Finley – Beat Stress like Batman

By Todd Finley

@finleyt on Twitter

There is a spectacularly successful plan to combat stress that works only if you have the right disposition. Are you the type of person who descends slowly, inch by inch, into freezing water to acclimate to the cold? Or do you prefer to fling yourself into cold water like a polar bear? If it’s the latter, read on.

When midterms and finals week occur, life itself feels toxic. My wife calls midterms and finals “crabby cow time”—prompted when, as a warning and plea for forgiveness, I stuck a photo of a peevish looking cow on my home office door with this message: “This moody cow is not angry at you. He’s a grumpy grader. Sorry! – Love, Todd.” Fifty extra hours of grading produces odd physical side effects that demand attention. Nightly, I soak my swollen writing hand in ice water and battle stress acne with my daughter’s grapefruit Neutrogena.

None of the traditional stress busters worked for me: splitting tasks into chunks, taking short breaks each hour, scheduling the hardest tasks for the morning, staying off social media, praying, practicing GTD, etc. Then last year, while reading a comic book on my iPad, I wondered how Batman would handle midterms and finals-related stress and concluded that he’d seize any opportunity to expand his personal skill set. So that’s what I did.

A few weeks later, when finals week began, I was ready. At the beginning of my first long day, I stored my Adidas gym bag and workout gear in the Toddmobile and pledged that—at the end of a 13-hour work day—I would hit the gym for a body-blasting hour on the elliptical, followed by 30 minutes of free-weights and sit-ups.

My attention shifted profoundly. Instead of worrying about grading responsibilities, I persevered on my self-imposed workout challenge. Would I stick it out? Sure enough, at 8:00 PM, I finished grading for the day, drove across town to the gym, and grinded through the most intense workout of my life.

Two mind hacks helped me push through the workout. First, stealing a technique used by Navy Seal candidates, I told myself halfway into the workout that I had only just started. My dumb brain accepted the premise and I felt instantly energized. Second, when I couldn’t take another step on the elliptical, I interrupted that thought with a serotonin booster: I pictured the faces of everyone who loves me (not a long list) and whispered their names. Before reaching the end of my list, I forgot to be tired.

You can probably guess how I felt driving home that night with my brain marinating in serotonin and dopamine: like King Kong, like Matt Damon racing to the roof in The Bourne Identity, like Batman! “Where’s the grumpy cow?” my wife asked when I came home.

That week, sitting and grading felt like taking a break from the far more intense problem of working out. I was also pleased by a byproduct of the new routine: instead of fretting about upcoming paperwork when away from my desk, I focused on preparing enough nutritious food to make my nightly workouts easier. Then on Saturday, the last day of grading when historically my ability to focus is shattered, I threw in a double workout, hitting the gym at 7:00 AM, grading all day, and then working out again at 7:00 PM because that’s what Batman would do. Consequently, my concentration remained high all day.

So when you’re anticipating work pressure, don’t take half measures. Dominate that stress like a superhero.