Why Rest Is So Important This Holiday Season
The Psychological Impacts of Stress and How To Reverse Them
Recently I’ve felt increasingly frustrated by the busyness that has become my life. Each day, I can’t help but feel I’m under obligation to tend to the needs of anyone but myself; with work taking up much of my day and tiredness leaving me devoid of any motivation to anything but vegetate on the sofa or bed when I get home.
Which is what has made today so special —I feel obligated to do nothing.
To note, it’s day two of my Christmas break from work. Yesterday was day 1, and seemed more of a work-related hangover than a day to relax. I still felt agitated by a need to check emails, to ensure every loose end had been tied, and to hope that I hadn’t forgotten something important.
I often ponder the effectiveness of a two-day weekend following 5 days of work. It seems irrational to assume anyone can fully switch off from work and enjoy true relaxation when there is a boundless amount of things to be done; built up from the working week. That’s a discussion for another day, however.
That being said, with a day to myself and a true feeling of autonomy, I’ve enjoyed a carefree morning. I hit the gym; which felt surprisingly easier than past weeks — likely because I’ve been forcing myself through a fit of tiredness to ensure I’d at least get some time to myself before saying goodbye to Joe’s needs for the day.
From there, I picked up my latest read, Winter: The Power of Rest and Retreat In Difficult Times by Katherine May — a timely find in the bookstore yesterday — and put on my favourite Spotify playlist to read too, “Peaceful Piano”. I was conscious to steady my breathing and remain fixed on the words in the book, ensuring any attempt by my mind to subvert my attention was returned back to the present moment.
It felt great.
Though, I still felt a nagging feeling that I should be doing something else. Indeed, my determination to direct my attention back to Katherine’s book with every free thought was an attempt to regulate this internal desire to run around like I usually do.
It got me thinking of the ways in which we’re conditioned into work-mode, and how experiencing states of true calmness are so few and far between in todays society.
I wanted to take today’s article to discuss the importance of setting aside time for moments like these. As I’ve been writing a lot recently on how our brains are conditioned around our habits, I feel too much time out of calm only wires us to want more of what we’re use to. I hope today’s article can give you a basis to search for more calm in your life, and set appropriate boundaries where necessary this holiday season.
A Brain Conditioned For Searching: How Stress Impairs Calm
The importance of setting aside time to experience states of “calmness” can be found by examining the effects “non-calmness”, or “stress”. Psychology today, defines stress as “the psychological perception of pressure, on the one hand, and the body’s response to it, on the other, which involves multiple systems, from metabolism to muscles to memory.”.
Today we’ll focus on the mental side of stress, though in accessing more calm and managing our mental symptoms, we’ll drive improvements in our physical body, too.
The mental symptoms of stress, or non-calm, are outlined in another psychology today article as the following,
- Courted Thoughts
- Feeling Scattered
- Distractibility
- Poor Concentration
- Memory Problems
- Overwhelm
These mental ailments are then implicated in the emotional expression of stress which include irritability, low mood, anxiety, sadness, resentment and depression. Just about any negative emotion you can think of is implicated, or worsened by stress.
On a neurophysiological level, such symptoms are the result of heightened activity in key brain areas. The amygdala, the site of fear perception is one such area, with it’s activity associated with anxiety-like symptoms such as overthinking and ruminating.
The amygdala is also part of a larger limbic network of the brain, whose part-purpose is to seek pleasure and comfort amidst stress. This is where procrastination comes from and other coping mechanisms such as stress eating, alcohol consumption, vaping, and just about any drive to do something where relief can be found. Often these mechanisms of action are only rewarding in the short-term however, and don’t lead to much long-term benefit.
The Default-Mode-Network (DMN) is another area that becomes over-active. A set of brain structures whose collective communication is believed to result in the ability for us to think about ourselves and our lives. Studies have shown the DMN to increase activity during periods of stress, which is believed to drive us into stress-related thoughts such as how to move out of the stress but also how we may be struggling to cope with it — amongst other thoughts. Such thoughts can further impact our emotions and subsequent moods.
On a chemical level, stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline will be released during fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses that whilst temporarily beneficial under circumstances of acute stress, can cause long-term harm to the mind and body under chronic stress. These hormones will keep us alert in the mind and body as we search for solutions.
Dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in our experience of motivation will spike during periods of short-term stress. It’s motivational functions are part of the previously mentioned limbic system, which creates cravings in us to search for short-term rewards. Long term chronic stress, however, can hinder our motivation in the long-run through the decreased sensitivity of the limbic system to dopamine and down-regulation. As a result, more “general” activities will feel less good and we’ll require stronger “hits” to feel like we use to. This is where bad habits and coping strategies start to run wild.
I could go on and on on the way’s in which stress hinders our ability to be calm but I think the above suffices. There is much more to be said about stress and frontal-brain regions involved in executive functioning, decision making and impulse control, for example, decreased activity here leaves us more vulnerable to fall into our primal, fear based selves, amongst other consequences.
Ultimately a cascade of symptoms arise from experiencing stress – all of them switching our brain from rest-mode to alert-mode. It’s critical for us to recognise when our minds have switched in order to access more calm. I fear, however, that our daily lives are conditioned to revolve around stress, and leave little room for much else.
Accessing More Calm: Being Aware of Life’s Stressors
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, my life has felt exceptionally busy lately and has left little room for me to enjoy true relaxation. For us to relax, after all, we need the time and space — which is difficult to do when we’re tending to the needs of others be it through work or otherwise.
Which is why time to ourselves to truly rest is so important. As Beth Kurnald speaks to in this Psychology Today article our need to “rest and digest” is part of our normal physiology, with our fight/flight stress responses intended only for a short-term burst. Our bodies aren’t meant to live in stress, which is why all of the above stress-related reactions become maladaptive over time. Heightened anxiety disrupts our day and moods, dopamine dysregulation dampens general motivation; our mind’s become overreactive and busy in thought, and stress hormones cause havoc.
Rest is important because it resets us back to “normal”. Thankfully, neoroplasticity exists which means, whilst brain changes can occur as a result of stress, they can be reversed. But this takes time, and awareness.
As I’ve signed off from corporate work for the holiday’s and have returned home to Wales, I’m focusing on the following methods of “resetting”.
- Abstaining from potential stress-inducing triggers: I am committed to staying away from my work emails and work-related thoughts for the next week, as you should be, too. Anxiety activates our amygdala, so consciously or physically removing yourself from your stressors will bring a natural decrease in its activation. If you’re finding it hard to detach from stressful activities, try replacing them with something beneficial. A walk in nature for one hour, for example, is one such activity that has been found to decrease amygdala activation. Less amygdala activation = less anxious thoughts and a greater experience of “calm”.
- Practicing mindfulness: My meditation practice has gone down the drain the past few months, but the benefits of such activities is well documented. Mindfulness practices strengthen connectivity between brain areas that promote self-awareness, compassion and impulse control. It also decreases the size of the amygdala and weakens connections between it and other brain areas, subsequently reducing our fear responses. It also decreases DMN activity meaning less ruminative and overthinking implicated in states of anxiety and low mood. All in all, mindfulness brings more calm.
- Getting adequate sleep: Whilst the holiday season comes with expectations and temptations to drink alcohol or indulge, such practices are known to impact our sleep. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t engage in these activities, but be aware that a good, restful nights sleep is key to decreasing stress related psychological and physiological reactions.
- Practicing Intuitive Living: Amidst the busyness that is our lives, our needs go unmet. To practice intuitive living means to feel into what our bodies are truly asking from us and to tend to them appropriately. Intuitive sensing, which some people claim is our 6th sense, is said to be decreased during times of stress and anxiety. Meditation and mindfulness practices have been shown to increase our intuitive sensing.
- Remember The Science: It can take time to deactivate and unwire the stress-activated networks of the brain. This is why even on my first day off from work yesterday, I still felt like I needed to do something. But as the neuroscientist Donald Hebb once said, “Cells that fire together wire together” and in taking steps towards more calmer days, we will fire up new neural networks, and distance ourselves from the old. Don’t fret if disconnecting takes time, just make sure you’re making it easier for yourself in the process.
Thank you for reading this article today and I hope you all have a great holiday season, however you celebrate or rest. For more articles like this, follow Above The Middle, a blog written by me Joe Gibson. If you enjoyed this article leave a few claps and let me know your thoughts below.
