It’s no secret that the last 2 years have been extraordinarily stressful for people around the world. For many, the stress has been non-stop for even longer.
Climate activists have felt it for decades, growing steadily each year. Reproductive rights advocates have been dealt setback after setback for the last five years. Teenagers have seen key developmental years stymied by lockdowns and parents of young children have seen lives turned into chaos as they’ve had to juggle work, parenting, daycare, and COVID safety.
The stressors around us are many. You’re not alone if you’ve been feeling them more acutely than ever.
There should be no shame in realizing this. In fact, it’s healthy to make note of this. Even regular check-ins with our own mental states can be helpful for validating ourselves and working through the tougher times.
If we do keep track of these things, we are less likely to be suddenly overwhelmed. At any given time, I know that there are at least a half-dozen things that could be stressing me out. A few of them I can work on. A few need more time. Some, I just have to deal with.
As a cis-gendered middleclass white male, I recognize that there are a lot of stressors out there that are not hitting me directly. As I come to terms with my own stress over certain situations, it helps thus to reach out to those around me who may be more stressed out and more rightly upset.
In this way we can contextualize our stress, perhaps even level it out in a way. When we’re very stressed out, it’s easy to feel alone or to feel the weight of the stress entirely on our own shoulders. Seeing htat the stress is a result of broader issues helps us to connect with others.
The catastrophizing mind
The opposite of this is the catastrophizing mind. Writing in The Guardian, Sophie Brickman reminds us that some amount of catastrophizing is fine, even healthy. These kinds of “worst-case-scenario” thoughts are built into our evolutionary DNA. They help us to make safe decisions when we realize that the worst-case scenario could kill or harm us and the potential rewards from some action are not so great.
For example, our ancestors might have been hanging out in their cave by a warm fire one night. Then they got hungry and thought about going out. But then they thought about the giant predators that lived in the forest around them and the fact that it was nighttime. So they decided to stay in and wait for the next morning to go snack-hunting.
The problem is that our catastrophizing mind can get triggered again and again in today’s high-paced and globally-connected world. We just didn’t evolve to worry not only about the vicinity about our own cave, but also everything going on around thousands of cave-neighbors around the world.
Calm
The good news is that the paths to calm are about as many and varied as are the paths to stress and catastrophizing. A first step might be simply closing off some of those media channels that constantly repeat the direst of news and demands upon us. In an interconnected world, we can feel directly responsible for the suffering of everyone everywhere all of the time. However, we must also admit our own small place in this world of nearly 8 billion humans.
Another potential first step is simply breathing. Breathing deeply through the nose can tell our bodies to calm down. Yoga practitioners are often told that this form of breathing triggers the parasympathetic nervous system. Breathing through the nose is what we do when we are already calm and safe.
A second strategy is to think globally, act locally. Sometimes, locally can simply mean finding action for our immediate environment. This can be as simple as cleaning the area around us. Odd as it might seem, this is something. And when we are catastrophizing, we risk being paralyzed and spiraling downward.
We can also reach out to others who can lend a sympathetic shoulder. Friends and family are often excellent at calming us down. Many times, they can even sense our stress and will reach out to us before we think to call them. From there we might contact broader communities: church or other faith groups, activist groups, and others who we know will both share our stress and will have access to solutions.
A third step is to think wide and deep. When I was 20, I took my first philosophy class. At the same time, I took classes in anthropology and astronomy. It’s hard to describe how much my mind was blown by it all. I went from a stressed and anxious business student to an intense lover of all things education in a matter of months.
I learned about the immense improbability of our planet, perfectly balanced in the “Goldilocks Zone” of our particular star, at just the right distance to be not-too-cold, not-too-hot. The further improbability of the perfect ingredients for life, let alone multicellular life and its proliferation on the planet. Then a perhaps-lucky asteroid, removing the dinosaurs so that mammals could dominate. And then, just a moment ago in galactic history, hairless apes spreading far and wide across the planet.
That puts at least some of my own worries in context.
And if I lament further that my problems still exist, I can turn to my great tradition of philosophers, many of whom have been staring wide-eyed at a select group of problems for over two millennia. Problems, of one sort or another, seem to be a very human thing. And here we are, part of this enormous chain of human life and of life itself in a universe far larger and far older than many of us well ever really begin to comprehend. Stressful, yes. But also, kind of amazing.
Justin Whitaker, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in Buddhist ethics from the University of London. He has given lectures, and taught Buddhist studies and Philosophy at Oxford University, the University of Hong Kong, the University of Montana, and at Antioch University’s intensive study-abroad program in India. A certified meditation teacher, he is a regular contributor to Patheos.com, and Senior Correspondent for Buddhistdoor Global. Justin is the official blog writer for Sunflower Counseling in Missoula, Butte, Kalispell, Billings, and surrounding areas. He lives in Missoula with his family.