Confrontation Mitigation:

Do you remember your last confrontation? Were you as cool as a cucumber while the other party had a case of Verbal Diarrhea ( a running of words from the mouth, that possess no meaning or purpose)? Did you channel your inner ninja and throat punch this person then vanish into the darkness of your cubicle? Confrontation is something we have all experienced and will continue to. There will be and are times when you are unable to evade it, but you are able to control how much you engage in the situation. I am sure we have all been subjected to a verbal confrontation, where the second party's purpose was to be heard but had nothing of value to say. This can definitely set off the best of us. An easy way to mitigate a response triggered by stress is to breathe. If you reference any studies from esteemed scientific journals or colleges, you will see that breathing has an effect on stress levels. A technique I use for this is called Box Breathing. This technique was taught to me and is used by operators across the military. To implement Box Breathing, follow these steps:

Close your eyes. Breathe in through your nose while counting to four slowly. Feel the air enter your lungs.

Hold your breath inside while counting slowly to four. Try not to clamp your mouth or nose shut. Simply avoid inhaling or exhaling for 4 seconds.

Begin to slowly exhale for 4 seconds.

Repeat steps 1 to 3 at least three times. Ideally, repeat the three steps for 4 minutes, or until calm returns.

This technique can be implemented anywhere at any time. Taking the time to employ this exercise during a tense moment, may give you the necessary time to think before engaging in a knee jerk reaction. Stress is real, it can bring about greatness or hinder one’s ability to GET R DONE! So Savages, do not forget to BREATHE and Be Authentik!