How to…be calm

Yes, it seems like a tall order. How can there possibly be any real technique to… well, being calm? Often considered the privilege of perpetually chilled philosophical types, people without any feelings, and cactus plants, calmness is something to which we all aspire at some point or another.

Of course, it’s an exceedingly useful tool to employ in order to avoid spontaneous combustion when you find out that a) you completely overestimated your ability to multi-task and are now facing 24-hour revision sessions, b) life hasn’t exactly turned out the way you planned and it’s the wrong time for an existential crisis, or c) your flatmate has consumed your secret stash of Green and Black’s Maya Gold chocolate.

Calm people normally enjoy the best of both worlds. So little fazes them in the first instance, that every problem, every antagonism, every hurdle, is merely part of the larger cosmic picture. “That’s life”, they say, and shrug their shoulders in a nonchalant fashion. “It just wasn’t meant to be” – to which the rest of us reply: “Seriously? That’s your answer to everything? It just wasn’t meant to be?”

Learning to be calm means learning to tolerate people who… are calm. It’s not their fault, we ponder… They were born without any sense of danger. In the fight or flee scenario, they’d simply set up camp and eat Greek yoghurt whilst everyone else scrambles accordingly. Actually, perhaps it’s a good thing not to feel anything one way or another. That way you can’t make any mistakes. Caution always proves its own reward.

Being calm consists not of seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses, but rather of not venturing too far outside your room to avoid being blinded by the glaring rays of reality. Calmness also encompasses turning a blind eye when you repeatedly have to deal with irritating, self-absorbed and spiteful people who seem determined to ruin your life. The trick is to console oneself with the daily recitation that someday, “The meek will inherit the earth”. Dear God, let’s hope so.

Another aspect of remaining calm is to convince yourself that no matter how badly you’ve been treated, that great soothsayer, Mr. Justin Timberlake, was telling the truth when he sang, “What goes around, comes around”. And he should know.

In mastering the art of staying calm one essentially retains their sanity in an existence defined by very troubling facts. >>> One of which is that it’s probably not a good idea to be still awake at 2.23am when you have to get up at 8am for a labour-intensive day of hardcore essaying and fighting innumerable intergalactic battles with people with whom you’d NEVER want to be stuck in a elevator. Naturally, the state of tranquillity is not actually one that, well, comes naturally to most individuals.

Calmness is normally supplemented with artificial stimulants, mostly of the toxic variety, depending on the extent to which they are indulged. Hypnosis is an attractive prospect, although what exactly happens afterwards, we’re not entirely sure. Paul McKenna’s I Can Make You Happy is supposed to be a good place to start.

If that doesn’t work, a good Hollywood musical is normally enough for an afternoon delusion or two. We’d recommend The Wizard of Oz or Singin’ In the Rain.

What happens, though, if you can’t do calm? Nothing really. You just end up ever-so-slightly on edge that you should be feeling calm, because the minute you stop holding your breath you’re probably going to collapse. But that’s nothing a good book (okay, magazine at this rate) and a cup of cocoa can’t cure. Or should that be Horlicks?