) blah (will) blah (be) blahhhhhhhh (soooooo) blah-blah-blah-blah (incredibly) blah-blah (upset).”
You can see I included the English words in parentheses above to make it easy to follow along. But of course Carol is only going to say the blah words.
3. Practice this three times a day at a minimum. More is even better.
Within a couple of days, the stress will be reduced.
Remember to use the same rhythm, intonation, etc. When you do it, you want to put the same emotion into the blah words as you did the English words.
I have noticed that when a client doesn’t reduce their stress, it’s often because the client didn’t put the same emotion into the blah words as she did with the English words. So when you practice, make sure you get yourself into the stressed emotional state. Don’t just go through the motions. Get yourself upset by talking about the stressful situation! Then use the Blah Blah Technique.
At first it might be awkward having to translate the syllables into blahs. But it gets easier with practice. You can do one sentence in English followed by the translated blahs. Then you do a second different sentence in English followed by the blahs. Or you can speak a few sentences in English, and then do all those sentences in blahs. Experiment with which system works better for you.
If you’ve practiced the Blah Blah Technique for two days and the stress isn’t reduced, feel free to contact me. I’m happy to chat for five minutes to help troubleshoot what’s happening with the technique.