MAY 7, 2023 | EYEWORLD DAILY NEWS | 17
ASCRS ANNUAL MEETING
DAILY NEWS
them? "No, because sometimes the
things that are easy to do are just as
easy not to do."
Editors' note: The speakers do not
have financial interests related to their
comments.
stressing about things make it go
away? Does ingesting bad energy
into it change anything? Yes, she
said, it changes you—your body
chemistry and physiology.
"Every time we practice doing
something either constructive or de-
structive, we get better at it because
we're shaping the structure of our
neural networks and brain," she said.
"Therefore, when we practice wor-
rying, the worry circuits of our brain
are reinforced."
Ms. Carlson challenged wheth-
er we want to be laying down new
neural pathways to help us get better
at something that is bothersome. She
later shared data from a meta-anal-
ysis of 61 studies that involved
221,000 people, which showed that
health was predicted more by the
absence of pessimism rather than
the presence of optimism. In other
words, it's about making sure you
don't assume the worse, she said.
Providing more techniques
that can help reset your mindset in
moments of stress, she mentioned
breathing techniques, which can
reset the parasympathetic nervous
system, meditation, practicing her
5x5 rule (if something is not going to
matter in 5 years, don't invest more
than 5 minutes being upset. Be upset,
then let it go), take breaks, and prac-
tice a physical anchor (a movement
that can interrupt the pattern in your
brain to reset your mindset).
A lot of these things, we know to
do, Ms. Carlson said, but do we do
Ms. Carlson speaks about stress management
at the ASOA Opening General Session.
