Stress

What to do when too stressed or too tired to steer your thoughts (1 minute read)

ByPsychologist & Therapist Jenny Rapp

What to do when too stressed or too tired to steer your thoughts (1 minute read)

In “What to do when too stressed or too tired to steer your thoughts” continues a summary of my posts on how to recover as quickly as possible from more serious stress and exhaustion symptoms.

As mentioned earlier, in my daily work with people who have sought help for stress and exhaustion problems, I have been able to distinguish 3 building blocks of stress management:

1. Adjust your stress level

2. Manage your stress sources

3. Use healthy routines

This post continues with the second building block, 2 Manage your stress sources, here in relation to stressful thoughts, such as anxiety and rumination, as it is crucial to learn to steer one’s thoughts to reduce the stress level and create conditions for recovery.

Last weeks’ posts have contained the main principles of how to make a worry-hour work with the aim to steering one’s thinking.

A common situation when the worry / problem solving hour is not working is when the stress level is high for various reasons, such as when experiencing strong emotions.

This can be explained by an overactive sympathetic nervous system that creates a locked position in the brain that causes the thoughts to spin without the use of the anterior part of the brain where problem solving occurs, since this part has been disconnected by stress hormones.

But this can also happen in the opposite state – when we are so tired that we can no longer think clearly.

Then you can experience a relief by instead accepting the thoughts while avoiding listening to their content.

Repeat instead to yourself:

“These thoughts are just symptoms of being tired. I am not able to find a solution right now, but I will do so later when I am calmer.”

For more on how to increase your self-esteem, see the free blog or the course How to develop self-esteem and boost your confidence at https://jennyrappbefree.com

 

More information:

If you have any questions, write a comment or e-mail me at jennyrapp@jennyrapp.com

Find more inspiration on how to increase your self-esteem and well-being at https://www.jennyrapp.com/self-esteem/ and https://www.jennyrapp.com/

 

Courses in personal development at https://www.jennyrappbefree.com/:

Develop self-esteem & boost your confidence

Stress management

Deal with Exhaustion

Relationships & inner strength

Create a balanced life & reach your potential

Personal development

Powerful insights in psychology

HSP: Handle feelings, thoughts & behaviours

 

Also, see these user-friendly medical research databases:

The world’s largest government funded medical library: www.nlm.nih.gov

Johns Hopkins University: www.hopkinsmedicine.org

Harvard University: www.health.harvard.edu

Oxford university: http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

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