Emotional Up regulation
How to mood regulate and uplift your emotions to build mental resilience.
I live in Singapore, a busy city-state and one of the richest countries in the world. Yet 92% of Singapore's work force face stress and they bring it home to their loved ones and families. 83% of NUS students (a top-tier local university ranked top #26 globally) surveyed expressed significant levels of stress. In our busy city life, we need to do what we do to survive and thrive.
Yet, can there be a better way? How might we develop the inner resilience to mood regulate and be emotionally up-regulated?
This site explores the approaches of how may we as a community thrive in stress and develop stronger relationships and inner harmony from such learning opportunities.
Mental resilience takes time and effort to be aware of our negative thoughts and beliefs, our bodily reactions to stressful or anxious moments, and to reframe positive mindsets about feeling the anxiety as a tool to serve us better.
Meanwhile here's a tool by Calm3d which uses immersive experiences for emotional regulation and to calm down while at work or study.
Mood Regulation App On Demand
In the movie Soul, lead character Joe Gardner's passion in music and persistence in being a musician brings him both consolation, allowing him to feel uplifted and in flow state.
The external validation or feedback on his playing the piano determined initially how he was also similarly thrown into a state of desolation and despair when the results weren't to his desired outcome.
How is it that some of us, like Joe (before he found joy in his talents and learned to love himself), find it harder to mood regulate and uplift our emotional states than others?
Our brain requires practice, honed into habits of self-regulation before our feelings can be balanced out. Having resilience takes time. Meanwhile there is hope. Hope of an on-demand app for calming down and regulating intense feelings.
A Singapore startup Calm3d understands that students and employees face stress and anxiety daily. We have learned to be diligent and skilled for the work that we do, or in our academic pursuit. Yet while we train to be productive and skilled, how many of us learned to be resilient and able to handle stress?
I didn't learn any of that in my school days. Perhaps the time is now, post Covid-19 that presents us this opportunity to grow and develop sustainably.
92% of employees in Singapore are stressed
Employees face work stresses and heavy demands at work. In Singapore, the busy peak hour commute does not help us in preparing a safe space to recharge going to work and getting off work.
Hence it is unfortunate that the stress begins at home in the mad rush to work, and after work, when emails and texts come during family time.
The toxic three of Stress, Anger and Anxiety from work is a common recurring pattern. From there, we spin thoughts that are less than ideal, and they compound each time the thought recurs until it forms a negative belief about self, which is spiralling as a circular reinforcing pattern.
As we begin to be aware, this site aims to promote stress relief practices for employees in Singapore, so that they become more resilient.
Music Playlist To Relieve Stress
Listen to relaxation music for stress relief and healing at work and study. We have curated the music in this playlist to fit your mood and help ease your stress from our selection of calming music playlists on Youtube.
Classical music for work (https://youtu.be/Z8uvPLsah0s)
Lofi calming beats (https://youtu.be/lLmFehmW_KQ)
Calming tunes with spectacular views of Singapore (https://youtu.be/8DLkVLZCZNU)
Can music relieve stress?
Research in the use of music for stress relief and mood regulation is available on www.thisfeelinghuman.com/relaxing-music. In summary, soothing music can help calm a person down and reduce cortisol levels and heart rate.
In a Stanford research, music (which are at a slow paced 60bpm) can cause the brain waves to sync with the beat and induce a relaxed and conscious state. This is commonly refered to as alpha brainwave calming music which is widely available on YouTube and Spotify.
Here's a list of articles by Stanford University relevant to this topic of music and how it changes our body - research on music.
A common CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) technique for calming down involves being mindfully aware of the surroundings.
Mindfulness is about staying present using our mind to focus on the sensorial experiences, a thought or a word to anchor the mind.
Practitioners use the breath to be aware of being present and that focus on breathing continues through even while typing emails, running spreadsheets or reading research material at work.
A Singapore startup Mindfi helps employees to form habits of mindful meditation and breathing exercises. Mindfi's founder once suggested to me besides sitting still, eyes closed, there are many ways to achieve being mindful.
Here are mindful micro habits that can help calm a stressful day at work.