Imagine, you are living with your small family group out on the plains of Africa. All you worry about is finding enough food, not becoming a hungry lion’s lunch and not acting in a manner which may get you ostracised by the group.
When your fight and flight system kicks in, it’s because there is a threat from an animal or another human being, and you respond by sending appropriate signals to your muscles to provide them with enough energy for you to run away or fight your way out of danger.
This mechanism worked great for our ancestors, and they learned how to make tools to help them keep safe, comfortable and provide enough food to last them through leaner times.
For millennia humans lived along these lines, occasionally interrupted by disease, death, war or pestilence, but on the whole, life ticked along at a fairly steady pace. When the sun rose, we woke up, went about our business and when it set we would go to sleep. Then something dramatic happened in a fairly short time – our world became industrialised and suddenly we were forced to live life in quite a different way.
Society often linked deadlines to the seasons – reaping the wheat and corn as it ripened and before the storms destroyed them. When fish and birds appeared on their migratory routes, ways were found to preserve food and eat it before it went off.
Suddenly time became important. Time to get up – go to work, eat, seek prey and sleep. Forcing us to get up when it is dark, live our lives under artificial light. Hit deadlines daily – trains, buses and starting times all regulated and non-negotiable. Hit sales targets, bosses under stress, shouting at us for not making a deal in time. Work a five, six or even a seven-day week. No time to rest and digest. Maybe a Sunday off to go to church.
For many of us ongoing stress has become a big part of our lives and one that we are constantly trying to manage. Anxiety is also growing, Professor Nick Freemantle of UCL told the Guardian Newspaper recently that in 2008, 8.42% of women aged 18 to 24 suffered from anxiety. In 2018 that had risen to 30.33% – nearly one third of that age group. Men were close behind, but with less diagnosed. So what’s driving this massive increase? It appears to be partially security – lack of jobs or secure jobs, a feeling of lack of control over their future. Debt and trying to fit in to a world which feels overwhelming. Often it is all made worse by Social Media, encouraging us to create a false representation of our lives, trying to get our online personal brand to appear as if we are a modern day version of a successful human and that we fit in. Our performance is being monitored continually; we can’t escape from it with modern technology.
So how does all this anxiety manifest itself? : by preparing our bodies to run for our lives. We tense up – especially around the neck, back and shoulders. Our stomach feels knotted, causing a variety of digestive issues such as IBS. Our jaws grind our teeth down and our backs become painful. We become like a coiled spring. We need to calm ourselves and relieve the tension in as many ways as we can.
Whilst we have little control on how business performs, or what governments do – except voting and finding another company to work for – we can have control over our response to stress. We can learn to walk away from stressful situations. We can exercise or practise meditation, listen to relaxation mp3s and hypnotherapy. We can build better friendships and peer groups who share our beliefs and values. We can learn to better control our focus and choose the thoughts we want to engage with.
We can learn what are the best ways that work for us individually to switch off and to give both our mind and bodies the relaxation and recovery time that they crave.
September 2020
By Penelope Ling, Solution-focused hypnotherapist.
BA(hons) RIBA DHP CBT(Hyp) SFBT(Hyp) SFBTSUP(Hyp) AccHypSup MNCH(Acc) CNHC(reg) AfSFH(exec) Member of The College of Medicine, Senior Associate Royal Society of Medicine.