The single most important skill in dealing effectively with stress is the ability to turn on the relaxation response, a set of physiological changes that relax us, at will. But as the following story shows, there’s a nasty paradox at work: the more we need it, the harder it is to access.

The Most Wonderful Umbrella in the World

Just out of college, I spent a year in London, where it rained pretty much every day. I decided to buy a good umbrella, which translated for me into the most expensive umbrella I could find. 

And there it was, one day, in a very fancy little umbrella shop (yes, in London a merchant can apparently make a living selling nothing but umbrellas) across the road from the British Museum. It had a fancy folding mechanism which allowed it to expand greatly even though it could fit neatly in my backpack when closed. It sported 10 spokes, two more than your average umbrella.

And it cost 38 British Pounds, which in those days was about $60, which was a heck of a lot of money. But hey, I was single, I was carefree, and I was a dork - so I bought it.

I was really pleased about this umbrella. I opened it and closed it constantly. I counted and recounted the spokes. I picked up lessor umbrellas in department stores to confirm their measly eight spokes. I made sure the folds were smooth when it was velcroed shut, and that the end of each spoke fit neatly inside the handle. 

Naturally, for three days after the purchase it didn't rain. The sky, usually so gray and soggy, mocked me with brilliant blue from morning 'til night. Nevertheless, I still carried the umbrella, swinging it insouciantly (dorkily, actually) everywhere I went.

Then, joy of joys, by early afternoon of the fourth day, the weather turned. Clouds swept in, the wind gusted, and Londoners stopped squinting at the unfamiliar golden orb above them. I was walking to a bus stop, twirling the umbrella Gene Kelly-like, when I felt the rain. A downpour, with no warning!

Instinctively, I protected my most precious possession – my $60 umbrella. I tucked it tightly under my arm, well guarded from the pounding rain, and quickened my pace until I reached the covered stop. It was only then that I glanced down and realized what I had done.

You realized it immediately, didn’t you? You see the irony here – the umbrella’s purpose was to protect me from the rain, and instead…. Yes, I know you get it. I’m the one who didn’t get it.

The Moral of the Story

What does this have to do with relaxation? Here’s the thing: the umbrella is a tool, whose purpose is to keep me dry from falling rain. When the rain began, I was well prepared. I had possession of the tool. The tool worked. I knew how to operate the tool. Yet I wasn’t able to use it to keep dry, precisely because the situation overwhelmed my mental ability to access the tool.

We all have marvelous stress-reducing, relaxing mechanisms inside us. They’re built-in, hard-wired, and they always work. As predictably as a saber-toothed tiger charging at us will trigger the physiological response we call “fight or flight,” certain environmental conditions will elicit our “stay and play” response.

But most humans live in environments where these sights, sounds, feelings and smells are not present on a regular basis. Sunsets, mountain ranges, deserts, oceans, flowing rivers, old forests, lush jungles, colorful meadows, loons singing, owls hooting, that sort of thing.

But luckily, even in our overstimulated world (remember, even a hundred years ago if you wanted to talk to someone you had to be in the same place they were, if you wanted to listen to music you had to make it yourself, and if you wanted to play World of WarCraft online, well, you were seriously out of luck), we still have the capacity to access the relaxation response.

In other tips and articles I’ll be sharing specific techniques, but the important thing to realize is that profound, stress-defeating relaxation is never more than a single thought and a single breath away.

In fact, the easiest time to access the relaxation response is when we’re already relaxed. Once we start getting stressed out, we stop using the complicated parts of our brains and instead rely on our old brain stem, the “reptile” part of the noggin. We lose the ability to think about our thinking – and along with it the ability to change our thought patterns.

It’s like having the world’s most wonderful umbrella – and the stress of a downpour prevents us from opening it above our heads.

That’s why we practice relaxation techniques. So they become ingrained, so when we get stressed out, when we need those techniques, when we’re least able to consciously activate them – we have them as habits, as reflexes.

We can’t stop the rain, but we can all make friends with our wonderful umbrellas.