Day 9: Ritual Is The Antidote to Anxiety
A ritual is a prescribed set of actions that are done consistently in an intentional order.
Human beings have used rituals since the dawn of time to denote meaningful moments, worship for desired outcomes and to collectively create meaning. If you're like me the word 'ritual' may lead you to visualise archaic practices; rites that ancient societies with pharaohs performed to send messages to ancestors and ask for help with good crop. Rituals are not grounded in science and often have very weak logical reasons for being performed. Societies have evolved around rituals seen in weddings, funerals and cultural holidays (to name a few) and in many ways, these practices connect us by helping give us a strong foundation of attachment to each other. They generate meaning, in the otherwise linear and mundane life.
What we may not realise, is rituals are beneficial for encouraging desired behaviours. They can exist on an individual level, and we can intentionally utilise them to ground and prepare us for events in our lives.
Rafael Nadal's pre-serve ritual (bum pick, hair, nose, hair tap), does not determine how the set will go or control the upcoming situation in any way. Yet it can be witnessed being performed in every one of his games. And while it may seem superficial, and maybe funny to us as a viewer - it may actually be having a positive affect to the outcome of the game. Rituals can help ground and re-centre our focus and attention.
With all the self help books and biohacking trends around, and as much as modern society tries to have us believe, our brains are not computational machines. We are not always making decisions on logical judgement and reason. Anthropologists refer to our brains are predictive machines, as we are constantly making judgement calls and decisions based on survival and needs. In a world that is constantly changing and uncertain, rituals provide us with structure and predictability. An anchor.
Rituals provide predictability and this helps alleviate anxiety.
So how can we effectively use rituals in our lives to reduce anxiety? By adopting rituals in our daily lives, we can reduce the impact that uncertainty has on our brains. These are some areas in life you can adopt rituals to provide comfort and predictability of what is ahead.
Rituals to build mindfulness: Try adopting a morning ritual can help set you up for success. Or an evening ritual that will encourage winding down and good sleep. Some examples are incorporating breath-work or body stretches to mark the moment.
Rituals for physical health: Going to the gym or a nice walk, often requires strong will-power and the effort of planning. You can generate a ritual of playing your favourite tune, or get yourself energised with some star-jumps of power poses to get you ready.
Rituals to help flow: If you have a work task due or a creative block coming up, try creating a ritual framing the activity. This could be a stretch or movement. Even using a space purely for the work/creative block, can be a ritual as the act of moving into that space is tied to specific output. This can help to get into a mindset to focus and forget about the other things on your mind.
There is no prescribed ritual for any of these scenarios, allowing each of us to design a set of actions that have meaning for us. It is the consistent act of performing the activity will help to ground us and navigate into the next moment. By incorporating these activities into our days, we are allowing less time for anxiety or uncertainty to creep in.
