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Keeping a sense of perspective in stressful situations

 

Today we’ll be looking at how our ancestral fight or flight response impacts our modern lives and thinking about how to harness the more useful aspects of the fight and flight response while avoiding burnout. We’ll start by providing a brief overview of what the response entails, then we’ll look at some practical ways of avoiding being overwhelmed by it. 

 

The fight or flight response is an evolutionary mechanism geared towards helping us to survive potentially life-threatening situations by either confronting an immediate threat or escaping to safety. Verywell Mind describes three stages to the fight or flight response: alarm, resistance and exhaustion. 

 

During the ‘alarm’ stage we experience an elevated heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate, all of which are intended to physically equip us to deal with the perceived threat. Once this passes, we move on to the ‘resistance’ stage, during which time our blood pressure and heart rate begin to lower but our body remains on alert until the threat passes. 

 

Exhaustion happens when our body remains on high alert for prolonged periods of time, and some of the physical and psychological symptoms of this can include anxiety, depression, fatigue, insomnia, cognitive difficulties, headaches, migraines, high blood pressure and poor immune function. This means that making a conscious effort to manage our stress levels is important for our physical and mental health. 

 

It’s important to note that in many ways the fight or flight response is still important in today’s world. First of all, even those of us who are fortunate to live in relative safety might still be subject to potential immediate threats, such as being hit by a car at a pedestrian crossing. Secondly, the fight or flight response can be useful in situations which are not life-threatening but where we would still benefit from having a psychological edge, such as playing sports or presenting to an audience. 

 

The challenge comes when we remain on a high state of alert for a protracted period of time, particularly if we either fail to acknowledge the source of our stress or we don’t take measures to counter it. In the rest of our article, we’ll consider some ways of doing this. 

 

One important thing is to try to be conscious of when we have been operating on a high level of alert for sustained periods of time and try to actively take steps to moderate our stress levels. This can sometimes feel like a daunting task when we live in the real world and we can’t necessarily remove every potential source of stress from our lives. However, even taking active steps to distance ourselves from stress can help. 

 

We live in a world where many of us are so commonly exposed to low-level stressors that stress can often start to feel like white noise, as anyone who has regularly spent protracted periods sitting in heavy traffic or working in a noisy open-plan office will know. But even if we consider ourselves to be desensitised to background stressors, they may still be having an impact on us, which is why it’s important to regularly take time for ourselves and try to spend time in more relaxing environments, such as quieter places or outdoors.

 

Deep breathing exercises can help us to feel more calm and centred by introducing more oxygen into our body and releasing physical tension, and there’s a useful list of exercises that you can try in the ‘Sources’ links at the end of our article. Staying active is another important tip for physical and mental wellbeing, particularly for those of us working in sedentary jobs. Harvard Health Publishing lists numerous benefits of engaging in physical activity, such as the fact that it deepens breathing and helps to relieve muscle tension, and if you can find a way to do this in a group setting then the social aspect can also be helpful. At this time of year, it can be hard for many of us to get moving, but you’ll feel the benefits as soon as you do, and feel better for it afterwards.

 

Engaging in healthy sleep habits is something that is easier said than done for many of us, but some measures that may help you to sleep better include being physically active during the daytime, staying away from caffeine and other stimulants, and avoiding too much screen time in the evening. Wherever possible, try to go to sleep and wake up at roughly similar times each day, and aim to manage your time so that you don’t need to stay up late to finish things. Your body can probably cope with you staying up late to meet a deadline every so often, but if it becomes a regular habit then it is probably worth seeing whether it’s possible to make adjustments elsewhere in your routine. Also remember that tiredness and stress to an extent feed into each other, so if you’re less tired then you’ll be better equipped to tackle stress (and therefore you will then sleep better).

 

Aim to follow a balanced diet and try to stay hydrated, this first point being particularly important during a time of year when anecdotal and scientific evidence suggests that many of us are prone to eating worse than we would do in the warmer months. Try to take proper time out for your meals, and aim to cook healthy food where possible. 

 

Lastly, try to maintain a sense of perspective and draw on your support network. As with many evolutionary responses, the fight or flight response developed in very different times from the ones we live in now, and the difficulty comes when our bodies react in this way to something that is not genuinely life-threatening. Try to tell yourself that giving a presentation or attending a job interview is stressful but unlikely to kill you, and try to see stressful situations from a distance and avoid thinking in terms of worst-case scenarios. If you’re consciously aware that you’re running at a high level of stress then you’re in a better position to take active measures to counter this.

 

Being in the company of other people will help you to maintain a sense of perspective since they are unlikely to be as invested in your stressful situation as you are, meaning that they can generally help you to see it from a more detached point of view, and having people to talk to can also provide a welcome distraction and a reminder that other people may be facing up to difficult situations too.

 

Luckily, many of us are less likely to be facing existential threats on a daily basis now, but the physical and psychological impacts of running at persistent high levels of stress are all too real, which is why it’s good to think about the parts of our lives we have some degree of control over and try to make positive changes where necessary in order to live more peaceful lives. 

 

Next month, we’ll be wrapping up 2024 with a special post on winter self-care rituals for cosy wellbeing, so please stay tuned! Until then, if you’d like to share anything about today’s post then please don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts in the comments. 

 

See you next month!

Sources

 

Elizabeth Scott | Verywell Mind

Coping Strategies for Stress

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-coping-strategies-are-effective-3144562 

 

Elizabeth Scott | Verywell Mind

How to Calm Down Quickly: 9 Things You Can Do Right Now

https://www.verywellmind.com/ways-to-calm-down-quickly-when-overwhelmed-3145197 

 

Elizabeth Scott | Verywell Mind

How to Reduce Stress With Breathing Exercises

https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-reduce-stress-with-breathing-exercises-3144508 

 

Elizabeth Scott | Verywell Mind

How Your Stress Response Works

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-stress-response-3145148 

 

Harvard Health Publishing

Understanding the stress response

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response 

 

Kendra Cherry | Verywell Mind

How Prolonged Stress Impacts Your Health

https://www.verywellmind.com/prolonged-stress-symptoms-causes-impact-and-coping-5092113

 

Kendra Cherry | Verywell Mind

What Is the Fight-or-Flight Response?

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-fight-or-flight-response-2795194 

Michael Varnum, Ian Hohm & The Conversation US | Scientific American

How Winter Affects Our Mood and Behavior

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-winter-affects-our-mood-and-behavior 

 

Toketemu Ohwovoriole | Verywell Mind

What Is General Adaptation Syndrome?

https://www.verywellmind.com/general-adaptation-syndrome-gad-definition-signs-causes-management-5213817

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