Chronic stress puts the body on permanent alert. For many, the decisive shot across the proverbial bow comes only when the first physical symptoms of chronic stress become apparent. Yet we could be much more powerful, self-determined and satisfied if we mastered the interplay of tension and relaxation as the piano game of life in the first place. But to do that, it's important to learn to listen to physical and psychological signals. How can you tell that you are overworked??
Life as a piano game: tension, relaxation, tension ..
The first signs of overload creep into everyday life rather quietly. They are so insidious that we simply suppress them at first. Not infrequently we pass off tiredness, lack of concentration and bad moods as temporary problems. At some point these signs become a habit for us. The state of overload feels so typical to us that we think it is a normal condition. We don't know it any differently. Tiredness in the morning has become almost a societal stereotype. People who, despite several hours of sleep, shuffle into the kitchen in the morning and make themselves a coffee with half-closed eyelids as if automatically. Many of us also counter the 2 p.m. low with sufficient caffeine. Me as well.
The usual concentration problems can be solved by a little sugar boost, we think. When exhausted and tired, some people are prone to downright ravenous appetites. The body demands energy. Chocolate, fries and burgers are not far away. But these are also hard to digest. With the result that we feel even more exhausted afterwards. A vicious cycle.
The first step to becoming a feel-good person: awareness
Exhaustion, resignation, emptiness: How can you tell that you are overloaded?? © Holger Thie under cc
Perhaps it is time to counter this spiral with other behaviors. No fear. This is not going to be a finger-pointing article condemning tasty fast food. There are enough inspiring food bloggers who create delicious comfort food like burgers, pizza, cakes or fries in healthy or sometimes less healthy variants. The variations are endless and that's what we love. This article is about taking a look at the daily pace of life without denying yourself culinary pleasures or caffeine for good. But there's a difference between enjoying it because it's delicious and indulging in coffee, chips, choc& Co. needed to compensate for a stressful everyday life and – if you are honest – almost as addictive behavior.
Many of us row in everyday life. We take care of the job, the family, the usual duties – but not ourselves. It is not enough to take a little time out, in which you go to the bath with a glass of wine. These, too, are really just advertising stereotypes of recovery, which give us at most a superficial period of regeneration. It is much more a matter of habitually focusing more on oneself. Most of us are so busy taking care of everyone else that we've completely forgotten how to do it – and don't even think we're entitled to it! – taking care of ourselves. Self-care and self-detachment are not phrases, but starting points to break up the dilemma of stress, dissatisfaction and addiction compensation. For this, you need authenticity and unconditional honesty with yourself.
How you can tell when you're overloaded?
Let's start by listening to ourselves on a physical and psychological level. Let's focus completely on ourselves without a guilty conscience. Here are some of the key signs of how you can tell you're overloaded.
"I am not good enough"
You row and row, but somehow you don't reach the level of concentration or performance you were once capable of. You may be experiencing anxiety and feelings of inferiority, which further limit your ability to concentrate and increase your sense of malaise. It's as if you need infinite time for the normal errands. It almost seems as if time is running out and you are not good enough to keep up with the demands.
- Exhaustion
- Lack of concentration
- Fears
- Discomfort
- you are not good enough (inferior)
- as if you were running behind the time and as if you needed more time for the individual tasks than usual
- that you work many hours but accomplish much less
"I feel like I am not present in my life"
Actually you only function. Your everyday life seems to be fragmented into small time windows in which you just work through everything one after the other. Like an outsider, you look at the person in your life who is actually just getting things done, indulging in pro forma periods of relaxation, and carrying around a mountain of psychological ballast. You are. But it's like you're just playing yourself. You only act out of the function of your person.
- Absentmindedness
- Functionalization and mere acting
- no real value as a human being
- Haste and haste
"Emotionally, I'm like a ping-pong ball."
It is a mixture of emotional flattening and tense overstimulation that determines your mental experience. On the surface, you feel at peace with yourself, but only because you no longer perceive the emotional gradations. Sometimes you engage in behaviors that you don't even recognize yourself anymore. Who is that person who just freaked out like that?? even small inconsistencies upset you.
The sleep in the nights is possibly restless respectively. not very restful. Either you have nightly interruptions in the sleep phases or you sleep "like a rock" – and in both cases you wake up as if you were exhausted. You can't really switch off anymore. Accordingly, your readiness to start the day is also limited. You manage to keep up a reasonable level of activity for a few hours at most, but you are exhausted far too quickly. It is as if you are walking on a very narrow path before everything threatens to fail completely.
- fatigue, sleeplessness, sleeping "like a rock", waking up as if you were exhausted
- a tightrope walk
- Restlessness (no breaks, no coming down, racing heart, nervous muscle twitching)
- no longer you as a true person
- Mood swings at the limit
- total irritability
- Overstrain even at trifles
- decreased motivation and lack of drive
- a reduced level of activity
- Constant questioning of your performance, if necessary. compulsive repeated checking of the result
- insecurity, even in things you used to feel secure about
"It won't work anyway"
Along with this mindset, you tend to not take your goals and dreams for granted anymore. You don't see yourself anymore. "It's not going to work out anyway," you keep telling yourself. You resign, become suspicious, and see things more negatively than they are. Furthermore, you judge people much more mercilessly than it corresponds to your nature. Also, you have become very thin skinned when people criticize you. On the one hand you elevate yourself above other people, on the other you are intimidated by them.
You discover innocence only when you have lost it.
Neri Oxman, designer and professor at MIT Media Lab
(from the documentary "Abstract – Design as Art")
- resignation
- distrust
- Thinness, heightened sensitivity to other people and environmental stimuli (everything seems louder, flashier, more painful)
- Devaluation
- Intimidation
"I don't know who I am"
The squirrel masters the interplay in life of effort and rest. © Richard Szwejkowski under cc
When people are asked who they are, most answer, "I'm this and that and do this and that." Asked one more time, "Yes, but how are you as a human being?", most are first of all perplexed. Maybe they answer that they are funny or interested in art. An answer to such a question is always a paraphrased answer, that is quite clear. Especially when you answer to someone else's question. But the really important answer to such a question goes along with the thoughts it stimulates, which are more of a felt response. With what do you fill the emptiness in you? How do you attain the state of deep peace? When do you feel connected with a higher power, your fellow human beings, yourself, nature? Can you feel it? Or not?
- aimlessness
- Disillusion
- inner emptiness
- not yourself (dullness)
"I search a lot"
You engage in unhealthy behaviors in order to achieve well-being. Whether it is food, alcohol, tobacco, or the gaming or serial world. The line between entertainment during free time to addiction compensation is a thin one.
- feeling of being lost
- Reality escape
- Addictive cravings
- you no longer see yourself as an active part of your world