Patricia Ramírez, psychologist: "The best advice to live serenely is to stop running everywhere"

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In her own handwriting, as if a mother were saying it as a

on the fridge, with a fluorescent marker and a ballpoint pen.

The messages of

(Zaragoza, 1971), accompanied by emoticons, are part of the daily life of

.

They faithfully follow the tools and resources that this

proposes to

, not a happier one, she clarifies, because reaching it is a utopia.

"I wish it were possible but it is not a 24-hour pharmacy."

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The psychologist, popularizer, lecturer and writer has just published

(Ed. Grijalbo), a

.

She encourages us to start 2023 by taking charge of our lives in what we can control and relativizing what we can't.

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"Given the incessant search for happiness, I claim

. You will continue to have moments of discomfort, but from a more objective and less intense state," he argues.

Tactics like not getting into the rag, stop ruminating or not speaking ill of anyone.

"Not even yourself."

Why choose serenity over happiness? Happiness is an ephemeral and dependent emotion.

Whoever tells you that you believe it is lying to you.

You are not going to spend 24 hours being happy, because it depends on whether something good appears in your life.

And you can crash into the car going to work because someone was distracted with their mobile.

Or argue with your partner first thing in the morning.

In all these situations you will have other types of emotions, you will feel uncomfortable and frustrated, but you can remain calm.

How?

Getting out of the car with kindness and trying to overcome that bad situation by solving it politely.

Maintaining an adult conversation to avoid clashes with your partner and resolve the disagreement in the best possible way.

Serenity is a lifestyle.

Instead of reacting on a first impulse,

you choose how to respond to the things that happen.

In his new book, he advocates creating an internal value scale to guide oneself, instead of letting ourselves be carried away by external validation.

However, why do we care so much about the opinion of others? It really is important because we live in society.

Otherwise, we would be more reckless, rude, selfish... It helps regulate relationships and promote civility.

But this is different from ruling our lives by what other people like.

You can be altruistic and polite but make decisions that are not approved by others because of your goals and values.

We all grow up in an environment with certain political ideas or stability at work that may not correspond to our concerns.

It turns out that you are an adventurer who loves to travel and be a civil servant, as your parents ask you,

it does not go with you

It is you who must decide about working life, despite the fact that that decision seems reckless and unsafe to them. Does our brain acquire a firmer commitment to what we have to do if we write it down?

Do we free our minds more with a daily task list drawn up the day before? Of course, because this fine motor skills and mind-hand connection allow the brain to better set goals and record them.

Now people are highly encouraged to create a journal, just like in adolescence.

Do you think that writing is so therapeutic? Without a doubt, because writing is an organized behavior.

It has many advantages.

It helps to put order in the tsunami that we have in our heads.

To relativize, because in writing things do not seem as tremendous as when we ruminate and turn it over in our heads.

To organize better.

The theme can be very varied.

I propose, for example, a list of non-negotiables, which are those little activities that allow you to have a day in connection with yourself, that make you feel good.

Or the diary you mentioned, which can be about well-being, where you focus on writing about the good things that have happened to you today and, with this, you work on your spirits and self-esteem.

There are customs that are being installed in us due to the misuse of technology.

Like being at a table having dinner with one person and answering the mobile to others, having three screens open at work dispersing us from the task to be carried out or watching a series while simultaneously responding to Instagram.

How can care be improved? Technology is the great disruptor of our time.

Television already has very attractive stimuli and that makes it capture all your attention,

FOMO), causes you to end up doing several things at once.

Answering the phone while eating, in a conversation with friends or even driving, as if something so serious were going to happen that it couldn't wait at this traffic light.

What we provoke to our brain is that it is overstimulated.

When he then starts to memorize the shopping list or read a book, he loses attention because it is a less attractive or stimulating stimulus.

But is there a way to train attention? There is no trick.

It has to be that you decide that you are going to take care of your cognitive functions.

And that is done by being one thing.

That is, if you sit down to eat, then you sit down to eat.

If you watch TV, don't be on your mobile.

If necessary, take him out of the room or put him in airplane mode.

The same if you are with a book.

Don't neglect your present moment.

It helps a lot, for example,

sport, meditation and sleep hygiene.

They regulate our neurotransmitters, which is why we improve attention with these activities. What is called quality time without technology could be one of those details that cost nothing and can change the day.

Also saying good morning when entering a site or looking into the eyes of a person who is speaking to you.

If it is in our hands that coexistence is better in such a simple way, why are we going like zombies? We can improve the lives of other people with something as simple as what you have said: maintaining eye contact.

It leads the other person to think that you are listening and that you are interested.

You go to a doctor's office and there are people who don't say good afternoon.

Greetings, thanking or smiling to the person who manages you, in short,

Being kind to the Post Office or giving a compliment to people close to you brightens up their days.

Memorizing the name of the person with whom you relate at that moment is also very pleasant for the other person and dignifies life.

How to praise

"How creative you are."

Or to your kids: "I'm loving this talk with you."

These good manners, which were very important before, cannot be lost in a hurry.

They feed the heart and the feeling of belonging. On the other hand, it seems that criticism is more contagious and hate and negativity spread better.

Why, especially in the digital sphere, are things said that we would never say in person? There is a lot of anger and tension in the environment.

People have a tight, corseted life.

We have turned issues that are not important to our lives into battles.

This immediacy leads us to our sympathetic nervous system being activated all day, which is the one that responds to anxiety.

This leads us to misunderstand each other, to attack, to misinterpret, to remove what is contained... By losing serenity, goodness is also lost.

We have to start realizing how important life rest is for our physical and mental health.

And to relate better. Many people are leaving Twitter, among other reasons, due to excessive tension.

Is a social network more toxic than the rest? I don't even enter Twitter anymore.

It seems to me such a violent and aggressive social network that I have decided not to be there.

I don't like the bad mood that prevails.

Another of the great human sufferings is the continuous need for anticipation.

Imagining things that we don't know if they have happened or creating mountains of grains of sand.

Can those kinds of thoughts be neutralized? Our brains are wired to look for danger, and that comes from the caves.

There our lives were at risk but, today, we continue with that same way of interpreting, believing that in this way we are going to control the future.

We think that gives us security.

Hence we go to all catastrophic scenarios.

But it's a lie.

You have to learn to distinguish between useful worries, on which we can act, and useless ones, which cannot.

Give an example of each. A useful concern is a letter from the Treasury.

I have to open it or I may get a surcharge later.

It depends on me.

But if, suddenly, my mother is detected with a tumor, she is being treated and doing everything in her power to take care of her, I have to avoid thinking: "What if she dies?"

"

what we have done so far is the future me from a few months ago.

And we realize that we have not complied with what we said either if we analyze it.

That optimism clouds us for tomorrow. Does it help to be more specific?

For example, I will lose three kilos in six months, instead of losing weight abstractly over time. It's just that we don't set a goal.

We put 10. And of course, we are unable to address all of them because there is no capacity or willpower to attend to so much novelty.

Also, the objectives are too challenging.

On the second day we realize that losing so much weight in the short time we wanted is impossible or that you have yelled at your boy again when you got angry.

You have to be more compassionate and realistic with the objectives and mark the 'daily steps' or baby steps.

Today all day I have not raised my voice.

I'll try again tomorrow, although I won't always be a serene mother, because it's not possible.

Tomorrow something crosses my mind and the reaction is the habit that we have been having all our lives.

Patience and error management from creativity, instead of treating ourselves badly, will make us achieve more. What is between what I want and what I get? A plan.

An action mode.

Because it is written in a list, it will not be fulfilled automatically.

You have to get involved, commit.

What am I going to do, how, to what extent, for how long... Many times we fail because we don't remember. Today it seems that procrastinating is a sin.

Should we allow ourselves moments of doing nothing? Yes, because those moments that seem to waste our time and stress us out make us healthier.

The brain regenerates when you give it a break and not in multitasking mode.

It is like the rest that we ask an athlete for muscle recovery.

Have we internalized that the more things we do, the more productive we are? Productivity is the key to success for us.

And we are come, come, come without rest.

In the end we are so exhausted that, no matter how much we want to do, we don't give up because we neither rest nor produce.

365 tips for living serenely gives one per day of the year.

What is your favorite or essential? I couldn't say a favorite, but if I can only keep one, it would be more rest in life.

The best advice to live serenely is to stop running everywhere.

I don't need to have a tense conversation with my partner yelling if I can talk calmly a little later calmly exposing points of view.

Or catch the bus walking with a ride,

instead of arriving two minutes early at the bus stop with your tongue hanging out so as not to lose it.

Driving calmly would also give us a lot of peace.

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