Lance Burdett Director, Consultant, Facilitator, Communication, Safety, Coping Skills
The world has changed considerably in the last few years leaving many people feeling the effects. Do you have a dry mouth for most of the day, a headache that won’t go away, having random thoughts about your past, mood swings over your day, feeling overwhelmed or experiencing panic attacks, trouble getting to sleep, waking up several times a night, having unusual dreams, or waking up in the morning thinkingyou never slept? It is a new world we find ourselves in.
These behaviours are because of our brain and how it manages uncertainty. Neuroscience shows us that when the brain struggles to find certainty in the future after events such as lockdown or extreme weather, we go into a mild fight or flight. When in fight or flight, two chemicals are released from our adrenal glands – adrenaline to give us strength and cortisol to keep us in a heightened state.
Whenever the amygdala sparks up it also puts a mark on our memory as a reference for the future. These become triggers. If I was to mention job loss, money worries, cancer, heart attack, or mental health, when you read one of these words it would have triggered a memory of a specific event you experienced and you will remain in fight or flight for an indeterminant period. The way to clear your head of all unwanted thoughts, including triggers, is through breathing. Take a very deep breath to fully inflate your lungs and sigh out as hard as you can, now try and think of something. You should now be calm.
Breathing out is the only method of immediately controlling negative thoughts, we cannot control a negative though by thinking of something positive, the brain does not work like that. Our thoughts are associated with our heart rate, when we breathe in our heart rate increase and so does our thoughts, when we breathe out our heart rate goes down along with our thinking. Therefore, if you are triggered while talking with someone, simply breathe out as slow as you can. Try it now, breathe out slowly as you can, and you will now be calm.
Longer term to manage our uncertain ever-changing world there are six practical activities you can do. If we have something on our minds, we must do something about it otherwise we end up catastrophising. We can write it down, when you write a list of tasks for example, we often forget to look at our list, that is because it is out of our head and on a piece of paper. We can also read about what’s happened to see how we might solve our problem. The best option always is to talk about it. Four things happen when we talk about a problem:
- it is out of our head
- we must always tell people how we feel or what we were thinking about which reduces the impact for it is the emotion that holds this memory
- talk with someone who has been through the same issue as you and you can share solutions
- when we talk oxytocin is produced from the social connection and it lifts our self-esteem
Often times it is hard to talk about our problems though, this most often occurs when managing uncertainty. The way to bring certainty into our lives, which is what we need before we can connect if we follow our hierarchy of needs, is to focus on three behaviours:
- Eat more fruit and foods high in serotonin – both foods will support the brain’s need for fuel and lift your mood.
- Fix one thing in your home each day – when we complete a small task dopamine is produced in the brain which motivates us. The more we fix, the more dopamine, the more we feel safe and secure at home.
- Get a full nights sleep – sleep is critical to our well-being.
If you follow these guidelines you will adapt much quicker to life’s challenges – talk about it, read about it, and write yourself a plan going forward. Then focus on food, shelter, and sleep. Do not change your behaviours, change what you are doing within your current behaviours. Doing one small thing each day consistently produces the greatest achievement long-term.