The Secret to Staying Calm When Life Gets Crazy, According to Psychiatrist
Dr. Daniel Amen created a simple hack to maintain his cool.
"Keep calm and carry on," is a popular saying for a reason: Life can get hard, and when it does, it can be hard to maintain composure. According to a recent stress survey, 74% of people have felt so stressed they have been overwhelmed or unable to cope in the last year alone. Luckily, mental health experts have developed methods to deal with everyday stress. Daniel Amen, MD, a world renown doctor and best-selling author, recently shared a simple hack for dealing with stress when life gets crazy, and it is going viral for all the right reasons.
In a recent TikTok, Amen explains that even he experiences stress, usually as a result of little things that go wrong in his life. It could happen while traveling or moving to a new home. However, he created a little rule for himself, he calls the rule of 12.
The Rule of 12, "is something I teach all of my patients. I want to talk about the rule of 12," he starts off the video.
"It is something I teach all of my patients and it really honors the fact that [bad stuff] happens. You just have to be okay with it," he continues.
He explains that he created the rule while traveling. "I first came up with it a couple of years ago when we went to Europe for two weeks to celebrate Tana's 50th birthday. And I went, 12 things are going to go wrong," he said.
However, knowing that not everything would go his way he made a decision, so he wouldn't ruin the trip. "I'm not going to get angry or scream or yell or become a jerk until the 13th thing goes wrong," he said.
As expected, not everything went his way, he revealed. "Indeed, six things went wrong and I didn't get upset at all," he said.
Recently, a major life change forced him to modify his own rule. "Well, these past couple of weeks we've been moving and it's now the rule of 18," he confessed.
The moral of the story? Understanding that not everything will go your way is the first step in protecting your mental health. "The more you honor the fact that difficult things happen and you can roll with it, the more psychologically healthy you are," he added.
Dr. Amen has a whole book devoted to daily habits that "can help you improve your brain, master your mind, boost your memory, and make you feel happier, healthier, and more connected to those you love."
