Post No.: 0841
Furrywisepuppy says:
Stressing about stress isn’t helpful(!) This logically creates a vicious cycle. So we’ve firstly got to accept that a situation is or will be stressful if it is or will be. And we’ve got to accept that we’re stressed rather than deny that we are when we are. We can then reframe our fuzzy nervousness as a sign that we care to do a great job and that this feeling can energise us to deliver that great job.
It can help to realise that we don’t get emotional about something just because it happens – we get emotional, such as angry, because of what that something means to us. And we often make more of a situation than we need to, which can lead us to do something we might later regret. Like how the philosophy of stoicism teaches – you can reframe events that happen by asking yourself ‘are things really that awful right now?’ And in turn ‘am I making more out of this than I need to?’ Slow down to give yourself time to think before you potentially escalate matters and create a situation where you truly make things dire, right now. When you’re calmer, you’ll make better mid and long-term decisions too. Aggression begets aggression in a vicious cycle, so try not to get to a state of anger in the first place, like by lowering your expectations and noticing more of the good around you that you may have taken for granted.
It can feel more nervous spectating than playing in a sports match because all that adrenaline isn’t being spent on action, so if you feel this way in this or any other similar context – get up for some walkies (go for a walk). Post No.: 0826 presented a plethora of other tips to rapidly calm down and reduce your tensions. If your anxieties relate to something that you can personally contribute to make a difference to – then use this energy to help make a difference where you can.
Shared stresses don’t feel so terrible, thus it helps to know that you’re not alone. However, this can be why it can be actually depressing to hear good news in other people’s lives, because if you feel left out of an upturn in your own fortunes, you can feel even more alone. Gatherings where people share with each other their own stories of pains can thus be therapeutic rather than ‘extra depressing’.
Stress exacerbates the pain of most physical maladies, from toothaches to tumours. Of course in these cases this doesn’t mean that stress is the root source of pain – so one should try to identify and resolve the root source, either by dealing with or accepting it, in order to resolve one’s stress.
A nervous breakdown is like shutting down after experiencing too much stress. This is hypothesised to be a self-defence mechanism to prevent further damage being done? Whatever the truth, they tend to be short-lived for most people if one can take a break from the stressors; albeit one will become more prone to future nervous breakdowns.
Traumatic stress comes from events like break-ups, injuries or witnessing war firsthand. But there’s also chronic stress, which can come from persistent sources of stress over a long time, like debts, tyrannical in-laws, constant deadlines or caring for a sick parent. The ‘fight or flight’ response is constantly on and stress hormones are continually being pumped around the body. You’re thus incessantly twitchy, tense and tetchy. You might then enter a ‘stress cycle’ or vicious cycle of stress if you repeatedly gravitate towards alcohol or junk food for some temporary relief because this could produce further health problems and thus more stress, and so forth.
Things that directly heighten stress include a lack of control or options for action, great uncertainty or unpredictability, a sense of helplessness, and important things that you feel you cannot do anything about. It’s fatiguing, you feel constantly on edge and are expecting the worst at any moment. Pressure increases motivation, focus and productivity – but only up to a point (‘Yerkes-Dodson law’).
Poverty is undoubtedly stressful too. There are plenty of vicious cycles that are hard to escape from if one is poor. One vicious cycle is that – because pain feels worse when one is feeling sad, depressed, anxious or not very hopeful about the future (things that poverty can make one constantly feel) – poor people are more likely to experience worse sensations of pain plus experience pain chronically. Everyone knows that a paper cut or stubbed toe feels worse when one is otherwise stressed-out or unhappy, so people in poverty are more likely to experience worse pains for the same initial physical or mental conditions than people who aren’t in poverty. This’ll in turn contribute to a greater likelihood of substance abuse and addiction amongst the poor, and therefore even worse prospects in life.
So poor or otherwise stressed people aren’t faking or exaggerating it. Anyways, whenever we see patterns emerge and something appears to be a systemic problem (like that it’s the poor who seem to be more addicted to opioids) then we must look at the system for the causes and solutions rather than blame the individuals in that system. (It’s just like if a disproportional number of students in a particular class seem to be failing then we must look at the teacher and/or the school more than blame those individual students.)
People who cannot afford to pay others to babysit their children or must work multiple jobs, for instance, are obviously time-pressured. Yet people with high incomes often perceptually feel short on time too. Even just feeling rich can make people feel more rushed. One possible explanation for this is that the value of one’s time goes up e.g. if each hour one isn’t working seems like €100 lost then each hour lost seems more stressful than if one earned less (due to loss aversion, where we have a tendency to focus more on what we’ll stand to lose than what we’ll stand to gain); and, no matter how much we earn, we’ve all only got 24 hours per day.
This means that perceptions of time pressure are somewhat psychological rather than real. Higher-earners aren’t necessarily working harder or longer than those who earn less – but they often feel that they are. It’s also to do with the flawed assumption that everybody’s pay is positively and linearly correlated with their work rate, as if everybody does piece-rate work, like based on the number of spears they produce before going on a hunt. Feelings of time pressure aren’t just down to one’s personality, the tasks, working conditions or actual amount of time spent working. Time pressure is partly the undesirable difference between how we wish we’d spent our time along with how we think that’d make us feel, and how we’re actually spending it and feeling right now. With the right perspective though, we might be able to find that we do have the time to relax and catch up with friends or family.
Stress makes us more tunnel-visioned and focused on our immediate needs at the neglect of our potential long-term costs and needs – fighting or fleeing are about our immediate survival. Tomorrow is irrelevant if we don’t survive a threat right now hence we’re instinctively drawn to seek instant gratifications like comfort eating, which is okay as a one-off but not if it’s constant due to chronic stress. (Stress itself makes us feel tired and exhausted hence why we end up seeking energy, and ideally from calorie-dense foods.) Constantly seeking short-term gratifications that produce delayed costs can lead to another vicious cycle.
Poverty or debt is highly worrisome and this can lead to making dreadful decisions like borrowing from loan sharks. Usury interest rates then increase the chances of falling down a vicious cycle of debt. An outside observer who doesn’t have such desperate financial problems might think that it’s ridiculously moronic to ever agree to such extortionate interest rates, but loan sharks or similar exploit these desperations of the poor and stressed.
Although linked, we must note though that it’s not so much the size of the debts an individual (or business or country) has that sinks them but the lack of sufficient cash flow. Hence it’s about manageable debts versus unmanageable ones. It’s like how deficient logistics loses wars e.g. failing to maintain a sufficient flow of supplies to the front lines.
So to most people – uncertainties, change, having our usual routines disrupted or a loss of control is nerve-wracking. But being more psychologically flexible means being open to change, to experimentation, learning from others, being curious when confronted with novel situations, seeing the world as less black-or-white and seeing through different perspectives. You can build up your tolerance for uncertainty by deliberately exposing yourself to some small uncertainties like reaching out to an old acquaintance or trying out a bit of haggling when shopping.
When something disrupts or changes your life, like the end of a relationship, leaving a job or moving house – recognise that you’re in a temporary transition phase and be kind to yourself. Give yourself a moment to mourn what you are leaving or have left behind, while you also pay attention to the new opportunities you’re excited about. Woof!
Think of the times when everything went fine or nothing bad happened, and you didn’t waste energy worrying over nothing, when you did something similar in the past you’re now worried about e.g. the times you didn’t obey your compulsions and the world didn’t implode.
Think of the fact that if something isn’t a true physical necessity like water, food, warmth or air then it’s, at its core, a purely psychological desire. It’s not to say that our psychological desires aren’t often genuine system requirements for a high quality life, but whilst physical necessities strictly need physical resources to fulfil them, and therefore can cost money – psychological desires don’t so much or at all. They can be obtained for free, such as via taking a more positive perspective on life or having pleasant social relationships. So it’s not to say that fulfilling our psychological desires isn’t vital for a good life – it’s to say that these don’t need to cost money, or at least cost a lot, to be fulfilled. As a logical conclusion therefore – once you have your true physical necessities fulfilled (plus a bit of savings in case of a rainy day), the way to boost your happiness levels beyond that doesn’t necessarily need to cost any more money because it’s about what we purely feel in our own minds.
So poverty is still especially tough if one cannot securely afford (the means to secure) the strict physical resources one needs. And it’s not that psychological needs and self-actualisation aren’t required for a high quality of life – the point is that, although helpful, these don’t necessarily cost money or other material resources to fulfil, unlike our basic physical needs.
Endless desire leads to a vicious cycle of dissatisfaction and wanting to buy things to alleviate this dissatisfaction. To seek a state of contentment, one must therefore transcend from such materialistic vicious cycle traps.
To get out of any negative thinking vicious cycle traps and to bring the best out of anyone – including yourself – you’ve got to do all the things that bring out positive thoughts, emotions, moods, values, memories, gratitude, compassion, playfulness and hopes and dreams; even if you cannot avoid all the things that try to bring out the opposite. So think about an optimistic future. A life with hope is a life worth living.
Woof! Can you identify any habits you sometimes fall into that lead to a vicious cycle of action and regret? If so, you could share them by replying to the tweet linked to the Twitter comment button below so that we can learn from them.
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