Feeling Overwhelmed, Join the Club.

It is very common today to feel overwhelmed, there's just so much going on in or world. Some say that it is too simplistic to suggest that technology is to blame, but that is squarely where it sits. Depression, anxiety and suicide rates began to significantly increase worldwide 40 years ago, coincidentally (or not) this was when mobile phones became commercially available.

It's not just the fault of the mobile phone, other technological advances over the last 40 years include the development of - GPS, fax machines, pagers, computers, VCRs, gaming, wireless networks, digitsation, smartphones - all designed to make our lives much easier through efficiency.

With each of these advances comes not just a more efficient way of doing things, we now have to battle with a completely new way of doing the same thing each time. As new models of the same item are produced comes a new way of doing the same thing in a different way. Instruction booklets that were once a few pages long are now doubled or trebled in size. Worse still, they are online which means we have to introduce another piece of technology to access the manual on how to use that new device.

What we know now through advances in imaging of the brain such as MRI, PET, and HFMRI scans, is that our world has advanced exponentially but our brains haven't, we still have that brain from thousands of years ago, albeit we are learning more about the way our brains work. Our brain is flooded with information, information overload.

Is it any wonder that we feel overwhelmed today? We have the same age-old brain that once worked methodically across our day to now asking it to undertake numerous tasks instantly. This has caused something termed 'inattentional blindness', the brain only sees what is an immediate priority, what is directly in front of it. How often have you watched someone walk in front of traffic while looking at their phone, oblivious to the danger around them?

So, how do we slow down this hamster wheel that we are all on? The simple answer is to get off social media, do one thing at a time, take up meditation and learn to breathe properly. But who has got time to do these things right? You have is the answer, if you want to leave the 'I am feeling overwhelmed' club.

Here are 10 simple things, in no set order, to start taking control of your 'life' again to reduce stress and anxiety;

  1. Take a break - walk away from all technology for 10 minutes every 50 minutes. Get off all smart technology at least two hours before bedtime.

  2. Remove all distractions - when working on an urgent task, turn off all possible distractions or go to a quiet place until you have completed what you need to complete.

  3. One task at a time - multitasking is a myth. Our brain can hold up to three tasks in our frontal lobe and we jump from one to the other so fast that we believe that we are doing three things at once.

  4. Practice mindfulness - an easy trick is to fully focus your thoughts on the task at hand.

  5. Breathe - take a single long slow deep breath every 30 minutes. Think to yourself (to slow your mind) "cold air in, hot air out" as you take that breath.

  6. Clean and tidy - tidy your work space, putting things in some semblance of order allows us to see where things are. A cluttered desk equals a cluttered mind.

  7. Look forward - every so often focus on good things that are coming up, in an hour, at the end of the day, in the weekend, in a month... The bonus, you'll also get a shot of the short-term feel good chemical, dopamine.

  8. Find the truth - our brains are designed to look for danger then exaggerate it, known as catastrophisation, to bring clarity to our problems. Don't allow your brain to exaggerate things, find out what is actually going on before you jump to conclusions.

  9. Remember the 3's - the three most important things that you can do for yourself are; socialisation (talk face-to-face with real people), exercise (30 minutes at the end of every work day) and sleep (7 to 8 hours each night).

  10. Write things down - our memory, regardless of our age, only holds on to what it believes that we need to know. Additionally, when we forget things, (and we always do), we incorrectly believe that our memory isn't as good as it once was.

I am not a technophobe, quite the opposite in fact, I believe technology is fantastic. We just need to use it wisely until our brains learn to adapt, which shouldn't take longer than a few more generations.

Next week I will follow this post with how to deal with that single major issue that is playing on our mind, the one that is vexing us, the one that we can't find a solution for, the one that is taking us down.

Being a member of the overwhelmed club is not the club that you want to be in, leave it now so that it becomes obsolete.

Let's talk!

Why Don't They Just Ask For Help?

In every day life, asking others if they would like a hand is relatively easy. In every day life, saying "Yes" when someone asks us if we would like a hand can be a little harder. In the not-so-everyday life, when life is getting on top of us, asking for help can be terribly difficult.

Why? In a single word, fear.

I am not talking here about when we are our usual happy selves, because we often ask for help when we need a ride somewhere, or when we need a lift with a heavy object, or perhaps to help recover from an event. I'm talking about when we become so unwell that we are considering drastic action, such as in depression or considering committing suicide.

I hear it said a lot - "If you are struggling, please just ask someone for help". The sentiment is well-meaning and will work if the person is in a lucid period or in the early stages of the mire. However, it will most often fall on deaf ears if the person is deep in the mire or completely overwhelmed with 'life'.

Why deaf ears, because when people are all consumed with life, the only voice they hear is their own and that voice is telling them to ignore the world. That voice, the one that comforted us as a child whenever we were struggling or afraid, has now become our enemy into our teens and adulthood.

So why don't we ask for help, and why does that voice try in vain to comfort us as it did when we were a child, fear is the answer for most of us.

Fear of burdening you with our issues, fear of what you might say to us, fear that you may scold or scorn us, fear that what you suggest may make things worse, fear of the repercussions of our actions, fear that you may view us as a failure, fear that we will never be seen the same way again, fear that we will never recover, fear of what the future holds if any future at all, fear of the unknown, fear of...... The list is endless.

Yes, these fears are irrational, illogical, and often unfounded. But we don't know that, because we aren't thinking rationally or logically like you.

When overwhelmed with life, we are unable to think like you, to rationalise like you, to bring clarity to what you are saying. We aren't like you so we can't work out why you don't you get it, why you can't see what we see, why you aren't listening to us, why you don't understand that we can't simply "snap out of it".

So what should you do to help us when we are overwhelmed? Take us to get some help if we readily want to go, encourage us to get some help if we won't go for help, listen to us without judging us or trying to fix us, ask us what we are thinking and feeling, or just be there for us.

A warm smile, a kind word, a gentle touch, every day is enough to keep us going. Remind us that we are loved, that we won't be scorned or scolded, that you don't care what we've done. Just be there for us when we need you.

Never judge us, because we are not judging you, we are merely trying to overcome our fear without being a burden on you. After all, you have your own 'life' issues without us adding more.

Let's talk!

Labels Are For Clothes.

I once thought that the word 'alternative' meant being outside of the norm. The 'norm' is apparently how the majority of us live and how we see things. As I get older, or perhaps become more informed, I begin to see that it is yet another bias I am questioning.

We have over 50 biases according to some researchers.

How this particular bias occurred, as do most biases, comes from who we meet and spend time with, where we live, where we went to school, essentially from our environment. Additionally, it is from the various forms of media we read or listen to. How often have you heard it said "They live an alternative lifestyle", or "They sought alternative treatment".

These statements led me, quite incorrectly, to believe that those who were involved in 'alternative' anything were kind of strange and sat outside of society. How wrong is that? So, replacing the word 'alternative' with 'alternate' worked for a while yet it still places a label on people. Labels are for inanimate objects, not for people.

Maybe I could use the word 'different', or maybe 'distinct' or maybe 'contrasting'. No, let's not use any such labels. Labels do nothing but alienate, divide, are unfair, and cause harm. Who has the right to say what is and isn't the 'norm', or the right to tell us what treatment is 'right' or 'wrong'.

We are who we are because we are who we are. Not alternative, not alternate, not different, we just are. And that works fine for me. Learning brings knowledge which brings understanding which brings an open-mindedness.

We are who we are, and that makes us all so special.

Let's talk!

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

Having recently read an article where, at a public meeting to discuss how land was to be used and one person was unfamiliar with protocol, I wondered if ignorance is in fact bliss. I am struggling to think of a scenario where this often used saying might be helpful.

I can only suggest that it might be useful to avoid worrying about something, although even this is unhelpful at best. Regardless of whether ignoring something helps to stop worrying, whatever it is that you are worrying about continues on unchecked.

I suggest the ignorance is not bliss, it is lazy, stupid, and possibly dangerous. What if you ignored a health issue, ignored a debt, ignored an emergency, ignored someone who was struggling?

The opposite of ignorance is knowledge, education, and intelligence. Learning about things has more advantages than does ignoring them;

  1. It stimulates your brain - research shows that learning something new opens up areas of the brain and can even reduce ageing of our brains.

  2. It opens your mind - being open-minded allows you to see things in different ways and assists problem solving.

  3. It generates conversation - knowing about a subject allows you to talk knowledgeably with others thus encouraging socialisation.

  4. It energises - the more you learn the greater the thirst for knowledge, dopamine is released into your brain when you learn something new.

  5. It brings an understanding - what might seem normal for one person may seem foreign to another, knowing more about the other person assists with an appreciation.

Understanding each other is the way to bring clarity, to nurture communities, to bring wisdom, to bring humility.

When someone suggests that ignorance is bliss, ask them why they think that is the case. I doubt that they will have a valid reason.

Let's talk!

Note To Self, We All Have That Voice.

Dear younger self, not everything that you did was your fault. You were born to parents who did their best with what they had and what they knew. No one could have imagined that the first few years of your life would form who you are today. You had no control over that part of your life and the hand that was dealt to you was just the way it was.

When you were left alone to cry yourself to sleep, who would have thought that you would form habits such as rocking yourself to sleep, picking the fluff off a blanket, rolling your fingers on the corner of a sheet, and many other habits you continue with today. When you were left in the dark, who would have known that you would grow up fearful of the night. When your bedroom door was closed to stop you from coming out when woke from a bad dream, who would have known that you would have nightmares.

So, you began to talk to yourself to find solace, with that voice.

When you were two you became naughty and needed to be disciplined. Smacking, going to bed without dinner, and similar punishment was the way to teach you a lesson. Refusing to eat what was on your plate meant that you spent long hours sitting at the table until all the food was gone, despite you dry-reaching with each mouthful.

When you were naughty at school, you were slapped, smacked, strapped or caned. When playing with your 'friends' at lunchtime you hoped you were picked early for the team, you never wanted to be that last one picked. When you lost at sports you felt like a failure, when your exam results were poor you believed you weren't intelligent, when you were bullied you felt inferior and isolated.

That voice was there for you though, and you began to talk with it more and more.

At high school, all your mates had a girl or boyfriend, so you had to have one just to fit in. You wanted the latest gadget but your parents couldn't afford it so you did whatever you had to to get one. You began to worry - am I too fat or too thin, too ugly or too beautiful, to good or too bad - and why was I so different to everyone else.

But, you still had that voice to talk to.

As the pressure of 'the world' came down on you to achieve, you turned to alcohol and/or drugs to escape the pressure. In particular, to escape that voice inside your head that told you that the best you could hope for was to be 'normal'. That voice, the one that 'guided' you throughout your life; the one that comforted you when things went wrong, the one that made you feel guilty when you did bad things, the one that sought revenge on those who wronged you, the one who wanted you to be like everyone else, the one who....

That voice, the one that eventually took you down. The one that told you that you were a failure, a loser, not good enough to be around. The one that blamed you for everything that went wrong in your life. The one that you had relied on so heavily was now turning against you.

How could that voice, my only friend, do that to me? You were all I had and now you are also against me.

That voice. I wish I had not listened to that voice as much as I had, I wish I had known that if that voice talked to me too much that I could stop it, I wish I had known that I could control that voice, I wish I had been told that I could use that voice to help me, I wish I had been told that everyone has that voice. I wish.....

Imagine for a moment if someone had told us when we were young that we all have that voice and the only time to listen to it is when it is telling us good things. imagine if we could learn to control that voice and use it to our advantage. Imagine if we could turn that voice on and off like a switch. You can.

'If only', two words filled with guilt and regret, and we know that guilt and regret will take us down. 'It was what it was' which made it 'is what it is'. The good news is that you now know about that voice inside of you, that great news is that you can change everything from now forward, including your past self, from today.

That voice is there for a reason, to keep us safe, but only if you know how to use it.

Let's talk!

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