A protocol for calmness, confidence and relaxation
Fear – the dose makes the poison
Fear is one of the strongest aversive emotions we can experience. In healthy amounts it is part of a defense circuit, a well-meaning emotive sidekick supporting us in “avoiding the lion’s den” and improving chances of survival (LeDoux, 2012). However, fear can be driven into an intense and dysregulated state (Yeh et al., 2018), hence losing its purpose of creating awareness of unfavorable situations or life-threatening hazards. To susceptible people, it can even become a constant companion, paralysing, making them incapable of action and grow into an appendage supporting inertia as well as the comfort that lies therein.
Fear can be enhanced by uncertainty and feelings of helplessness
Conditioning for unfavourable “fear companionship” may happen through emotionally charged messages spread via various world wide social media channels (Islam et al., 2020; Lindström et al., 2019; Primack et al., 2018). In contrast to gossip, which traditionally mostly propagated locally, within a village only, fear-evoking messages are often distributed world wide in just a few days, affecting and influencing the masses. A prominent recent example is the “Toilet Paper Scare” which originated in Japan (O’Neill, 2020). It started from nothing but the false rumor that China produced Japan’s toilet paper, and that therefore, supply would get scarce.
Applying this particular example to the current crisis we realise, even though the crisis is an actual threat, and the aforementioned scare was a made-up one, both come with a mixture of speculations, rumours, contradicting coverage by the media and increasing distrust towards normally reliable sources of information. Due to many unknown variables and degrees of freedom for simulations, even experts contradict others and themselves with well-meant messages. Because humans generally dislike ambiguities (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974), simple black and white conspiracy theories (Wikipedia: List of conspiracy theories) then gain importance, add to the scepticism against scientifically backed sources (e.g. Roozenbeek et al., 2020) and, eventually, increase the schisms in society. In such a chaotic situation, we might start to feel lonely and abandoned, afloat, because the consensus reality presently is not yet established and we lack a stable point of reference giving us hold (Echterhoff, 2010).
How much does stress affect me currently?
After reading this primer, please self assess, look into the present state of your body and mind (e.g. fatigue, muscle tension, breathing pattern, heart rate, pain, aversive emotions) and rate your level of worry on a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is the maximum stress level you can imagine yourself experiencing. Please be honest with yourself doing so.
Resilience is a powerful ally
The question we might want to ask ourselves is this: Do we, like many intellectuals, want to succumb to the socially triggered, abstract part of our worries, or would we rather face fear, vanquish it like the heroes we are and grow, “levelling up” to become more powerful? As we might detest what is instinctively triggered within us, we can take measures to change our emotional state to a healthier one, to one that we are happier with. Yes, such a simple action supporting a more positive mindset actually works and supports resilience.
Now that you have read a bit about the theory, here is an offer for you: We have created texts, which will guide you into a more or less deep state of relaxation using hypnotic/trance language, with the aim to boost your resilience as well as your emotional and physical wellbeing. For those of you who are not familiar with the term trance, it means a state of heightened and focused awareness. It is a perfectly natural state, and you are in this state dozens of times every day, for example when you read or watch a movie. Also, there is nothing in particular you have to do. The text will guide you all the way through, and if your thoughts drift elsewhere a bit, that is perfectly fine.
Version 1 – I like my freedom and my own choices.
Version 2 – I like being guided and prefer more structure.
With all that you experienced while reading the text in one of the links above above, allow yourself to focus on the positive changes in your body. Allow yourself to consider your level of stress or worry once more, on a scale 0 to 10, where 0 is utterly relaxed.
© Circle of Unconventionals
Bibliography
Echterhoff, G. (2010). Shared Reality: Antecedents, Processes, and Consequences. Social Cognition 28, 273–276
Islam, M.S., Sarkar, T., Khan, S.H., Kamal, A.-H.M., Hasan, S.M.M., Kabir, A., Yeasmin, D., Islam, M.A., Chowdhury, K.I.A., Anwar, K.S., et al. (2020). COVID-19–Related Infodemic and Its Impact on Public Health: A Global Social Media Analysis. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 00, 1–9
LeDoux, J. (2012). Rethinking the Emotional Brain. Neuron 73, 653–676
Lindström, B., Golkar, A., Jangard, S., Tobler, P.N., and Olsson, A. (2019). Social threat learning transfers to decision making in humans. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 116, 4732–4737
O’Neill, N. (2020). Japan asks residents to stop hoarding toilet paper amid coronavirus fears.
Primack, B.A., Bisbey, M.A., Shensa, A., Bowman, N.D., Karim, S.A., Knight, J.M., and Sidani, J.E. (2018). The association between valence of social media experiences and depressive symptoms. Depress Anxiety 35, 784–794
Roozenbeek, J., Schneider, C.R., Dryhurst, S., Kerr, J., Freeman, A.L.J., Recchia, G., van der Bles, A.M., and van der Linden, S. (2020). Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 around the world. Royal Society Open Science 7, 201199.
Tversky, A., and Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science 185, 1124–1131.
Yeh, L.-F., Watanabe, M., Sulkes-Cuevas, J., and Johansen, J.P. (2018). Dysregulation of aversive signaling pathways: a novel circuit endophenotype for pain and anxiety disorders. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 48, 37–44.
Footnotes
Quote loosely attributed to Swiss 16th century physician Paracelsus.
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