Find an end to the endless cycle
Have you ever had a runner’s high? If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s basically a quick boost of endorphins. Endorphins are one of the many chemicals in our brain that makes us feel happier, and you typically get them after doing exercise, like going on a run. Our bodies have been wired to enjoy things that are good for us. Sugar, for instance, tastes so good because it’s a highly concentrated form of something that gives us energy: carbohydrates. Carbs are great for us: they are the best source of food energy we have.
However, this brings us to a common problem: too much of anything, even something great for you, is harmful. Even if our brains don’t quite recognize that what we’re doing is a poor decision, it can still have detrimental effects on our body. Any excess of something entering our bodies, physical or mental, is bad for us.
It’s hard to say that most people like stress. It’s just that weird, unfortunate mental feeling that brings us down and hits us while we’re on the ground. Any number of things can cause stress. Some examples are:
Really, stress can come from anything. We’re always stressed about something. Anxiety is just a fact of life, but sometimes our anxiety can be a bit hyperactive.
Stress is controlled by a hormone called cortisol. We evolved to experience cortisol release whenever something dangerous happens. This was an important instinct out in the wild, when our biggest problems were lack of food and predators. Anything that scares you about your future, though, will cause stress. Essentially, your brain has the same interaction with itself when you’re assigned a large project at work that you would’ve had if you lived in a cave and couldn’t find your pet rock. Getting a call out of the blue from your ex is treated, in your brain, the same way as being chased by a lion. It’s all just cortisol release. Yes, it’s more complicated than that, but not by much.
Let’s focus in on the idea of being chased by a lion. If you were trying to outrun a large predator, you would need two things: cortisol and adrenaline. The cortisol is what signals your brain that danger is coming. It makes sure you understand that something bad scary is happening, and you should run away. What follows is an adrenaline rush. Adrenaline is a separate hormone that energizes you for that run. It puts you more in the moment, and it increases your heart rate and pain tolerance to make sure your one goal is to get out with as little harm done to yourself as possible. Whether, for you, that would be fight or flight, difficult to say. It varies by person.
Your brain functions the same when we sub the wilderness for your phone and the lion for your ex. Your brain is hit by a rush of cortisol, because, for you in this example, this ex signifies trouble. You rather wouldn’t reconnect with this person, and your brain interprets that as a sign of physical danger. The bottom line is that your future, in some capacity, is in trouble, and you’d rather not tempt fate on that. Following that cortisol is an immediate burst of adrenaline. For many people, this rush of adrenaline feels terrible. It lasts too long, and it just makes you feel jittery. For others, though, adrenaline rushes have the exact opposite effect. They can release your happy chemicals, like serotonin and dopamine.
Serotonin is the hormone that gets released when you see someone you love, or do something else positively emotionally stimulating, and dopamine is the signal to your brain of reward. It’s released when you eat sugar. After the cortisol dries up, which doesn’t take terribly long for most people, all you’re left with is adrenaline and the happy hormones. If you’re starting to think that this sounds like the basis for an addiction, doing something that could be harmful for you but waiting out the unpleasantness before a much longer state of joy, you’d be right.
Addiction distress is fairly common. Every day, tons of people go out in search of adding stress to their lives, which can be detrimental to their futures and relationships. Even if the stress sought after comes from something as simple as a horror movie, addiction is still bad for you. We’re at our healthiest when we don’t depend on an abnormal amount of a certain chemical to function, and natural cortisol is no different. So, what are some ways we can address and break this cycle?
The classic answer to any psychological issue is always going to be the standard of psych treatment: cognitive behavioral therapy. I know, the name sounds big, long, and a little complicated, but it’s just the official name of the normal kind of therapy. It’s the typical sit across the room and talk approach to psychology.
A cognitive behavioral therapist will be well-versed in the development of positive coping mechanisms and healthy ways to approach your fears. Both are incredibly important things when it comes to addiction, especially stress addiction.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is an amazing tool that has worked wonders for a lot of people, but, like everything else in psychology, it can’t work absolutely every time. Every therapist is different, so every appointment with a different therapist is going to be different, too. It can also sometimes be hard to get a therapist. Insurance, for instance, can often create difficulties in finding a licensed professional. Some companies just make it more difficult than others. This is why, sometimes, turning to more specialty methods of treatment can be good.
It feels like everywhere you look nowadays, everyone’s telling you to be mindful. People treat it like some sort of wonder drug that'll cure any issue you’re having. That is, of course, an exaggeration, but mindfulness really can do a lot for you.
Mindfulness can be accomplished in several ways. The classic version is yoga, which involves you doing a series of predetermined stretches in specific poses alongside small breathing exercises that remove you from the speed and stress of the world, placing you in that moment.
The thing about mindfulness, though, is that it’s anything that can make you mindful, not just yoga. Mindfulness isn’t so much an action as it is a state of being. You are mindful when you can live in the moment and experience the world as it is. In many ways, mindfulness is the exact opposite of distress. Stress and anxiety hinge on a fear of the future, and it’s impossible to fear the future when all you can think about is the present.
It’s also important to remember that mindfulness isn’t something you have to buy. Lots of therapy sessions can be costly, either with insurance (and especially without). Mindfulness doesn’t require you to buy a yoga mat or roller. All you need is yourself and a place to sit. Sometimes, you don’t even need to sit. If you can find a place to stand, close your eyes, just breathe, and you have the ability to practice mindfulness. All you have to do is stand there and notice your breathing. Don’t focus on anything other than what’s around you. Look into your senses. Try to feel the clothes on yourself, the bruise on your face, and the air entering and exiting your mouth. Maybe even set a rhythm to your breathing.
The important thing is that you set a routine with it. If you can establish a daily goal of just five minutes of meditation, doing nothing but sitting down, closing your eyes, and experiencing yourself in that moment, you are being mindful. This is especially important in the cycle of cortisol dependency. Mindfulness is possibly the greatest coping mechanism anyone can develop, and it’s 100% free.
You may have heard of the new hottest kind of therapy, and you may have also heard that it’s been around for quite a lot longer than you might think. To put it simply, music therapy is therapy that involves music in some form. There’s a wide variety of types of music therapy such as:
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to know anything about how music and music theory work in order to do music therapy. Can’t keep a beat? Not a problem. The only thing you need is some music that you like. Your music therapist will ask you during the first session about your taste in music and plan future sessions based on that.
Music is famously great at releasing stress and tension in your body, especially in your muscles. Your body is one complete system full of complicated parts that all interact with each other, and, when one thing relaxes, the rest of the body follows. A music therapist is able to bring you to equilibrium and help you work on yourself in a controlled environment that was built to maximize your healing process.
