Quote:
Originally Posted by Skeezyks
I'm sorry I can't really offer any particular suggestions with regard to your concerns. My personal, non-professional thinking would be that there really aren't any specific things you could do to address this particular concern. (Perhaps some other members, here on PC, will have some suggestions.)
From what you wrote, it sounds as though what you are struggling with is related to anxiety. And, at least from my perspective, anxiety reduction is something one has to work on consistently over time via such things as getting plenty of physical exercise, possibly doing meditation, avoiding the consumption of caffeinated beverages, and other things. It's really a lifestyle change that, over time, leads to a reduction in one's over all level of anxiety & thus one's tendency to develop the kind of stress reactions you describe.
Having written that, though, here are links to a bunch of articles from PsychCentral's archives on the subject of how to reduce one's level of stress as well as one's over all level of anxiety. Perhaps some of the information in these articles will be of some help:
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Thank you for the input!
The stress reaction doesn't feel like anxiety. Maybe there is that too in the whole bunch of negative emotionality+stress, I don't particularly notice it on its own.
I already train a lot, I don't drink coffee, and meditation just makes me fall asleep, so these things don't help here. What other lifestyle things were you referring to?
I've checked out your links, thanks for those too. The problem is... where it recommends relaxation. I already do that excessively by retreating into a very detached mode that I kind of call my "mental addiction". It doesn't help, clearly.
As for harnessing the harmful knee-jerk reaction as per this link
https://psychcentral.com/lib/6-ways-...s-less-at-work. I don't know how to do that. It says some people mentally withdraw from the situation. Yeah that's what I do with the "mental addiction". And if I don't allow myself to withdraw (which is the knee-jerk reaction by default) then I have the incredible feeling of the stress reaction, physically. I'm usually only able to put up with that for a second before I withdraw again.
Identifying and managing negative emotion... well when I finally get to FEEL the emotions and not just the stress response, that's just more physical like I get stabbed, or something, well, so when I do finally get to feel them, it's actually better, I can handle that phase better. I can then at least think things through for problem-solving if needed. But it can take a while to get to feel these emotions, and that can mean a lot of attempts ending in the stress reaction immediately (from which my brain runs back to the "mental addiction" instantly) before I can FEEL the emotions.
They do get violent though. If I manage to release them it helps. Like, yesterday I managed to get to a point where I suddenly - finally - emotionally reacted and I hit my own head several times and then went into a crying fit. I felt better afterwards. This was after several hours of the stress of trying to start on the task...
If I force things too much, lately I more and more often also get slowed down or immobilized with some weird tension until I can start moving again.
Basically the issue is that this problem/reaction is extreme and I don't know how to start breaking it down. These links are not dealing with such an extreme version of it... Any practical idea I could try for that?