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Putting it to Bed: Good Sleep and Negative Emotions

November 22, 2019 by Robert Hammel, Registered Psychologist 3 Comments

Good Sleep and Negative Emotions

Why do we need good sleep for good mental health? We usually tend to think of sleep as a quiet and inactive time. But this is really not the case; sleep is actually an active period in which a lot of very important processing, restoration, and growth occurs. How this process happens and why our bodies need such a long period of rest every night is really still a mystery. We require sleep in order to restore and repair our minds and bodies. Sleep helps us repair damaged tissue, grow muscle, and during sleep our bodies even produce/synthesize hormones. That being said, science is still puzzled by all of he connections between sleep and mental health. Let’s explore good sleep and negative emotions starting with some interesting new research about how sleep helps us deal with emotional pain.

Haunted by the Past

Recent research has started to really help science understand why our brain needs sleep and how this process is connected to emotions and memory. The journal article entitled “Haunted by the past: old emotions remain salient in insomnia disorder” from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, suggests that insomnia could primarily be caused by brains that have a difficulty with the “neutralization of emotional distress”. This important finding supports the idea that insomnia is a primary risk factor involved in the development of mood disorders like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress. The findings were published on 25 April 2019 in the leading scientific journal Brain.

Previous research has shown that one of the main purposes of sleep is to help the brain process all of the events and emotions that we experience during our busy and active days. As part of that process, the brain tries to process and “deregulate” the strong emotional things that we might feel. For instance we have a big fight with our coworker or our spouse that makes us feel some really strong emotions like anger, sadness, fear or insecurity. Getting a good night’s sleep helps us pack away negative emotional pain effectively “putting it to bed”.

It is a well-known fact that sleep helps us to remember important experiences. But sleep is also essential for getting rid of the emotional distress that may have occurred during those experiences. Both these overnight processes involve changes in the connections between brain cells: some become stronger and consolidate memories, whereas others are weakened and get rid of unwanted associations. “Sayings like ‘sleeping on it’ to ‘get things off your mind’ reflect our nocturnal digestion of daytime experiences. Brain research now shows that only good sleepers profit from sleep when it comes to shedding emotional tension. The process does not work well in people with insomnia. In fact, their restless nights can even make them feel worse” says first author Rick Wassing.

In layman’s terms, getting good sleep allows us to pack away negative events and feelings and this allows us to deal with
them more effectively. If we don’t sleep well, distressing events from our past, maybe even from decades ago might continue to activate the emotional circuits of the brain — kind of mimicking and replaying them. This causes us to feel these strong emotional memories over and over again — and over the long term, this may affect both our sleep and our mental health.

The study’s authors Rick Wassing, Frans Schalkwijk and Eus van Someren sum it up nicely: “people with insomnia are haunted by memories of past distress”.

Getting Healthy Sleep

Healthy sleep is critical for everyone, since every single day we need to build and maintain our memory and learn new skills to live our life in better ways. This is probably why children need more sleep than adults. All day, every day, children learn language, social, and motor skills and that’s really a lot of information to process. During these crucial periods of growth and learning, younger people need a large dose of nightly slumber for optimal development and health. One-year-olds need about 11 to 14 hours nightly, school age children between 9 and 11, and teenagers between 9 and 11. Adults on the other hand usually only need need 7-9 hours of sleep per night, but even then that 7-9 hours is crucial to our physical health and mental wellness.

How do we know if sleep is affecting our mental health or vice versa?

One, if we’re having problems falling asleep and we toss and turn with our heads full of negative thoughts and/or fears — this is often a sign something is amiss.

Two, if we have lots of fitful sleep with nightmares and or weird dreams about stressful things. Everyone has occasional bad dreams, but if they happen more frequently or increase in intensity, these are both signs something is wrong and we might need to get help and especially if the bad dreams are really making us sad, anxious or fearful.

Three, early morning waking, meaning waking up two or three hours before your alarm on a regular basis and having difficulty falling back to sleep may be a sign of high stress, anxiety, depression or PTSD or other mental health issues.

Insomnia and depression or anxiety that affect your sleep are all very treatable conditions. Addressing these problems can help you improve the quality of your life and your sleep. Talk with your family doctor and or see a psychologist about your sleep troubles and any mood concerns you get be having.

Thanks for reading my blog about Good Sleep and Negative Emotions: Here are some good tips for better sleep that I put together:

References

Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience https://nin.nl/insomniacs-unable-emotional-distress-mind/

Rick Wassing, Frans Schalkwijk, Oti Lakbila-Kamal, Jennifer R Ramautar, Diederick Stoffers, Henri J M M Mutsaerts, Lucia M Talamini, Eus J W Van Someren, Haunted by the past: old emotions remain salient in insomnia disorder, Brain, Volume 142, Issue 6, June 2019, Pages 1783–1796, https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awz089

Why Do We Need Sleep? https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/why-do-we-need-sleep

Images from www.pixabay.com

Sleep, mental health & some tips for better zzzz’s

Filed Under: Anxiety, Anxiety/Depression, Sleep

Anxiety and the Siberian Unicorn: Why Anxiety Can Be A Monster

June 19, 2019 by Robert Hammel, Registered Psychologist 2 Comments

In today’s blog we’re going to talk about why for many people, anxiety can create huge feelings of fear, worry and stress that are much bigger than the actual anxiety provoking thing that they’re facing. Why do people with anxiety sometimes get all freaked out over things that for most other people are only small worries or problems.

But first of all, what is a Siberian Unicorn and what could it possibly have to do with anxiety? There were some news stories a few months ago about a creature that lived at the same time as modern humans that was basically a massive hairy rhinoceros.

Paleontologists know there have been 250 rhino species in the planet’s history, of which only five still exist today. Among the most amazing of these rhinos was Elasmotherium sibiricum aka the Siberian Unicorn. The Neanderthals and modern humans lived with and possibly even hunted this massive creature in Kazakhstan, western and central Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. It really must have been an impressive and deeply frightening sight for the people that had to face this creature in a hunt. Fossil evidence suggests the Elasmotherium was about 3 to 4 times the size of a modern rhinoceros, seven feet tall, weighed over 3.5 tons, covered in a thick heavy coat of hair like a mastodon, and sported a huge meter long horn! Can you just imagine having to leave your warm cozy cave to go out to get some take out and having to hunt this big horned monster. Even more interesting, is that this creature may have been the root of all of the unicorn myths!

We Were Eaten by Ginormous Bears!

And then once you’re out looking for a huge hairy and scary rhinoceros to kill; there were creatures like the Agriotherium, a species of Giant Bear looking to hunt and eat us! Agriotherium weighed about 2000 pounds, was 9 feet long and had massive bone crushing jaws that are thought to be the strongest of any carnivore on our planet ever.

Scary creatures indeed! But what do they have to do with anxiety? Well, simply put, our brains have actually evolved to deal with the threats from real and scary creatures like The Giant Bear. Our modern human brains have developed and adapted over the last 200,000 years to deal with huge scary environmental threats to our safety. In doing so, our brains have developed a system known as the “fight or flight system” that activates when we see or sense a threat from our environment.

The “fight or flight process” is a system designed to do exactly what it sounds like, prepare us to fight with, or flee from a threat in our environment.

When a threat occurs… like a Giant Bear trying to make us into a snack, our body is flooded with hormones like adrenaline, norepinephrine and cortisol. This reaction is designed to give a big boost to our perceptions, muscle reflexes, and physical abilities to improve our strength and speed in order to help us deal with the situation perceived as dangerous or threatening. It increases our heart rate, gets more blood to our muscles, gets more air into our lungs, and in general get’s us ready to deal with whatever threat is present. Your brain and body turns its full attention to survival in that particular threatening situation. The “fight or flight” response brings the body into a state of “red alert”.

There was a time in humankind’s past when the “fight or flight” response effectively protected our distant ancestors from such dangers as wild animals that could easily make a meal out of us or prepared us to war with other tribes that were encroaching on our tribes territory. Although we don’t ordinarily encounter or need to run from wild animals or warring enemy tribes today — sometimes our brain still operates in this very primitive way and reacts as if these dangers actually still exist today. The reason we still react in this way is because we’ve only been a “civilized” people for the last 5000 years give or take, compared to the 200,000 years of living where there were often real and legitimate threats, that would actually hunt and eat us. In a nutshell, anxiety kept us from being eaten and some people still have that “protective wiring” in their brains!

Anxiety and Modern Threats

Our brain has evolved to use worry, anxiety, and stress as an effective survival strategy. Anxiety is an emotion that helped protect humans from their surroundings that included monsters. It was built for solving short-term, immediate and scary monster problems.

Today though, the environmental threats that may cause us to go into the fight-flight or stress/anxiety response are less scary and hairy.

They are things like:

a deadline for a project at work or school
a demanding or even bullying co-worker or boss
having too much to do in too little time
a big fight with our spouse,
a delayed flight and long wait in the airport
a traffic jam making us late,
perhaps even a colicky baby, a challenging toddler or a argumentative teenager
or even someone cutting us off and then flipping us the bird on our drive to work

The stress response is designed to shut itself down when the actual threat from the environment passes and your body can then go back to a normal state. We see a Giant Bear, we run away, the threat ends and our body returns to a normal resting state. Today’s threats aren’t like that though, they are persistent and nagging in nature rather than immediate and short lived; and this can create ongoing worry and emotional stress that can trigger a host of health problems for us. This problem occurs when the stress response is triggered over and over again by all of the worries of modern life and this stress response causes the body’s sympathetic nervous system to release stress hormones such as norepinephrine, cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones can increase blood sugar levels and harmful triglycerides and they may even damage our brain and immune systems on the cellular level over the long term. Long term chronic stress can also make us more susceptible to mental health problems like depression. So having persistent ongoing worry and anxiety can have a very serious affect on our physical and mental health.

The anxiety reaction was a great system for human survival for our ancestors as it allowed them to deal with threats effectively and quickly. But in our modern society this chronic anxiety becomes a burden and may be an obstacle for many.

Anxiety As An Advantage

People who experience high levels of anxiety could possibly be seen as having an evolutionary advantage when the environmental threats were Giant Bears with bone crunching teeth. People with high levels of anxiety are likely carrying the genes of successful ancestors, in fact having a strong anxiety reaction is probably one of the very things that helped the human species thrive and survive.

Unfortunately in today’s world having high levels of anxiety can be a hindrance. An extreme anxiety reaction can harm our relationships, keep us from achieving our goals, keep us from experiencing all of life’s wonder and keep us from living a full life.

The problem with a brain that is genetically programmed to be overly sensitive to anxiety is that even though the threats may be real to some degree, an overactive, worrying brain exaggerates the actual level of threat. An over-reactive brain fools us into thinking there is a dire and immediate threat, the emotions and feelings appropriate to a giant bear — when in fact, the actual risk to our person may be minimal or something that is just an ordinary, daily problem of life.

We can see the anxious thinking as being caused by faulty brain wiring — our brain trying to protect us from bad things in our environment. Faulty wiring which takes small life stresses and worries, and exaggerates them into something bigger and more horrible, just in case they might be.

Luckily we can actually rewire our brain to slow and change the anxiety response process through some activities and strategies.

First of all things like physical exercise, meditation and relaxation exercises can help and here a few links to explore:

UCLA Health Meditation: Getting started

Here is some information on how to use physical exercise for anxiety: ADAA: Exercise for Stress and Anxiety

Here’s a great place to start exploring more about anxiety: www.anxietycanada.com

Finally if you’ve tried lots of different thing and your anxiety is still strong or is really affecting your life in negative ways; you may want to talk to therapist like myself who can help you find better ways to reduce and manage anxiety. Here’s a link to how therapy can help with anxiety: APA: Beyond Worry: How Psychologists Help With Anxiety Disorders

This blog is not intended as medical advice, treatment or diagnosis and should in no way replace consultation with a mental health or medical professional.

References

Melissa Bateson, Ben Brilot, Daniel Nettle, Anxiety: An Evolutionary Approach. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Vol 56, No 12, December 2011 W 715

Price J. S. (2003). Evolutionary aspects of anxiety disorders. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 5(3), 223–236.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46358789

Click to access ajassp.2016.189.199.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/mar/29/siberian-unicorn-extinct-humans-fossil-kazakhstan

Giant Bears, historic and ancient Over 12 feet tall – Monsters of the Past.

Bear Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Roar Image by Ian Lindsay from Pixabay

Scared Man Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Another anxiety blog. Looking “through a glass darkly”. A key strategy in reducing anxiety.

Filed Under: Anxiety

7 Important Steps to Liking Yourself

February 20, 2018 by RBRTHMMEL376 4 Comments

So, what is self-esteem?

Here’s an interesting question we seldom ask ourselves:

Do you actually like yourself?

Take a few seconds to think about it. When asked this question, most people either don’t know how to respond or they respond with a pat, canned answer like, “Like myself? Of course, I like myself”, or they maybe even react defensively and say, “What kind of a dumb question is that?!?”

Regardless, if you ask enough people (which I have actually done in my therapy practice), you will quickly discover that people who haven’t thought about this question much, either have a high sense of natural self-esteem or they are on the opposite end of the spectrum, and they don’t seem to like themselves all that much.

Are you someone who’s truly happy in their own skin? Are you happy with your appearance, how much money you make, your education or job, your intelligence, your abilities, or the past life decisions you’ve made; or are you continually comparing yourself to other people, really wishing you could be more like them and less like yourself? Does it feel like everyone else is smarter, richer, better looking, more educated? When you look in the mirror, who do you see looking back? Do you see someone you like or someone who just doesn’t quite live up to your own high expectations?

Our own judgment of our self-worth, or in other words, our self-esteem, is largely based on how we feel about ourselves, right now at this moment and secondly, how we see and judge ourselves through looking back at our past.

What exactly is self-esteem? Self-esteem is about how we value ourselves; how we perceive our value in the world and how we perceive how valuable we think we are to others. Self-esteem affects our confidence, motivation and resilience and our ability to trust in others. It affects our relationships, our abilities and skills at work — really every part of our lives. Self-esteem gives us the inner strength and adaptability to take measured gambles in our lives and drive forward through difficult circumstances. Self-esteem gives us the super useful ability to make blunders and mistakes, yet still be able to forgive ourselves and actually grow from those mistakes into fuller, stronger more resilient people.

What about low self-esteem? Low self-esteem can be both a socially and emotionally troubling condition that keeps many people from living their lives fully or from realizing their full potential. A person with low self-esteem can feel unworthy, shameful, inadequate, and incompetent.

Often because the person with low self-esteem feels so poorly about themselves, it becomes a vicious cycle where their thoughts and feelings of low self-esteem may actually be part of what’s maintaining the person’s continued low self-esteem.

In other words, low self-esteem can become a viciously self-perpetuating habit of thinking.

So, self-esteem is actually quite crucial to us if we want to “feel good”, in fact, for many people experiencing anxiety, depression and other mental illness low self-esteem is often both a symptom and a cause.

If you’re someone who is overly critical of yourself and you feel down about who you are as a person, here are 7 ways you can start to learn to like yourself better:

1. Accomplishments, Successes and Achievements

Sometimes we focus really hard on everything that might be wrong with us, rather than on what’s right. When you’ve done something well, it’s important that you acknowledge this victory, no matter how small it is and maybe even relish it?

It doesn’t have to be something super huge, either. It could even be that you make a really delicious gourmet meal or that you’re a really good friend. It can be that you’re really making an effort to be physically fit or even that you’ve finally started reading The Complete Works of Shakespeare, or maybe even just reading your first book in a long time. Allow yourself the pleasure of enjoying every little thing you do right rather than focusing on what you do wrong. Change your perspective about yourself and really make an effort to look for all the good things about you! Look accurately at yourself and the long list of achievements you’ve already made in your life — learn how to feel good about who you are and what you’ve done.

2. Really, Who’s Perfect?

If you’ve been relentlessly comparing yourself to other people all your life, it’s time for you to stop this terrible habit and realize that no one, absolutely no one is perfect. Not the talking heads on breakfast TV, not the models you see online or on the cover of magazines, nor all the actors you see on Netflix. They all have on-call makeup artists and even plastic surgeons — not to mention the magic of photoshop and their powerful marketing teams promoting their “brand”.

Intellectually, there’s always, always, someone smarter than you. Or financially, always someone that makes more money or has a bigger house. Comparing ourselves to others is truly folly. No one is perfect, no one.

3. Looking at Values

Maybe it’s really and truly okay to just be an average person? Maybe it’s actually okay to work an average job, live in a small, rented place and drive a 5-year-old fuel-efficient Hyundai? Maybe instead of buying into the idea that we can purchase the right clothes, car, cookware, home and lifestyle that will make us “fit in” — we should maybe instead decide to pride ourselves on being a truly good person, honest, compassionate and caring? Rather than comparing ourselves to others and their bank accounts and achievements, we should instead really look to our own deepest held values? Perhaps holding the values of kindness, caring and compassion for others will actually help us build our self-esteem from the inside out!

4. Creating Successes

One of the best ways to really increase our self-esteem is to really make an effort to fight our fears and anxieties and start creating more positive accomplishments in our life. Perhaps there are many things about yourself that you would like to change. Do you want to lose weight, work out and have a better body, maybe it’s about getting a university degree, or getting a better more fulfilling job?

Oftentimes we will resent ourselves for not reaching the highly impossible goals we have set for ourselves. If there are big goals you would like to reach, try to be realistic in setting the timelines and be patient with yourself. Break the goal down into smaller parts and really celebrate any achievement no matter how small it might seem. If the goal is to lose weight, start small and start tracking and reducing what you eat. And maybe going to the gym 5 days a week is too much and we should start with 2 or 3 times instead? If we want to pursue a uni degree maybe taking the first step is to contact a counsellor at a university and really explore how to start the process and then maybe start with just the first class? It all starts with goal setting and then practising how to be more determined!

Here’s a great link on how to set goals using the SMART Goals strategy:

http://hrweb.mit.edu/performance-development/goal-setting-developmental-planning/smart-goals

5. Use Affirmations

One great way to start growing our sense of self-esteem is to use affirmations to actually “reprogram our brain” to see ourselves differently. Low self-esteem is created over a lifetime of experience and letting go of those deeply established feelings and actions is not easy. It may take some time and effort, and for some people, it may even require professional therapy. But there a simple, positive thinking technique called affirmations can often effectively be used to help improve our self-esteem.

Using affirmations is a way to stop using our negative self-trash-talk and replace it with affirmations, which are encouraging simple messages we can give ourselves every day, in effect reprogramming our brain. These positive messages will eventually become part of our feelings and beliefs. We can also use positive messages to replace the negative ones.

For example, replace the message “I made a boneheaded mistake, and I am no good at this job,” with “Okay, I made a mistake but I will learn from it, and now I do can a better job.”

You can even begin each day by looking at yourself squarely in the eye in the mirror and giving yourself an affirmation or even a series of them. We can also keep them as a list in our pocket or on your phone and if we sense we’re feeling kind of down on ourselves, we can grab them and immediately fight back against the negative self-defeating thoughts we might be having. The following simple affirmations can help you to work towards better self-esteem:

• I am likeable

• I have lots of skills and abilities

• I can be strong, confident and able when I need to

• Mistakes are just a necessary prelude to achievement

• I am competent, smart and able

• I accept myself just as I am

• Life is what it is and a lot of it is pretty darn good

• I am growing and changing for the better

• My life is about me, not other people

6. See Yesterday with a Kinder Eye

Sometimes we may not like ourselves because of our past actions and behaviours. It’s super important though to maybe cut yourself some slack about long past history. Hindsight is always 20/20 and perhaps it’s not fair to judge our past based on what we know now. In your past, you may not have always acted kindly toward others. Perhaps you acted selfishly, maybe in defensive or even hostile ways more often than you really care to admit. But this is all really part of being human — we all make mistakes with others and we may not always act in the best ways we could. But to put it bluntly? We can’t change it! The past is the past and we can only learn from it. Repeat this message to yourself when you feel bad about the past:

You did the best you could with what you had at the time!

The best thing to do is to maybe actually embrace your past, even with all of our faults and mistakes. Look at your past without judgement, with the intention of learning from your actions and behaviours. No one is perfect and we’ve all made mistakes in some way shape or form.

7. Like Most of Yourself

Is it really reasonable to expect to like all 100% of yourself, all of the time? Probably not, because, we’re all human, we’re all flawed and we’re all imperfect. Let’s say that again. We’re all human, flawed and imperfect. So really, maybe its OK to only like 75 or 80% of ourselves on any particular day? You can still live a really good and maybe even great life when you think ‘only’ 80% of you is awesome. 80% is a pretty good place to be. It also gives us some room to improve and grow. Growing and changing and adapting is really the very nature of being human. Being imperfect gives us something to shoot for!

Having a good level of self-esteem is really super important to our overall well-being. Getting there can be difficult for some people though; especially if you’ve endured having low self-esteem for a long time, maybe even all of your life. Working with a therapist can really make the journey to self-improvement less bumpy. A therapist can help by listening, clarifying and strategizing with you to help improve your self-esteem and your life.

If you or a loved one is interested in exploring therapy to improve your self-esteem, please contact me today. I would be happy to speak with you about how I may be able to help.

And here’s another blog with some quick tips to reduce self-doubt https://roberthammel.com/3-ways-to-overcome-self-doubt/

Filed Under: Addiction, Anxiety, Anxiety/Depression, Depression, General, Self-Esteem, Trauma

What is a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)? Are you one?

November 22, 2017 by Robert Hammel, Registered Psychologist 1 Comment

Some people just seem to be more sensitive to their environment than others — they are just more “high-strung” and aware or “sensitive” to what’s around them. For whatever reason, these people just tend to be more sensitive than their friends, or even than their brothers and sisters. They are really affected by the world around them and sometimes they can’t get through a movie or even a sappy TV commercial without feeling emotional or even shedding a few tears. The type of TV commercials about abused animals or poverty in a third world country can actually affect them deeply on a visceral level. They can also really be affected by violent TV shows or the news.

Judgement or criticism from others really affects them and may even cause them to feel real emotional pain even if the critique is actually fairly innocuous. They are also often very empathic and try to be kind, considerate and accommodating to those around them, sometimes even to their own detriment.

Often these people are told, “You’re way too sensitive!” or “Why do you let everything bother you so much?” The reality is that some people are simply just more sensitive than others. Sometimes they are not only sensitive to emotional situations, but also to loud noise/sound, bright or sudden light, and even other physical stimuli around them like the smell of a strong overpowering perfume someone in the elevator is wearing.

A popular term that is used in the current vernacular is that these people are, literally, called, Highly Sensitive People, or HSP for short. People who are HSP might react very strongly and negatively to a mildly difficult social situation, a loud noise or a strong smell that most people would barely pick up on their radar.

There is solid psychological research showing that being an HSP is certainly a “real thing” and is likely a certain “personality trait” known as “Sensory Processing Sensitivity” (SPS) that was really first discovered by personality researchers Aron and Aron in 1997.

Research suggests that Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS), is found in about 20% of humans and in over 100 other animal species! There is even fMRI brain scanning research showing that people with Sensory Processing Sensitivity even have brains that are much more likely to have recurrent activation in the regions involved in environmental attention and awareness, “emotional meaning making” and empathy (Acevedo, et. Al. 2014).

Why does it happen?

Evolutionarily speaking, HSP appears to be an adaptation to our environment that is designed and intended to help us survive as a species (Aron and Aron 1997). By being more aware of and reactive to our environment, we gain an enhanced awareness of environmental possibilities and opportunities. Being sensitive to our environment can help us in finding and accessing food sources and helps us to be more aware of threats from predators and other environmental dangers.

Being sensitive and socially aware of the nuances of human relationships can help us relate to others better and consequently have better success choosing and keeping mates, creating stronger social connections/alliances and forming stronger community bonds. Awareness of our surroundings and creating community are some of the things that have allowed humans to thrive. Unfortunately, people who are HSP may have too much of a good thing. Their over-sensitivity to the environment may actually hinder their relationships and complicate their lives.

Might You Be a Highly Sensitive Person?

Do the following signs/characteristics seem familiar to you?

Sensitivity to criticism Almost all criticism feels personal and even painful. To many HSP’s there is no such thing as constructive criticism. You are not able to let criticism “roll off your shoulders” as others seem to do. Unfortunately, this can make you too much of a “people pleaser” and you may find it hard to set boundaries and limits with others.
You find it difficult to be watched when you “perform” or do something You dislike doing things in public where you might be watched, critiqued or judged by others
You feel “overly” emotional in numerous situations in your life Both positive or negative emotions are experienced intensely and you react strongly to them.
Sometimes you feel alone Because other people may have told you that you need to “stop being so sensitive” or to “toughen up,” you see yourself as overly sensitive and judge yourself as inadequate or different and consequently you feel isolated or alone.
You’re very compassionate and generous You have a high degree of empathy and try to offer help to those who hurt or suffer. You’re really the person the cliché “walk a mile in another’s shoes was written for”. You really go out of your way to avoid offending, insulting or hurting others feelings.
You’re especially sensitive to all kinds of external stimuli. You seem to notice that the sounds of the nearby street are distracting, or that the overhead fluorescent lights are really “flickery”, annoying and loud. Driving in fast heavy traffic may make you feel overstimulated. Even noticing small things like the rough fabric of a shirt or being slightly cold in a room may make you feel much more uncomfortable than most people.
You notice how your body “feels” a lot of the time You’re attuned to your body’s internal sensations and feelings. You really feel being tired, cold, hungry, sad, anxious or worried.
Your emotions are “reactive” Your personal feelings are often very strong and seem to always be there on the surface for you to think about. You also have persistent reactions to what others around you are going through emotionally. When your feelings and emotions about yourself and others come on so very strong, it’s really hard to ignore them or “put them away”.
You over analyze, overthink and worry too much You seem to notice every little detail and spend too much time overthinking what should be a simple decision, like which laundry detergent to buy in the supermarket. You also sometimes get stuck worrying about the future and spend a lot of time wondering: “What if this or that happens, what if, what if, what if?” (Here’s a link to a previous blog with some ways to start to change that overthinking pattern https://roberthammel.com/strategy-reducing-anxiety-worry-cbt-therapy/).
You’re really affected by making any bad decisions When you finally do make a decision, and it turns out to be a bad one, you really take it hard. You really beat yourself up for making even the smallest mistakes. This can create a vicious cycle that slows down your decision-making process even more — you learn that even small bad decisions affect you greatly, so you have to be super cautious making all decisions, even those small ones.
You may be quite sensitive to caffeine or other stimulants.
You often feel fatigued or tired and often feel a sense of being overwhelmed Because you deal intensely with your own and even other people’s emotions, and you feel a high degree of stimulation from the environment — a good part of the time — you may feel overwhelmed by all of it and feel as though you need may need to unplug or recharge more often than others.
You are especially polite. Your sensitivity and awareness of the emotions of others make you very well mannered. You pay close attention to how you affect the people around you and you are very giving and “nice”. You also get very irritated when other people are seen to be inconsiderate or ill-mannered.
Your mood can be significantly affected when you’re cold, hot, hungry or tired.
You find it really hard to say no Because you don’t want to offend others or hurt their feelings you find it hard to say no and you often say yes when you really don’t want to. This can leave us feeling “put out”, overwhelmed and even resentful.
You may be considered “artistic” and highly moved by art, nature, movies, literature etc.

If you have a good number of these characteristics, you may just be an HSP and possibly have the kind of brain that might be prone to experiencing Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS). The only way to really tell for sure though is to meet with a qualified individual like a Psychologist who can help you explore this further.

So, What Can You Do If You Are an HSP or experience a number of these characteristics?

Being an HSP is not an easy row to hoe sometimes. It can be difficult to have such a strong emotional connection to your world — but there are some things you can start to do for yourself to make it a bit easier:

Reframe your sensitivity as a positive — i.e. it’s a positive to be empathic and caring with others
Realize people and even the world itself are imperfect and it’s OK to make mistakes and bad decisions once in a while
Realize being HSP makes you unique and special and not less than others
Develop a sense of acceptance of who you are and remind yourself there is nothing wrong with you
Learn to set boundaries with people who may “take advantage” of your kindness. Learn to say NO… politely.
Learn who you are and what your needs truly are.
Try relaxation strategies like deep breathing, physical exercise and meditation to lower your arousal
Have realistic expectations on yourself and cut yourself some slack
Limit being in highly stimulating environments and learn your sensitivity limits
Avoid negative ways to reduce environmental stimulation like overeating, drugs and alcohol
Be kind to yourself and give yourself the same empathy and kindness you give to other people
Realize it’s OK to take time alone to recharge and rest
Realize that as you grow and learn throughout your life — you can develop coping mechanisms to help you live in better ways and have HSP affect you less and less
Consider seeing a therapist if being HSP really affects how you want to live your life

If you find yourself feeling lots of anxiety or even feel depressed because of your emotional sensitivity — maybe it’s a good idea to talk to a therapist and find some effective coping strategies.

References:

Acevedo, B. P., Aron, E. N., Aron, A., Sangster, M.-D., Collins, N., & Brown, L. L. (2014). The highly sensitive brain: an fMRI study of sensory processing sensitivity and response to others’ emotions. Brain and Behavior, 4(4), 580–594. http://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.242

Aron, Elaine N. and Aron, Arthur Sensory-Processing Sensitivity and Its Relation to Introversion and Emotionality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyright 1997 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 1997, Vol. 73, No. 2, 345-368

Aron, E.N. The highly sensitive person (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 1999)

Filed Under: Anxiety, Anxiety/Depression, General, Self-Esteem, Uncategorized

3 Ways Therapy Helps You Address Anxiety

May 12, 2017 by RBRTHMMEL376 4 Comments

Millions of people deal with stress and anxiety on a daily basis. Whether it’s a result of phobias, depressions, or post-traumatic stress, anxiety can take a toll on our mind and health.

If you deal with anxiety you most likely have looked into ways you can help calm your emotional rollercoaster. Perhaps you’ve even tried some self-help techniques in the past. While these methods can provide some relief, it’s often temporary.

To rid yourself of overwhelming anxiety once and for all, you’ve got to get to the root cause of it – the underlying factors. A therapist can help you identify and eliminate these underlying factors.

If you are suffering from an anxiety disorder, here are 3 ways therapy can help:

1. Uncover Root Causes

Like any other health issue, effective treatment gets to the root cause. For instance, your doctor can either prescribe a medication to try and manage your hypertension symptoms, or she can request you clean up your diet and exercise, addressing the root causes of your high blood pressure.

A therapist will assist you in accessing your emotional world so you can study your thoughts and feelings and uncover patterns. Often, unhealthy beliefs and thoughts lie at the root of anxiety. Once you identify what is causing you anxiety, your therapist can begin to create a plan to help you face these underlying issues calmly and confidently.

2. Therapy Helps You Change Your Behaviors

We’ve just talked a little about therapy helping you uncover the thoughts and beliefs that are causing the anxiety. Those thoughts and beliefs are not only making you feel bad, they are causing you to have certain behaviors that may result in negative consequences.

For instance, your anxiety leads to insomnia or denial of intimate social connections. Therapy will help you make lifestyle and behavioral changes. You’ll learn how to cope with difficult situations in a more relaxed manner. Therapy will help you to stop avoiding certain people and situations and develop a calmer and more balanced sense of self.

3. Therapy Offers Continued Personalized Support

All change is hard, even change that’s ultimately good for you. One of the biggest benefits of therapy is that it offers continual personalized support. Your therapist wants to see you succeed and will offer encouragement and advice without judgement.

If you’ve been living with anxiety, know that you don’t have to deal with it alone. If you or a loved one is interested in exploring treatment, please contact me today. I would be happy to speak with you about how I may be able to help.

Filed Under: Anxiety