Mental Health Talk with Aimee Nev
Hi everyone, my name is Amy Neve and I live in North Cambridgeshire. Today I'm going to be talking to you about an article I came across that talks about anxiety. I thought it was quite an interesting article the way that they broke down the process of stress and anxiety, and I thought maybe it would just be really good food for thought. So, yeah, I hope you enjoy it. In the article they're talking about how we're all currently suffering from a mass burnout.
Speaker 1:I say we're all, but you know many people are, some people are not. And a mass burnout or a burnout is described by the APA as a physical, emotional or mental exhaustion accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance and negative attitudes towards oneself and others. And they said that many of us are finding it very hard to still feel that spark of joy at things which once might have made us smile or made our hearts beat and made us happy and content. And I think there's quite a few people who have reported to be feeling this way just following the pandemic, over the past two years, especially during the pandemic as well. And I think it's important to remember that even though I guess we're out of a pandemic, I don't know if there was ever an official end date, but even though it's kind of over we're still now adjusting to life after a pandemic and almost sort of just being reintroduced back into this full time life of going to work and face to face interactions, but also things like having our social calendars filling up very, very quickly.
Speaker 1:I'm definitely guilty of looking at my empty weekends and saying, well, I've nothing on that weekend, so if a friend does ask me to hang out, I guess I'm available. I don't really have a reason to say I'm not available because I don't have anything on. And I think it's really important to remember that making time for yourself is just as important as being a good friend or staying social or or, you know, turning up to those events. So a good reminder that just because you have a free date in the diary, it doesn't mean that you have to feel bad for turning down hanging out with friends. It's absolutely okay and acceptable and legitimate to say, no, actually sorry that that weekend, I'm I'm busy that weekend.
Speaker 1:I'm having a rest a rest day. I'm having a rest weekend. And hopefully you're surrounded by people who will respect that. And if you're not, then that's on them, that's something they need to deal with, if they have an issue with it, you know, that's their narrative, and they can play that out. You don't need to be concerned about that.
Speaker 1:So what they say about this burnout, they're saying that we're starting to feel like we're sort of weighed down under an invisible net of tense fatigue. And I think I can relate to that in the sense that I'm constantly on the go, and I know many of us are, and you all of a sudden will just crash and you feel this really, really heavy intense fatigue and it's something to be really quite aware of. So in the article, they're talking about sort of stress and how stress can be linked with increased anxiety. And they're saying stress, is something that kind of starts with the release of adrenaline and this sets your body up for a fight or flight scenario. And then the next biological process is that cortisol is released and this is focused on the liver, the pancreas, and also fat cells in order to transport more glucose to our muscles.
Speaker 1:And the reason this happens is because you're preparing for this fight phase, you know, it's that natural fight or flight. So you're preparing the muscles for the body to fight. During this process, also digestion is put on pause. And this is why Scott and our coaches are always banging on about how stress can increase, or decrease your chances of sort of losing fat and could also increase fat gain. And it's also why we track our levels of stress when we are, tracking our macros and we're tracking on the app because it can have quite a direct impact scientifically speaking.
Speaker 1:So when stress does continue for a long time, then eventually signs that things are not okay start to come to the surface. This could be things like weight gain, and more extreme cases of diabetes. It could be things like reduced energy levels or depressive moods, maybe insomnia, also lowered immunity and poor memory or brain fog. So stress really isn't something that should be just shrugged off as something that, you know, yes, I'm stressed, I'm sure it'll pass. It actually should be taken, and considered a lot more seriously than what I personally think of it as, many of you might as well.
Speaker 1:The article goes on to say that stress is something that takes quite a long time to leave the body. It takes time as with any true deep healing process. And so it isn't something that you should expect to just leave quietly or quickly. It is something that you need to take action in order to reduce. And we need to think about things like, yes, I'm stressed.
Speaker 1:Yes, work stressed me out or my family or whatever. The situation stresses me out. But, you know, is it worth the detriment that it's having on your actual health and on your life? Those are questions you need to ask yourself. If you are feeling levels of stress, then the next thing to do would be able to see how you can take action to reduce that stress.
Speaker 1:And trust me, I know it's easier said than done. Interestingly in the article they were talking about the impact that pandemics and lockdowns had on people and they were saying that in the survey that was conducted by the mental health of children and young people they found that young women were the worst affected mentally by the multiple lockdowns. And also a quarter of children between ages five and 16 reported suffering from disrupted sleep. And I thought that was quite an interesting finding from this survey because we often forget that it's not just us personally who are feeling stressed because of what's been going on. We're all going to have sort of a cumulative feeling of stress, and perhaps a legged feeling of stress following the last two years.
Speaker 1:So I thought that was quite an interesting thing, especially if anybody has any children. You know, there wasn't a lot of parental guidance on how the pandemic be impacting young people. And it's important to know, especially, you know, I can relate to this and that my little one, she's eight, and we do have these emotional outbursts which are really quite not like her. You know, they're quite out of the norm. And just being able to have awareness and know that, well, actually this could just be a residual effect of the pandemic and a lagged accumulation of stress.
Speaker 1:It kind of makes you a little bit more, empathetic, I suppose, when dealing with these meltdowns. And then in a turn of events, that can then help to reduce my own stress levels as well, because then I'm not reacting to her outbursts because I have an understanding of where she's coming from. They report that stress can kind of come in a multitude of forms, so a quicker pulse, chest pains, sudden sweatiness, and heart palpitations, even things like shaking or panic attacks. And that's because there's really big adrenaline spikes that can kind of come with stress. But also these adrenaline spikes are common in trauma sufferers.
Speaker 1:And this article reports that actually going through this global pandemic could be for some people a form of trauma. And when you have experienced a traumatic event, you're more susceptible to having higher reactions to stress and stress hormones. So again, it's something just to be aware of. If you're kind of feeling a little bit off and you might be thinking, you know, I never reacted this way before, why am I reacting this way now? It could just be, again, that leg effect of what we've just gone through.
Speaker 1:I thought it was quite interesting how the article reports that the human brain has around 86,000,000,000 neurons that are firing at all times and the body as a whole has 40,000,000,000,000 cells. And then they said only between four and seven things can be focused on at one time by the working memory. So think about how many times you have to multitask in a day, how many different social events, how many WhatsApp messages, notifications, how many other social media notifications, emails, different projects at work, and then you have to remember to eat and recipes and exercise. So we're trying to make quite a lot of decisions and focus on a lot of things at once, but they say that you can only really focus on four to seven things at once. So that's again, something to think of when you're trying to build habits and healthy habits, but also maybe to reduce the amount of things you're thinking about in order to try and reduce your own stress levels.
Speaker 1:Interestingly, they said that the average person makes around 35,000 decisions, all separate, each and every day. So from simply moving or what are you going to eat, what are you drinking, or social media, what are you going to check, when are you going to check it. So many of us are making so many decisions on focusing on various different things That they said it's really important to not allow yourself to, focus on things that are going to actually trigger your anxiety or increase your stress and anxiety. And part of this was looking at a study, it was a 1995 study by Rosal and Olson that looked at things called counterfactual thinking. So this is thinking about things like what might have been, or perhaps you're thinking about worst case scenarios.
Speaker 1:And I'm certainly this type of person where I automatically think about what will I do in the worst case scenario. You know, if you're flying on a flight, you know, if you're someone who doesn't like flying, you know who I'm talking about? Pause now. But if you're flying on a flight, I might think, well, I'm gonna sit here and then if we crash, this is what I would do. I just can't help it.
Speaker 1:I have that anxious mind where I will think about these worst case scenarios. But this counterfactual thinking actually can increase your stress and anxiety because you're focusing on something that doesn't need to be focused on. So it's taking away from that, those four to seven things you can think about at once. So I'm wasting my, my energy thinking about things that could have happened. I could have done it differently or what will happen if this is the worst case scenario.
Speaker 1:So it's about practicing being aware when you're thinking about these things and learning how can I stop myself from having this counter factual thinking? And I thought that was a really interesting part of this article that came up. They talked about different methods that you can, use to reduce your cortisone levels and reduce your anxiety and reduce your stress. And they highlight that this is really important because emotions can play a big factor in your heart health. So increased cortisol levels or stress hormones can elevate your risk of heart attack and also lower immunity.
Speaker 1:So it's really important for everyone to kind of think about these sort of coping mechanisms that you can put in place to make sure that you're reducing your mental load, make sure you're reducing the amount of things you're focusing on, making sure that when you're making decisions throughout the day, there are decisions that are going to help you rather than decisions that, you know, are going to perhaps drain what little energy you have to be able to give to those. And a really interesting, tip that they gave is that it was really important to put in place some sort of structure in your day. Not everyone likes to plan and not everyone likes structure, but the idea of this article is that when you have structure in place, it's almost like one less thing you need to think about because it's already set up. Your day is already planned out. So you're not wasting time on those four to seven, spaces of focus that you have because you've already planned out your day.
Speaker 1:And so they said that the structure can be as simple as sticking to bedtime routines or mealtime routines, and this can help with children as well to have a clear structure. It gives them one less thing to wonder about to focus about as well. They also recommend scheduling, times for exercise and actually putting that into your plan rather than thinking I'm just going to do some exercise on that day. Timetable it into your day, because again, it's one less decision you need to make. It's one less thing you need to focus on.
Speaker 1:They also highlight the importance of leaving time for hobbies as well as other interests, and making time for quality time with friends and quality time with your family. And by quality time, let's just think about back about, you know, over committing our, our weekends and our downtime. If you're already burnt out and you filled that one free weekend to see friends because you don't want to seem like a bad friend, Well, actually, it's just sort of draining, and taking from an already empty cup. So it's not necessarily going to be quality time, but it could have an impact on the following weeks, which then reduces the quality of your interactions with people over the following weeks because you're so depleted, you're so fatigued. So really the importance is creating brain healthy habits and creating mental stimulation to offset negative cognitive effects of a brain stagnation or fatigue or overwhelm and anxiety.
Speaker 1:And this means just to make sure you're adequately engaged and stimulated, but also doing so in a way that is going to make sure you take care of yourself and that you're taking care of your own sort of energy levels and stress levels as well. So that's just the article about anxiety that I wanted to share with you because I thought I could relate to quite a lot of it and it was a good reminder to me to make sure that I realize it's okay to say no to invites and I don't always have to overcommit and fill every single down moment in my diary with an activity. And hopefully, you found that it was helpful as well. So remember, Live one day at a time. Make the most of this twenty four hours that you've got and find something today that makes you smile.
Speaker 1:Bye bye.
