Schedule a day at the gym or at the dentist, and odds are you will be a little apprehensive and tense because these outings literally hurt. Schedule a day to find out the results of a medical test or a performance evaluation for one's job and you will also likely be apprehensive and tense because prospective bad news also hurts. Moreover, tension will occur even if these events are slightly uncomfortable. Surnamed the Cinderella Effect after the fairytale character who was first to awaken and last to sleep, mild aversive events and the anticipation of such events cause slight tension, which if sustained recruits other muscle groups to literally take up the slack as the intial musculature gives out through constant use, causing at the end of the day exhaustion and a literal pain in the neck. .
So what's the difference between out examples? In the former case, the physiological discomfort that occurs at the gym or dentist is caused by physical events, and is reduced through simple avoidance (That is, you avoid the pain by simply canceling your dental and gym appointments.) However, the neurological discomfort of incurring loss or regret is caused by mental events, and is also reduced by avoidance of the behaviors they entail. If loss is noticeably painful we ruminate or think (i.e., we worry) about response options which will allow us to reinterpret of avoid bad 'news'. However, if losses are not noticeably painful we will not 'worry' about them, but nonetheless still get progressively more tense. Thus stresses of a day at the office are thus nothing to worry about, since there is nothing one can do about the everyday demands of life. (Or so we think.)
When choices are made that entail small but avoidable loss, tension occurs and will be sustained over time if those losses are continual. Like Damocles squirming under a sword handing by a hair, or a parent with an eye to a toddler mischievously crawling out of sight, successive small negative changes in fortune causes minor muscular tension that 'builds', resulting in exhaustion and discomfort from a stressful day. So what is the solution? It is one of selective avoidance.
How to be relaxed: Postpone or avoid all choices that entail small to significant loss.
This can be done by (1) avoiding all choices, regardless of whether they entail positive loss, (2) by pursuing decisions that entail continuous gain rather than loss, (3) by avoiding choices that specifically entail loss.
The first option is reflective in meditative disciplines (Tai Chi, meditation, Benson's Relaxation Response) that avoid all thoughtful rumination and other physical distractions.
The second option is reflective in creative decisions (paintng, writing, etc.) that only entail positive gain. this reflects a 'flow' experience, where we are immersed in an interesting or challenging activity that tests but does not surpass one's capabilities.
A third option is to radically eliminate or avoid all decisions that entail avoidable loss. By postponing or avoiding for specific times during the day all loss entailing choices or 'distractions' large (thinking about grievances at work or other personal dilemmas) or small (doing work vs. chatting, web surfing, non-essential reading, phone calls, etc.) during a working day, choice or judgement is substantially reduced and relaxation ensues. This option is functionally equivalent to the practice of 'mindfulness', when thought is allowed but judgement is deferred, yet sharply refines the procedure to include only judgements or choices that entail avoidable loss.
Although all of these procedures correlate with relaxation, their success is at least partially attributed to the entirely independent or operative cause of focused attention. Thus mindfulness is conflated with meditation even though restricting attentive focusing or 'meditating' is not a necessary aspect of mindfulness, although it must be noted that meditating itself cannot occur wtihout mindfulness. Specifically, because focusing or otherwise manipulating 'attention' and not reducing choice is attributed as a primary cause of relaxation, it becomes more difficult to envisage how reducing the many judgment decisions we confront daily can be not a complementary but a sole source of relaxation. That is, because focusing attention and reducing judgment are separate independent variables that often occur simultaneously, their respective behavioral correlates can become comingled. Because parsing judgment is confused with restricting attention, it becomes more difficult to ascertain how mindfulness 'works'. More provocatively, if avoidance rather than attention is the main independent measure or correlate to relaxation and tension, then all forms of meditation must be redefined as simply different forms of mindfulness.
The implications of this theory are profound. First, 'demands' do not cause tension and autonomic arousal, or 'stress', choices do. Secondly, if tension depends upon information derived from choice, it follows that tension is changed by the results of choice. Thus tension cannot be a reflexive behavior, but must instead indirectly operate on the environment by changing behavior.That is, it is an 'operant' response. Third, the metaphorical conception of tension and relaxation as the reflexive result of the stimuli of 'demand' or 'attention' is wrong, and must be discarded. In sum, popular and academic explanations of stress are incorrect, and must be substantially revised.
The Cinderella Method
First, a quick reprise of our argument.
Anxiety: The changes in the autonomic nervous system, including an increase in blood pressure, heart rate, hormonal release, sweating, and otherwise bad feelings. Which is caused by:
Tension: Rapid small scale flexion and contraction of the striated musculature, which is caused by:
Irreconcilable Choices: Decision making or judgments between two events that entail avoidable loss. For example, making a choice between two surgical procedures with partial information as to their risk, making the right choices to get the kids on time, and deciding between rational choices and distractive ones such as doing homework vs. chatting on the phone.
Hypothesis: Tension, and hence anxiety occurs as a learned or operant behavior that speeds (but does not enhance) decision making between choices or expedites the avoidance of choices that entail loss. The greater the loss, the greater the tension. Secondly, relaxation occurs when loss entailing choices large and small are deferred or eliminated.
The procedure:
First: Take a mental or physical inventory of all the major and minor judgments in a working day that would entail avoidable loss. These 'distractions' included doing one's work vs. reading the newspaper, watching TV, chatting on the phone, internet surfing, or other diversions as well as judgements that involve personal dilemmas. This would include personal, business, or other decisions that entail loss. This provides a comparative or base rate to which to compare future behavior, and trains you to notice or attend to distractive choices.
Secondly: Set aside fixed times during the day (e.g. 8-12 pm, 1-5pm) when you will completely avoid these choices. If you are stressed out by unavoidable choices, then simply take a time out from all distractoin and sit. Also, take a daily count of the total number of instances a day in which you 'succumb' to distraction.
That's it.
By eliminating these distractive choices from major portions of the day, you can still anticipate them or be aware of them non-judgmentally, but you cannot be stressed by choosing between them. By deferring irreconcilable choices, tension falls, relaxation occurs, and you can go about your day more relaxed, more alert, more productive, and without the painful regret that occurs from a day misspent. Finally, by providing a feedback function to train attention and to compare behavior across days, you can compare corresponding emotional behavior (i.e., tension) across behavior or 'trials', demonstrate the efficacy of the procedure, and be reinforced for the overall effort by that feedback.
What the Cinderella Method Does
The Cinderella Method is essentially a method of exercising a control over tension in its often intial form as a subliminal behavior that escapes conscious awareness. Since for small distractions the proprioceptve stimuli which alert one to tension only indicate the presence of tension after tension has been sustained for some time, the isolation and control of the discriminative stimuli that are correlatred with the intiation of slight or minor tension allow for tension to be avoided before its sustained occurence taxes the musculature and autonomic nervous system. Hence, this method is not a therapy for tension since tension doesn't happen in the first place, but is rather a method of sustaining the natural resting state that occurs when tension is avoided.
Finally, the Cinderella method sharply contrasts with prevalent stress control procedures, which emphasize the modification and control through psychotherapy and other means large scale or molar distractions or problems, such as domestic or other workaday difficulties or demands. The Cinderella method is based on the premise that stress is predominantly caused by small scale or molecular problems or distractions that in contrast to molar problems (e.g. death and taxes) are easily controlled. Because control is easy, time consuming therapeutic intervention is not required.
