Combating Future Shock

As we move into the twenty-first century, North American business is reeling from the magnitude of extraordinary and unprecedented change. Never before have individuals (or organizations) been asked to adapt as rapidly as those of us living and working in the third millennium.

New operating systems and technologies proliferate and, just as we get a handle on them, they are superseded by new and improved models. Systems, structures and organizations today change almost as rapidly as the flow of digital information that now propels us into "the brave new world" of instantaneous global communication.

It seems trite to repeat once more the maxim that change is the only constant. But it's true. To illustrate the scale of change we have been subjected to over the last decade, let me ask you to first play a game.

I would like to give you a penny on the first day of the month, two pennies on the second day, four pennies on the day after that, then eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, doubling in number every day from the beginning of the month to the end of the month. The question for you is when would you like to play this game (and receive all these pennies) - during the month of June or the month of July?

If you chose June, you would receive a truckload of pennies, worth an astonishing $5.4 million. If you wonder how that very large sum of money emerged from pennies doubling every day over just thirty days, reflect on the fact that if you chose July, with thirty-one days, an extra day and an extra doubling, you would receive double the pennies, worth precisely $10.8 million.

Pennies doubling for thirty days is as follows: $.01, .02, .04, .08, .16, .32, .64, 1.28, 2.56, 5.12, 10.24, 20.48, 40.96, 81.92, 163.84, 327.68, 655.36, 1,310.72, 2,621.44, 5,242.88, 10,485.76, 20,971.52, 41,943.04, 83,886., 167,772., 335,544., 671,088., 1,342,176., 2,684,532., 5,368,704., 10,737,408.

This is an example of exponential or geometric growth, where the numbers at the beginning are small and insignificant, but suddenly become larger and larger, faster and faster. One day at the beginning of the month means only one penny; one day at the end of the month means $5.3 million!!

It is important to understand the concept of exponential growth because it can provide you with profound insight into perhaps the most significant issue of our time. It is not that change is happening faster; it is happening exponentially. In just about every aspect of life!

Garbage in our cities is growing exponentially and many urban areas have suddenly run out of landfill sites. Computer chip performance has been growing exponentially over the past two decades so that today little chips of silicon the size of the nail on your little finger can now process billions of calculations per second. The world's population has been growing exponentially: in 1850 the population was one billion; in 1950 it was 2 1/2 billion; today it is well over 6.7 billion; within thirty years it will likely be ten or eleven billion. (It is growing by the size of The USA every three years). Illnesses like heart disease and AIDS have been growing exponentially. The surprisingly disappearance of 90% of the large fish in the world's oceans by factory fishing are examples of how quickly explosive exponential numbers can appear seemingly out of nowhere.

I spent all this space discussing the concept of exponential growth only to illustrate one vital point. If you don't appreciate the way large numbers are generated in the way we have been discussing, it would be almost impossible to understand that, as a culture, we have experienced more change in the last ten years than all of the changes that have happened in all of history, from the beginning of time until ten years ago!

And if you thought that the last ten years were challenging enough, wait - you ain't seen nothing yet! The next ten years threatens to make the last ten years look slow. With the exponential developments in telecommunications, artificial and amplified intelligence, expert systems, genetic engineering, globalization, the mapping of the human genome, it is predicted that the world ten years from today will be more different from today than today is different from 100 years ago.

But, the physiologists tell us that our bodies have not changed in any noticeable ways since we were hunters and gatherers dwelling in caves. The gap between the slow evolutionary development of our bodies and minds is in contrast with the dramatic and extraordinary revolution in our technology and culture. This places a particular demand for adaptation on every single body which research suggests is perhaps greater than that which our bodies are built to handle. Alvin Toffler identified this problem more than thirty years ago. He called it "future shock". Today the strain created by the inability to adapt quickly enough is called stress and it is a major cost to both individuals and organizations.

There is no way to avoid the stress of change. You cannot say "stop the world I want to get off". There is, however, a practical strategy which can enable people to better coexist with these unusual demands to deal with change, a proven way to develop resilience, a way to renew and replenish individual and organizational strength. It has been called "the relaxation response".

Identified by a Harvard Medical School cardiologist in the early 1970's, this innate mechanism can be activated by just about everyone once they are shown how. When accessed, it creates a state of rest and recuperation that is deep enough to undo the effects of too much stress, from whatever the sources, and prevents stress from building to create illness and poor performance.

It is possible to handle the stresses and strains of the electronic workplace and the world of hyperchange. It is inexpensive and practical for everyone to learn simple but effective breathing techniques, tension release methods and mental success skills which can measurably reduce blood pressure and heart rate, cholesterol, insulin and blood sugar levels, strengthen the immune system, naturally slow your brain waves down to the creative and healing alpha and theta frequencies, improve the flow of oxygen to your brain leading to better thinking and memory, and a whole host of other benefits from preventing heart disease to improving your golf game.

If this sounds too good to be true, rest assured that there are volumes of research supporting these claims. Proper deep relaxation, a clinically proven way to combat today's stresses, is recognized as one of the essential life skills for the twenty-first century, a basic survival skill, for those who wish to thrive in the unusually demanding times which lie ahead.

Eli Bay, the founder and director of the Relaxation Response Institute in Toronto is a corporate trainer, professional speaker and host of two award-winning public television series teaching practical stress control. He can be reached at elibay@elibay.com or (416) 932-2784.