← Build with Leila Hormozi
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If you want to be one of those people that can stay calm in any situation, how you reset your nervous system is actually one of the most important skills you can learn. I used to constantly react to everything, and it made me super stressed. But after years of building businesses alongside thousands of entrepreneurs, I have noticed something which is the ones that win are not the smartest. It's the ones that are able to stay grounded when hits the fan. So these are six of my tools that I've used to master my nervous system and start my days with intention. The biggest and most effective ways to be calm is through your breathing. When you control your breath, you can control your state. I know that monitor your breathing sounds basic, but it is not. It's just a lot of people are doing it wrong. And I will tell you guys, like, I'm the biggest skeptic of this. When people are like, you just need to breathe. I was like, shut the up. I am breathing. I'd be dead if I wasn't like. I was like, please don't tell me this. This is dumb as. And then I did it. I was like, you're dumb as. They're not. Most people wait until they're anxious to start breathing exercises, but by then, your system is already hijacked. So I use breath work, like a reset button throughout the day between calls. Mid afternoon, I'll take five minutes and just breathe. I do the pattern of, like, four seconds in, hold for four, eight seconds out. What this does is controlling your breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system, increases your vagal tone, which directly counters the stress response. Now, the extended exhale is key because it signals to your body that you're safe, which lowers your heart rate and blood pressure. And it's fairly simple practice. So I just look up on my Spotify a metronome, 60 beats per minute, and that's like, okay, 15 minutes. And I'm like, boom. I. I go. It even happens when, like, I wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare or a stressful thought. And I'll do it, and it'll help me reset so I can fall back asleep faster. And the cool thing with this one is that you actually feel it working in real time. You become less tense. Your jaw will often release. A huge thing I noticed is that within, like, two to three minutes of doing it, I start yawning, which means it's really working because it's like, oh, it's safe enough to relax now if you want to start doing this, the goal isn't to never feel pressure as a human. The goal is to teach your system how to come back from faster. And so what you'll notice is as you start to learn this and as it really becomes second nature to you, you'll start using it when you feel stressed to regulate yourself. You'll just start breathing deeply and slowly because you know it will regulate you. You taught your body that skill, so how can you use this? The next time that you find yourself feeling tense or scattered, stop what you're doing and just do this for 60 seconds. And I promise you, if you do it consistently, even just once or twice a day, you will notice that stressful moments start to dissipate faster. Because stress is really just a feeling in the body. Like, how do you know you're stressed? You feel something in your body. If you can change that through something that's not your mind, but it's through your body, then that's great, because it's like, now you've given yourself time to also change your mind. I wouldn't be so caught up in sticking to some perfect routine or doing it in some way that stresses you out more. Do what works for you and find a time, a place, or practice that feels easy because it feels easier, and keep doing it. If you keep doing, you're going to get results. The next up is meditation. I know what you're thinking, but I'm gonna just tell you guys right now. Probably wouldn't have guessed this, but I'm not a meditation guru. I've only been meditating for, like, five months now. And I've had great results with the practice. I've meditated in the past and done it consistently at different times in my life. But recently I picked it up back up again and I started meditating because I would wake up with a sense of urgency because I have very full days most of the time. And so it'll create somewhat of, like, anticipatory anxiety knowing that you have, like, a very full day with a lot of different variants and activities. And. And so how do you kind of get ahead of that and stay more present in the moment? And so I said, okay, well, I don't want my day to rule me. I don't want this, like, the busyness of my life to rule how I feel when I wake up. I kind of feel like what it is, is, like I wake up and I'm in that more elevated state, which is natural, because the two hours before you wake up, you start raising your cortisol levels so that you will wake up, but sometimes it elevates even more because you have other stressful things. Your body's under more chronic stress. What I start doing is the first thing I do when I wake up is I just start meditating. For me, what that means meditating is that I have an app where I will pick a meditation. For the first three months, I did about 30 to 40 minutes a day, and now I'm doing like 10 minutes a day because I feel like I've gotten experienced enough that I can get into that state in a faster, like, much quicker than I would in the beginning. Now, it was not easy. I would say, like, the first month, I don't even think I did it right. But I thought about what I wanted long term, and I was like, I really want to learn how to do this and do it in a way that's good. And so what I realized through doing it is, like, it's not something that you're going to see the results from immediately. And I think, like, you can feel calm immediately, but it is really something that is to train your brain to slow down and your body to slow down in moments where it wants to speed up. And so for me, when I realized, like, what's the pinnacle point of my day? It's when I wake up in the morning, it's like, immediate. Get out of bed. Go, go, go. And I was like, oh, I don't like that. I want to be more intentional. I want to, like, I want to be a little bit more in control of my day or how I show up when I first wake up. That's why I just decided to do it right when I'm just already in bed. And if your cortisol is chronically elevated, then your body's on high alert, which tanks your decision making, makes you feel like. I know that I have a lot of chronic stress in my life, just by the way of which I've chosen to live my life, which I'm aware of. And so I've put different mechanisms into my day to try and combat that, to, like, bring me to a good baseline so I'm not in that fight or flight. My job requires a lot of decision making. Emotions go up, decision making goes down. And so I try to do a lot of things to regulate my emotions. It's really like, I start my day by showing my brain who's in control rather than being ruled by it. And so if you never tried it, start small, maybe do two minutes, sit, breathe, realize that you don't know what the you're doing, a bunch of stuff's gonna pop up and just like, don't worry about doing it. Right. The goal is not to not have thoughts. It's just to notice those things and not react to them. And what you'll see is that, like, the more that you practice doing this, the easier it gets. And so, like, I know meditation is a tool and a buzzword that a lot of people talk about, and I don't think it's magic by any means, but it definitely makes me feel steadier and calmer on a daily basis. The next point I have is phone boundaries. If you want to stay calm, you need to protect your mental inbox. I have gone through different phases where I've done different things with my phone. And I will tell you now, I do not touch my phone in the bed in the morning, and I pause all my notifications at night so I'm not tempted to check something when I'm trying to wind down. I try to make sure that I complete my own work before I step into other people's work. I have a lot of other people's work that I have to do that gets put on my plate so I can move the business forward. But I also have my work, which if I do not protect that time to do my work, their work becomes my work. And it takes my work's time. And then my work gets done on the weekends for 12 hours each of my days, which I don't like doing. I have to focus on what's important, not just what is urgent or today's news for somebody else. So do I break this? Yes, sometimes I do. I check my phone. Sometimes I stay up late on slack. Sometimes I just won't even notice these things. Like, it'll turn on to my do not disturb. And then I'm like this turn back on. But I always notice the same thing, which is like, if I do that, I'm less sharp and I'm more scattered. If you check your phone first thing in the morning, you just go into react. You're responding to other people's requests of you. And it kind of shifts you into being in control of your day, to constantly alert and reacting to other people. Because every time you scroll, you're essentially spiking your dopamine. And with dopamine, also, cortisol follows. And so you're kind of conditioning your brain to expect stimulation rather than focus when you want to focus on important things or when you want to wind down. That is very hard to do when you're Stimulating those pieces of your brain. Something that you could do is you could try. If this sounds interesting tomorrow morning, just before you reach for your phone, just use a notebook instead. Write down three priorities for the day, three things that matter to you, or keep your phone on do not disturb so you don't get the notifications. And the second thing you do is just pause your notifications an hour before bed. You don't need to be on call for the world 24 7. Just an hour before bed. Just turn them off. I really think that this one boundary between, like, your thoughts and everybody else's desires of you is like the simplest way to just protect your focus and your peace of mind. Especially if you're like me. I'm definitely like a people pleaser. Like, I like to see people happy and help them be happy. And then I'll be like, oh, but I'm not happy. So, like, it's my responsibility to make sure I take care of myself, nobody else's. That does bring me to my next point, which is also about the phone, which is why I leave my phone on do not disturb. I don't know what people have texted me while I've been in here filming. And yes, my family and friends hate it. My dad called me and asked me to make him an emergency so he can get through because he's worried that something happens and he calls me and he can't get through. It's a whole thing with my family because they know that I don't check it. The truth is, most things feel urgent, but they're not actually urgent. They're just loud. Someone has an emotion and then they go to text you or slack you or whatever. It's like impulsive and that's rough. I don't like dealing with that. When my phone is like pinging and I'm letting other people steal my momentum, I'm just in this reactive mode. And then I start getting resentful. It's not just reactive, it then turns into resentment. But what's easier is if I just don't see it in the first place. And so for a lot of you who don't have the bandwidth, or I would say, like impulse control to resist responding if you don't see the responses. By being on do not disturb means that you only go to check something when you're ready to check it. And again, I'm not perfect with this. There are times where, you know, I'm going to pick something else, I'm going to take it off. Do not disturb. I'm going to, you know, have it off because there's something time sensitive I'm handling. But that's the exception. It's not my default. I decide when I'm going to engage in a conversation, not when somebody wants to engage with me. This is a really important reset because every little notification is like a tiny little stress signal. Our brains don't really know the difference between like a slack ping, a text message, and like a fire alarm going off. It just knows that there's something interrupting you. And I don't think it's about like disconnecting from people and being like a freaking hermit. I think it's about keeping your focus on what matters and you being present with your life. And so for me, turning on the do not disturb is a great way to do that. I don't want to make someone think I'm ghosting them, doing this, doing that. And so like, I also think about how to message it in a way that's kind of, you know, we don't want to punish people by like ignoring them. We want to be kind. Which is why things like in a workplace, you have a slack, you can put an away message that's kind because then people know why you're not responding. In, you know, personal life, you can't really do that. So it's like you kind of just gotta let people know or make them the exception. Either one, pick two or three windows during the day when you'll check messages and put it on your calendar. Outside of that, unless you want to have like an actual texting conversation, just keep your phone on. Do not disturb. When I work out, I wear noise canceling headphones and I do not play any music. I have my phone on do not disturb and I just work out in silence. A lot of people do podcasts and music or something to distract them, but I've actually found that I really like working on silence. Having absolutely nothing because I'm really fully engaged in what I'm doing. I've realized that it allows me to really focus on the movement. I engage my muscles more, I breathe properly and like, I'm just so much more present. I'm not thinking about other things and I really like that. So then I come out of my workout, not like I've just worked out my mind, but also like very calm. It's just a different energy when I'm doing it. It's very intentional rather than like, just like, I don't know, like brute force energy. Training in silence turns like a physical workout into almost like A mental one. You're not just strengthening your body, you're also strengthening your ability to focus, your ability to be present, your ability to stay calm under pressure. It's not really this just like, mindset fluff stuff. It works very similarly to the way meditation does and actually feels very meditative when you're doing it because it's being present to and focused at the same time. And that activates the same stress regulation systems as meditation does. It's another way that you basically show your nervous system that you don't have to elevate no matter what's happening on the outside. I've just noticed when I do this, it has set me up for, like, such good days. I'm way more calm. I'm really locked in. I feel focused. I also like to walk in silence as an alternative on days that I'm not doing that. And that as well has been, like, very helpful for me. Just zero stimulus. You'd be surprised. It's almost like when you get done doing something where you just have no inputs. It's like you almost feel like you took a nap. It's like sometimes people like, oh, I need to take a nap. I'm like, are you tired or are you just, like, fatigued? What I would say is I would just try this next workout. Just don't play music. The next tool to reset is moving. I don't think that you can think your way to calm. I think that you can move your way there much more easily. Movement for me is my reset button. It's how I shift gears when my mind doesn't want to slow down. This can be during the day or it can be before bed. I move throughout the entire day to keep my energy flowing. And I have three setups. I have standing, sitting, and walking. And I rotate between them because when you change position, you change focus. Like, sometimes I forget. And I will sit for three hours straight. Like, even I'll be honest, recording these videos, it's the most. I sit, I don't sit, I stand, I walk, I sit and I alternate. If I sit for too long, I get tired. But when I do move, even for five minutes, it can keep your energy up. You stay sharper, and you don't get, like, locked into one mental mode. It's kind of the same thing. Like I do at night. I would go on a walk, then I would take a shower, and then I would stretch. I, like, go to a quiet place. I put something in the background, usually, like, some nice jazz music. And then I stretch and that's like, before bed, and it's like a nice transition. And so for me, I've realized that a lot of tools to change states, to reset your nervous system, to go and get prepared for something next that you're doing is to change your positioning. This is why, for me, during the day when I'm working, I like to change positions a lot. You know, I think sometimes people just feel weird about that kind of stuff. They're like, oh, is it weird that you sit, stand during meetings, or walk? I'm like, I mean, only if you think it's weird. I just don't care that much about judgment. I care more about being healthy. I think a lot of people treat movement like something that you only do for fitness, but I see it like something that I can use to make my life better in all ways. Because when I move, I'm releasing physical tension that builds up. It's like from sitting in that go mode all day. Because light movement of the body signals safety. So there's a lot of studies shown on, like, people, if they start walking forward and even just like, looking at their surroundings will instantly reduce their anxiety and cortisol. When you stretch, when you walk or you change posture, telling your nervous system, I'm not trapped, I'm safe. And that one shift can, like, pull you out of a day of being in fight or flight faster than any kind of, like, journaling or anything else ever could. If you just do, like five minutes of walking or stretching, you can feel so much better than an hour of scrolling on your phone. Let's just say every hour, try and move for at least one minute. Stand, stretch, refill your water, go pee. Just don't let your body and brain lock into that one position for too long. And then at night, make your movement the off switch. Whether it's like a short walk, doing some stretching, deep breathing, you will notice that your body will unwind before your mind catches up. And if you pair this with the next one, the results will be even better. I use these tools because they help me feel and perform better, feel calmer and more clear. They are simple things that stacked up to help me build success over time. And if you like this video, do not forget to hit subscribe and watch this next video.