Addiction isn’t just substances you put into your body like drugs or alcohol. And it’s not just activities you’re hooked on like gambling or sex. Many people become “addicted” to certain thought patterns and stress without realizing it. This week in Deeper Thoughts, we’re going to discuss how our thought patterns become addicted to stress and what we can do to break free from this highly unknown subconscious addiction.
When a person is constantly stressed about situations or people the brain releases chemicals that your body becomes used to and becomes addicted to. That’s why people who are always stressed find new things to stress over, even when the original stress has been resolved. Their body becomes used to the chemicals produced with these thoughts. It’s similar to an adrenaline junkie who’s always seeking something more extreme to get that adrenaline high.
For example, we all have at least one coworker who’s always complaining about the job. Even when things go smoothly, they still find something to complain about, even if it’s incredibly small. Their mind is using confirmation bias to show them that something is going wrong with the day. They’ve become so used to things going wrong that they constantly seek it out to feed on the chemicals their brain releases during this type of stress.
Another common example is someone stuck in a scarcity mindset. When they’re always stressed about money and expecting constant surprise expenses to come up, they continue to stress over them even when money isn’t tight. They stress out over saving every penny they can and not spending anything unless they have to because they’ve grown used to sudden expenses popping up like needing to get the car fixed or their child needing new shoes for school that they have to pay for. Again this confirmation bias keeps this stress alive and showing up in their lives.
These two examples not only show how they’re always on the lookout for these stressors, but it is also how the law of mirroring (AKA the law of attraction) keeps bringing it into their lives.
These daily stressors usually start at the beginning of the day when you wake up. Thinking about work and things you need to get done for the day. Financial expenses. All the things that stress you out. Your body feeds off this. Over time these stressors start affecting your physical health. So what can you do?
1. Train yourself not to start the day focused on those stressors. They haven’t happened yet so why feed them your energy? Have a morning ritual or routine where you can be in the present moment. Meditate, journal, make some coffee and enjoy the fresh air without your phone. Don’t reach over to start doom scrolling or checking out which coworkers are on shift today. Just enjoy the start of your day.
2. Plan how you want to healthily handle those stressful situations and work on implementing them. If anger is where you jump to, work on taking a step back and grounding yourself and clear your mind. Learn to do this so you can RESPOND to the situation instead of REACTING. You might stumble a bit at first, but through conscious effort you’ll improve. This will also build confidence!
3. Practice emotionally detaching from the situations when they arrive. Realize that you are not the emotion that’s popping up. The situation is getting a rise out of you whether it’s stress, anger, or anxiety. As you get better at this you become more objective about the situation and can respond more appropriately.
4. Start a gratitude journal. At the beginning of the day and right before you go to bed write out at least three things you’re deeply grateful for. This rewires your brain to start looking for and focusing on positives that you come across every day. When you’re focusing on positive aspects of the day you’re releasing the stress that’s consuming you.
5. Focus on what you can control in these situations. Lack of control is a huge stressor in our lives so when we lock onto the things we can manage, we can adapt to things easier. Let go of what you can’t control and control the things you can.
6. While these are good tools to help manage the stress you’re experiencing, it’s the childhood traumas and conditionings we had growing up that are the cause we need to seek out. Finding the source of these feelings of stress that originate in childhood is needed so we can heal those fragmented parts. Healing these inner parts of your world helps you to realize how you can regulate stress better and not be as emotionally affected by them.
Practices like these will help return your body to a baseline where it's not feeding off your stressful thoughts. Many of these things are at a subconscious level so when we practice self awareness we pick up on these things easier and thus have an easier time discerning where our stressors are located. Hopefully if you’re an overly stressed or anxious person, this article will give you a good starting point to help manage them.
Thank you for reading and as always have an enlightening day!
This post was inspired by a mix of my own experiences and from Dr. Joe Dispenza’s book “Becoming Supernatural,” which if you haven’t read, I highly recommend that you do.
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