How are you?
I couldn’t possibly tell you how I am because as a judge I don’t really want to know. I can say for sure that I’m much more tired than I once was. Bone-tired. For this past week I’ve drifted along fuzzy headed about everything, and more anxious over decisions than I knew I was capable of. And the family says my fuse is much shorter than usual! Are you the same?
These emotions feel doubly strange just at a time when we should be celebrating new-found freedoms and are getting a glimpse of a return to “normality”. Yes, gyms, pubs, and restaurants may be open again and we can now go borderless, but the grind of this year has been tough, and just when you thought it was safe, along comes Omicron. I talked to my therapist and it turns out mentally we may not be bouncing back from living through another exceptional year as fast as we might have hoped.
That things are starting to open and we’re getting lots of positive news doesn’t make a difference, I’m told. That’s because our brains are still on a high state of alert and struggling to catch up with all that’s happened in 2021. And the worst thing we can do is try to push those feelings away and not acknowledge that we feel a bit off, even if we feel guilty for feeling this way. Her advice was sage:
“You judges like to repress emotions that are uncomfortable — you don’t like to feel angry, sad, or anxious. You work hard to push these emotions down but they’re there for a reason. It’s about listening to the emotions and listening to the experience because that’s what’s going to free you up and move you forward.”
This good counsel was accompanied by an early Christmas present — I was sent Stress Proof by Dr Storoni a University of Cambridge, trained medical doctor. She has a background in neuroscience research, a PhD in neuro-ophthalmology and is certified in ophthalmology. Mithu was inspired to write Stress Proof after observing how stress manifests in both health and diseases of the brain and body. In Stress Proof, she distills over 500 cited scientific papers into a practical guide to help manage stress, improve brain health, and increase resilience with small changes to behaviour, lifestyle, and diet.
The first pages reveal that the pressures we have all experienced in the past year will have had an impact on our bodies. “Stress affects all aspects of your physiology, including your metabolism and levels of inflammation,” she says. That in turn will affect sleep, emotional reactions, and cause difficulty focusing. And increase belly fat. Huh, here I was at ‘that’ end of my wardrobe squeezing into last year’s too-tight summer trousers thinking my larger girth was only caused by those extra lockdown beers!
She adds that when the brain has been in a state of high physiological arousal, it is hard to shake stress off.
“Our brain is staying in that highly vigilant state where it can suddenly update its data to adjust to the completely unexpected yet again,” she says. “As a survival tactic, the brain is still prepared for things to go pear-shaped, or not. Staying in this state allows it to cope.”
I’ve been told more than ever, this holiday season I really do need to refresh and reset and reclaim the habits and routines I had before. So, here’s the plan.
Switch off the news
Storoni says, “The brain’s perception of the situation is far more significant than the actual situation.” Managing sources of known aggravation and stress will help. “Your mind is creating a perception of reality from the input it is getting — maybe from TV, from friends, from social media,” she adds. “Your mental expectation of reality often supersedes your actual physical experience of it.”
Exacerbating this, she says, is the fact that recent events tend to shape our expectations more strongly than our common sense. “So, if something catastrophic has happened recently, anywhere in the world, we extrapolate that into the future and expect a catastrophic event to happen … to us … with a much greater probability than we know is rational.”
For example, she adds, “You might read that Covid cases are rising, [and] immediately your mind amplifies that heightened perception of threat, where in reality the threat to you, right now, has not changed.”
Reclaim routines
I am told that routines give us a feeling of stability and certainty, and now that we have more freedom we should reinstate our good habits and avoid the poor ones. “The pandemic pushed us into a set of habits and routines that we didn’t particularly want.” Now, “we can reclaim the habits and routines we had before, the ones we wanted”. It needs a conscious effort to switch back. This is a refresh point where you can decide, ‘I’m going to rejig my life because I want it to look how it used to look.’
So, the boxing gloves and gym bag will return to the boot of the car so those crushing slugs and yoga poses from McNaughton at lunchtime on a Tuesday and Thursday can restart. I hope, as I very much doubt, these underused creaking joints will be too happy at leaping back into ‘downward-facing dog’.
Routines also help to counteract stress because “the more you can automate, the less work your brain has to do. It’s like learning to drive. Once you’re proficient, you don’t have to think about it, you concentrate on the road and it’s less stressful”.
Get out and about
Did you know that just 20 minutes of exposure to nature every day noticeably lowers cortisol surges, Storoni says, “Just going out for a walk in the park, for a short period of time, such as in a lunch break, will have a significant effect on your perceived stress.”
If you’re in the city, it’s especially effective. “Moving from an urban environment to a safe, natural environment immediately lowers our state of alertness and vigilance,” Storoni says.
If you’re waking early, rather than lie there fretting, use nature to reset. Storoni explains that if things are predictable in your immediate space, it will help you feel calmer, even if the world at large feels unpredictable. “One of the oldest ways in which we reassure ourselves that the world is predictable is by watching the sun rise every day and watching it set at night. Watching nature’s predictability helps us to perceive predictability,” she says. “Aligning your biorhythms with the rhythms of the world also feeds into sleep.”
Easy for me to say as ‘I got this one’. We live on a ‘life sentence’ block, so the rooster crows at dawn and the chores start with feeding out as the sun rises. Then there’s grandma who lives quite independently in a cottage on the farm. Nudging a 101 years of age, G’ Ma gardens every day and a nightly gin is obligatory as we catch up while the sun sets.
Throw a small party — and dance!
Now this is the kind of therapeutic advice I related to! Throwing a party with a small group of positive, happy people whom you trust, and dancing the night away may help to shift your perception, Storoni says. “As social creatures, we use the people around us — family, friends — to confirm that our own picture of reality is correct. In this context, enjoying good times with people you care about reinforces the perception of safety, that all is well. There’s also a good pile of research on the calming effect of being with a friend or loved one when going through a stressful experience.”
Dancing can help to release stress, she adds. “People dancing in step together show some degree of synchrony in some brain regions. Going through an emotional experience together seems to also make some aspects of brain activity show synchrony. This social bonding has a calming effect.”
Dancing has all the key ingredients. “It’s cardiovascular, endorphin-releasing, and movement therapists say that moving, reclaiming your body, and grounding yourself in your physical reality is hugely important.
“Music, rhythm, movement are very anti-cerebral, and to treat anxiety and depression we know that people have to get out of their own mind. Sometimes thinking is part of the problem as well as part of the solution. The body has an important role to play in helping the mind.”
So yes of course (sigh), over the holidays I’ll do all the rest of that stuff like reclaiming routines, walking the dogs, and accentuating the positive, and, yes, I’ll not gorge on pav, pints, or the press, however, I sense long languid nights under the olive grove lights around a grazing table with friends and family listening to Marvin Gay may just be what the doctor ordered! Dance, anyone?