You Get Too Much Screen Time
Screen time is not just something to worry about for your kids. We spend a lot of time on screens. Whether were working on laptops, continuously using and checking our phones, binge-watching television, or working on a tablet, screen time has become as much a part of our daily life as eating and breathing.
Studies have shown that the average adult can spend up to 11 hours a day in front of one type of screen or another. And the amount of time you spend in front of your screens is negatively affecting your health. This amount of screen time is associated with reduced sleep and social media addiction.
An abundance of screen time is now being linked to certain stress markers in the brain. The media we consume on these devices can cause physical reactions mimicking the stress response in our bodies, leaving us feeling stressed with no tangible reason to assign it to.
One of the reasons for this is that the blue light emitted from our devices, especially before bed, can severely impact our sleep cycles. Using your phone or tablet before bed can reduce or stop your bodys natural melatonin production. This is the sleep hormone that you produce, which causes you to feel sleepy and fall asleep.
Our attachment to our screen also limits our face-to-face social interactions. Human beings are social in nature, and studies have proven that strong emotional personal relationships can give us a sense of purpose and lower stress levels.
Can Happy Events Cause Stress
Some of the situations listed above are often thought of as happy events for example, you might feel expected to be happy or excited about getting married or having a baby.
But because they can bring big changes or make unusual demands on you, they can still be very stressful. This can be particularly difficult to deal with, because you might feel there’s additional pressure on you to be positive.
“I’ve never been more stressed in my life than the 6 months leading up to my wedding… everyone kept asking me if I was happy and expecting me to be excited all the time, but I just couldn’t feel it. I ended up getting really ill.”
Youre Worrying About What Other People Will Say
Most of us have something were passionate about whether thats our work or even a hobby. But the reason youre motivated to do these things is important.
Some people pursue their passion because they want to whether thats to improve themselves or learn a new skill. But others may only pursue their passion because they want recognition from other people. People with certain personality types may be more prone to obsessing over their passion. Others may simply follow a certain pursuit to get praise from their colleagues or even to prove their worth to friends or family.
The problem with pursuing a passion for the wrong reason is that it can cause a person to push themselves to the limit which could mean working despite being sick, or not taking time off to de-stress. This can make it difficult and stressful to relax like youre wasting time that could be spent pursuing your passion when you try doing relaxing things. You might even be worried that people will think badly of you for taking time off. Ultimately, this can negatively affect wellbeing.
For people who feel like this, taking a short mental break from what youre passionate about may be helpful. The break doesnt have to be long, nor does it have to involve doing something you necessarily see as relaxing. But taking even short breaks may help you to eventually feel that its okay to take time away from your passion every now and again to de-stress and relax.
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You Are All Over The Place
When the mind is struggling to make sense of a difficult situation, it doesnt leave much headspace to deal with everything else that needs our attention.
The stress of a shock can also leave us illogic and emotional. In one moment we think, I am bigger than this, and we feel powerful. In the next we are lost to victim thinking, feeling sorry for ourselves and crying.
There can also be a cycle of guilt , shame , and blame .
How Can You Help Yourself
If you’re feeling stressed, there are some things you can try to feel less tense and overwhelmed.
1. Recognise when stress is a problem
Its important to connect the physical and emotional signs youre experiencing to the pressures you are faced with. Dont ignore physical warning signs such as tense muscles, tiredness, headaches or migraines.
Think about whats causing your stress. Sort them into issues with a practical solution, things that will get better with time and things you can’t do anything about. Take control by taking small steps towards the things you can improve.
Make a plan to address the things that you can. This might involve setting yourself realistic expectations and prioritising essential commitments. If you feel overwhelmed, ask for help and say no to things you cant take on.
2. Think about where you can make changes
Are you taking on too much? Could you hand over some things to someone else? Can you do things in a more leisurely way? You may need to prioritise things and reorganise your life so youre not trying to do everything at once.
3. Build supportive relationships
Find close friends or family who can offer help and practical advice can support you in managing stress. Joining a club or a course can help to expand your social network and encourage you to do something different. Activities like volunteering can change your perspective and have a beneficial impact on your mood.
4. Eat healthily
5. Be aware of your smoking and drinking
8. Be mindful
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Wait Where Did You Put Your Phone/keys/brain
Here’s the funny thing: A tiny jolt of stress in some situations can make your mind do totally amazing, somewhat super-human things . But when every project, paper, practice, etc., etc., etc. is weighing on you to the point where you just feel stuck? Your memory goes fuzzy, your focus becomes non-existent, and your ability to actually listen gets squashed. It’s like stress hijacks your brain.
You Dont Get Enough Physical Activity
A recent study set out to link sedentary behavior to feelings of stress. With all of the technology around us and our hectic lives, many of us do not take the time for physical activity. We end up spending most of our time sedentary.
As we absorb the everyday stressors in our lives, day in and day out, our stress hormones build up, and our sleeplessness becomes more chronic. Poor sleep leads to more stress, and more stress leads to more inadequate sleep. Its a vicious cycle.
Couple that with a lack of physical activity, and you are bound to be left feeling stressed all the time, with little to no explanation.
Exercise and physical activity combat stress hormones in the body. Taking a brisk walk, going for a jog, a bike ride, or doing some yoga can all have incredibly powerful effects on your mood and mental state.
Exercise releases endorphins, which is a neurotransmitter that is known to make you feel good. It is also a natural pain reliever and can lower your levels of cortisol, your stress hormone.
Making the time to exercise also helps you clear your mind and offers a distraction to the underlying cause that may be temporarily causing you to feel stressed. And exercise has been proven to help improve your sleep, which we know is crucially important to our overall mood and cognitive function.
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Your Hair Is Starting To Fall Out
If youre waking up with more than a few strands on your pillow, you may be suffering from alopecia areata. This is an autoimmune skin disease brought on when the bodys immune system attacks the hair follicles. It causes small round patches of hair loss on the scalp. Its not dangerous, but its likely to be associated with a severe stressor, like an assault or significant traumatic event in ones life, says Dr. Colgan. This disease is more likely to occur in young women or adolescent girls.
What to do: In most cases, this is typically a temporary condition and your hair will grow back once stress is minimized. But dont be afraid to talk to your doctor about whats going on, says Dr. Colgan. While your MD might recommend injectable scalp steroids to help with hair growth, its best to have an examination. The hair loss could possibly be a sign of a scalp fungal infection, a bacterial function or even a thyroid disorder.
Curing Your Detachment Issues
Anxiety is a very curable condition. It can sometimes feel like everything is out of your control, and certainly severe anxiety isn’t “easy” to treat in the sense that you’re not going to be able to quickly relieve all anxiety at once.
But all anxiety has the potential to be treated, provided you’re willing to seek help, avoid detachment mistakes, and make smart decisions with how you’re going to address your anxiety.
Summary:
Detachment is a common symptom of panic disorder and severe anxiety. People can detach emotionally from friends, family, and life, or they can struggle with detachment as a symptom itself feeling as though they are outside of their body or living in an alternative reality. Because this is a symptom of severe anxiety, it is typically addressed by treating anxiety.
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When Stress Leads To Extreme Fatigue
Sleepiness is one thing, but some people experience intense fatigue during periods of high stress to the point where it can be debilitating. Experts have a few theories as to why, the first being that the fight-or-flight response simply taxes the bodys energy levels.
Because it is so metabolically expensive to keep the body on high alert, sleepiness may occur so that the body can replenish that energy, Prather said.
Others think that sleep is a coping mechanism for stress, because it can be so exhausting and unpleasant.
Under periods of stress, many people choose to spend excess time in bed, and often fall asleep, as a way of escaping from the stress, Prather explained. Because sleep, at least in the short term, can provide some relief from the distress, sleeping behavior can be reinforced.
Prather said that if you consistently use sleep as a means to escape stressful life periods, wanting to climb into your covers can become increasingly hard to resist and habitual.
The last theory is that your brain simply can only handle so much stressful content.
Theres the possibility that the brain can only hold so much emotional information, and sleep helps clear some space and help figure out which daily experiences need to be put in long-term memory storage and what can be discarded, Prather said. Stress can produce high-arousal emotional information, and thus sleep may be needed earlier than usual.
What To Do When Youre Stressed Meditate Without Stress
Meditation is a fantastic way to control stress. Yet, there are people who even stress out over meditation because they feel like theyre not doing it right. The first step is to relax.
The ability to shut out all thoughts from your mind is EXTREMELY difficult and takes a long time to master.
Most of the advice in meditation books makes it sound easy but its not.
Trying to clear your mind of all thoughts is going to be stressful when you discover that thoughts keep creeping in.
All you need to do is meditative breathing where you focus on your breathing.
Sit in a comfortable position with your neck and back straight. Make sure your head is straight too and youre in comfortable clothing that doesnt feel restrictive.
Close your eyes and breathe slowly and deeply.
I usually count to 8 as I breathe in slowly. Then I count to 8 again as I breathe out slowing. Just focusing on my breathing and my counting works wonders to calm me down.
If there is any tension in your body, you will feel it dissipate away as you exhale slowly.
Your focus is entirely on your breathing. Count each inhalation silently and hear your breaths.
Do this for about 10 to 15 minutes. You will feel much better after that.
You may not have to ask yourself why do I get stressed out so easily?ever again.
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Alcohol Tobacco And Other Drugs
Misusing alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs can have both immediate and long-term health effects.
The misuse and abuse of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, and prescription medications affect the health and well-being of millions of Americans. SAMHSAs 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reports that approximately 19.3 million people aged 18 or older had a substance use disorder in the past year.
How Anxiety Overwhelms The Mind
We’ll get into the actual feelings of being overwhelmed in a moment, but what’s perhaps most telling about anxiety is that it actually overwhelms the brain in ways you may not even realize.
Your brain has limited resources – chemicals that it uses to send messages from one part of the brain to the other. During periods of intense anxiety, the brain is so overwhelmed that it moves those resources to the areas of the body that it thinks need it most. For example, one of the reasons that some people need to urinate when they are scared is because the chemicals in your brain move away from the part of the mind that controls urination and towards other parts of the brain that control fight or flight.
At its most chemical level, anxiety even affects the way neurotransmitters and hormones are produced, possibly leading to changes in the way you think and feel. When we talk about anxiety feeling overwhelming, it should be remembered that it’s not just the way you feel. Anxiety really does have many overwhelming qualities, and can genuinely overwhelm your mind in many ways.
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How To Stop Feeling Overwhelmed
It is possible to control this feeling, although it comes in parts. Ideally, the best way to stop feeling overwhelmed from anxiety is to control your anxiety. But in the interim, here are several tips for overcoming these strong physical and mental symptoms:
Once you have your anxiety more under control, you can also start trying various anxiety reduction strategies.
SUMMARY:
Anxiety is an emotional and stressful feeling that can cause someone to be mentally overwhelmed. It also causes a range of symptoms that can cause people to feel physically overwhelmed. Walking, distractions, and other temporary anxiety reduction tools can help, but the most important solution will be to start addressing anxiety and anxiety disorders.
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Convert Negativity To Positivity
There are two sides constantly battling inside of us one is filled with strength and courage while the other is doubt and insecurities. Which one will you feed?
What if I mess up this speech? What if Im not funny enough? What if I forget what to say?
Its no wonder why many of us are uncomfortable giving a presentation. All we do is bring ourselves down before we got a chance to prove ourselves. This is also known as a self-fulfilling prophecy a belief that comes true because we are acting as if it already is. If you think youre incompetent, then it will eventually become true.
Motivational coaches tout that positive mantras and affirmations tend to boost your confidents for the moments that matter most. Say to yourself: Ill ace this speech and I can do it!
Take advantage of your adrenaline rush to encourage positive outcome rather than thinking of the negative what ifs.
Heres a video of Psychologist Kelly McGonigal who encourages her audience to turn stress into something positive as well as provide methods on how to cope with it:
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People Cope With Stress Differently
When presented with a stressor, a person makes two kinds of judgement:
- What is needed to cope with this situation?
- Have I got the resources to cope with this situation?
A stressor can be interpreted as a threat or as an opportunity. People vary along a personality dimension of optimism versus pesimism. Optimists are more likely to see the future as benign and a stressful situation as giving rise to an opportunity. People vary in the extent to which they believe that they have the resources to deal with new and threatening situations. Poeple high in hardiness or resilience believe that they have the competence to control the world around them. This perception of competence and control makes them find a threat less stressful than others might.
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What To Do When Youre Stressed Out Connect With Nature
Theres a saying that goes, The earth has music to those that listen.
Take a break from your hectic life and get in touch with nature. Go for a hike or a walk through nature.
Look at the plants and appreciate your surroundings. Just admire nature for what it is.
Youll be amazed at the interesting things you see when you stop thinking about yourself.
The goal is to stop and smell the roses instead of distractedly walking while you keep thinking about what worries you.
Cast your thoughts aside and focus on the simplicity of nature.
Give your mind that mental break and know that nature doesnt rush anything and yet, everything is accomplished.
Applying these 5 tips work wonders for me! It can do the same for you.
Asking yourself why do I get stressed out so easilycould soon be a thing of the past!
Youll be able to quiet your mind because youll be taking your focus away from whats getting you down and replacing it with thoughts and activities that will lift your spirits.
Practice these tips and youll feel much better. Quiet your mind and your soul will speak.
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