How Not To Rush Past Life?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Remember, have you ever been in such situations?

You are driving in a taxi, streets, signs, passers-by are sweeping outside the window, the melody of a music track carries away your imagination. From the darkness of the cockpit, a pair of screens - a navigator and a tablet, installed to assist the driver, are watching small alarmed animals. Watch out! Messages come to Viber and WhatsApp, you need to call your grandmother, but first you want to send a letter to the office. The laptop grunted out of the case, the battery sits down, charge as soon as possible.

Or here. On a Friday night, you walk into a café for a drink and a light dinner to celebrate the start of a legitimate holiday. You can still hear the mixed hum of voices and music outside, you open the door, and a wave of this noise falls on you, the deafening sound of music and the voices of visitors. You freeze in confusion, a moment for orientation, and (there is nothing to do, the meeting is scheduled here) you plunge into a ringing and pulsating atmosphere. After a while, it even seems that you have got used to it and got used to it (as your eyes get used to the darkness) that everything is fine, but you just have to speak too loudly to be heard, listen too closely to keep attention on the interlocutor, but think too much, to determine if you now want meat or sweets.

How do you feel in these situations? And do you feel at all?

I would venture to suggest that it doesn't matter. At best, lost and vaguely uncomfortable. Perhaps you have a hunch that the unpleasant feeling is related to the congestion of the senses. Hearing, sight, smell, touch, sometimes even a sense of balance and position in space. You might feel better if the environment was more forgiving.

What happens to people in such situations is called hyperstimulation in psychology, that is, an overload of the sense organs.

What is hyperstimulation?

Overstimulation is too much, too fast, too bright or loud for us.

Hyperstimulation is a characteristic feature of our time. Due to the variety of means of communication, we are almost constantly in a dialogue with someone and learn the news. Entertainment and public spaces place us in a dense information field. Striving for success prompts us to accommodate more and more in one day. More events, more achievements.

Various signals, merging into a discordant noise background, simultaneously penetrate our consciousness, creating overcrowding. It becomes more and more difficult for us to notice what is important and focus on one thing. So a computer, simultaneously executing many programs, at some point freezes in a daze, unable to perform any more operation.

There are no uniform criteria and standards for all that differentiate: this is hyperstimulation (read: overkill), but this is not. What is pleasant and easy for one person will be almost unbearable for another. Even a simple phone check before bed can be overwhelming: screen flickering, multiple messages from different channels, news, switching between different topics and conversations.

What is the danger of hyperstimulation?

How has humanity not yet died out in such an unfriendly environment? We are adapting. On the one hand, we "speed up", our brain trains to process more signals per unit of time. On the other hand, in response to the bombardment of stimuli, we reduce sensitivity, weaned to address ourselves and recognize body signals, and we notice less responses from our body. We stop noticing our needs.

The last consequence is extremely important, because it is the knowledge of our needs and the ability to act on the basis of them that is the key to a happy life. A person whose actions "go into isolation" from his needs does not feel satisfaction and suffers from depression.

In addition, sensitive people cannot endlessly transform their sensitivity into numbness. To do this, they have to stop their reactions, "swallow" uncomfortable sensations. And then this energy, which has not found a way out, retained in the body, turns into unpleasant bodily sensations and painful symptoms. Panic attacks, asthmatic attacks, skin dermatitis, anxiety disorders, chronically reduced immunity are just a few of the psychosomatic illnesses resulting from unexpressed affect.

The reaction of cats to hyperstimulation is indicative. Remember, when you sit and stroke your pet, he purrs comfortably and gratefully, and then bam, and now he is running away from you full of indignation, grabbing your finger well. This is their reaction - to nothing more than sensory hyperstimulation. When we stroke them all over the body, the static tension in their body builds up very quickly, and pretty soon leads to an explosion-discharge.

Not on the topic, but since we're talking about cats. Cats always show you where to pet them. Just extend your finger in front of him and he will rub against it in the "right" places. As a rule, areas on the face and neck do not cause a sudden DAC effect.

Let's go back. Why don't people do the same as their wisest brothers? At first glance, it may seem that the matter is in our "socialization". The fact that we are all so cultured, and have learned to endure. And this is part of the truth.

And the other part is that we often find ourselves defenseless against the hyperstimulation that we undergo. Falling under the stream of news, beating with great pressure directly into our consciousness, we rapidly lose the ability to orient ourselves and feel. And that prevents us from taking care of ourselves. Disorientation complicates the task.

If we continue the animal theme, then in this we are more like frogs. Do you know that if you put a frog in warm water and gradually increase the temperature, the frog will go into a daze and allow itself to be boiled? Likewise, a person undergoing hyperstimulation often loses the ability to feel and take care of themselves.

But the fact that we are losing ourselves is not the only consequence of hyperstimulation. We are losing others as well.

You say, can the lights of a messenger or a TV on the wall in a cafe take our husband or girlfriend away from us? But this is happening. Being in a space filled with information noise, we can notice how disconnected we are from those who are nearby, notice that our needs do not find support, and our feelings do not find a response. In this atmosphere, it is not easy to share something meaningful with another person, to be with him. And this is the saddest consequence of hyperstimulation - it disconnects.

Why is this happening?

You might think: if hyperstimulation is such an unpleasant and harmful thing, then why is there so much of it? Why does hyperstimulation happen at all? Let's try to figure it out.

If you look closely, you will notice that sensory and informational overloads are voluntary and forced.

Sometimes a person resorts to hyperstimulation of their choice. Dives headlong into the space of stimuli, “increases the volume,” creates overload. He needs it for something at the moment. It can be assumed that he does not want to face something now, wants to be distracted, to switch.

And sometimes people, against their will, find themselves captured and overwhelmed by external stimuli that they cannot control. Let's talk about such situations in more detail.

Why does this information noise happen?

The answer lies on the surface: the creators and sellers of goods, services and information are competing for our attention. In this race, they twist all the switches to the maximum - in order to become noticeable against the background of the rest. Loudly? We'll make it louder. Is it bright? We'll make it brighter. Spectacular? You won't take your eyes off!

Let's dig deeper. We live in an era of increasing opportunities, in an era when old boundaries are blurring - and new ones have not yet been defined. Now we can almost instantly get any information, find any person and contact him. We can want any thing from the other side of the world and get it. We can declare ourselves in such a way that many people will hear, and attract the attention of the whole world. In this situation of blurred personal boundaries, everyone can quite easily find themselves in our "territory". With your song, request or advertisement. And it can be difficult for us to push aside the "uninvited guest" until we have developed clear and convenient mechanisms for protecting our psychological space.

How can we support ourselves in such a situation?

There is no one unique technology, "the answer to the main question of life, the universe and all that." Someone meditates in the morning or practices the popular mindfulness. Someone every week goes to the dacha to help with cucumbers, plunging into a spontaneous informational "detox", and there is no more effective "reset" for him. Each context "lays down" its own decision.

However, we can speculate about general principles of "safety engineering".

How not to lose orientation in the chaos and buzzing of external stimuli?

Meet the three whales that hold our ability to navigate.

1. Body sensations.

2. Feelings and emotions.

3. Thoughts or attitudes towards something.

Body sensations are the body's first signal about how we are experiencing a particular situation. It is also the most stable, because available even when the rest of the body's signals are no longer audible. Bodily sensations are our support in those moments when the world turns upside down and nothing can be made out anymore. We can return our attention to the body and follow what it tells us. In most cases, this is the most correct way.

Feelings and emotional reactions, if we can still spot them among the cacophony of other signals, require our courage and determination. People tend to ignore and push their feelings aside as inadequate or unnecessary. Confidence in yourself and your sensitivity is an important component of navigating a situation. Sometimes, to find out how we feel, we need to share with someone. Describing our experiences, we can feel how important and relevant they are to us.

Our attitude to something determines the decision we make. If we don't like the T-shirt, we won't buy it. If we like a person, we go to meet him. Therefore, it is so important to find your attitude. And your attitude is a thought based on two other whales: body and feelings. It is important not to confuse your attitude with abstract mental constructions, reasoning that is not tied to the "belly" - to our sensations and feelings.

These three whales - bodily sensations, feelings, attitudes - help us navigate. We can build a strategy of actions in a situation of sensory and information enumeration, providing for relying on our whales. If you feel that you are overwhelmed with impressions, you do not have time to understand what is happening around, what is happening merges into one uniform hum of events, try to take a break. Find an opportunity to get out of the situation for a moment (it's good to do it literally, physically) and "scan" your feelings in order:

1. What do I feel in my body?

2. What emotions and feelings does it evoke in me?

3. What do I think about it, what attitude do I form on the basis of these feelings?

And the next layer - let it be the land standing on the whales - is actions. What do I want to do and what kind of support do I need to do this? Who can provide this support? Who would I like to share this experience with?

Overstimulation is a big city disease. When everything is flying around, buzzing and sparkling, it can be difficult to navigate, to understand on your own what the problem is, why anxiety overcomes in the evenings, and in the morning it is sometimes simply impossible to get out of bed, why it is so uncomfortable in a public place,and at work, in the middle of the day, the head splits into pieces. If you notice discomfort that is difficult to attribute to any specific reason, do not be alone with him. Seek help, seek support from someone you trust, who can listen to you and not evaluate, will help you understand the situation. Psychotherapy can also provide support in this situation.