Little Things, Big Impact: Why Small Annoyances Affect You
You wake up, get dressed, and take a sip of your coffee before it’s cooled down enough so you burn your tongue. Now you have to put your coffee in a travel mug because you don’t have time to drink it at home like you usually do. Those few extra minutes put you behind schedule and you feel tense as you rush out the door to go to work. Everyone’s on the road and it feels like they’ve all forgotten how to drive. You arrive at work irritated and on edge. You can’t imagine how your day is going to get better.
This is such a frustrating feeling to have. It comes up out of nowhere and nothing you do feels like it’s changing anything. What’s even more confusing is that none of these things have ever bothered you before! As if life wasn’t hard enough with everything else going on, now you have the feeling that things are quickly spiraling out of your control, and you realize you’re really beating yourself up.
How Small Annoyances Turn into Big Problems
Despite what it feels like, this didn’t suddenly start overnight – you’re just good at dealing with what life throws at you until you hit your breaking point. At a point in your life that may have been anywhere from a few months to a few years ago you had stressors start piling up. Maybe they came into your life slowly, just one here or there, or a bunch all at once. These stressors may have been easy to manage at the time but eventually they started to wear on you whether you realized it or not.
Think of it like being exposed to an allergen. The more you’re exposed to an allergen, the more likely you are to develop an allergy. The more exposure you have to your allergy without treatment, the stronger your reaction to it will be. This causes inflammation throughout your body and can make it more likely that you’ll develop an allergic reaction to other things too.
Stress responses work the same way. The more you’re exposed to a stressor without doing something to manage that stress the more likely you are to develop a reaction. For some people this may actually look like an allergic reaction! Hives, feeling itchy, difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, and a feeling of doom or panic happen with severe allergic reactions and have happened with severe anxiety and stress.
Understanding Accumulated Stress
Accumulated stress, or chronic stress, refers to a consistent state of feeling pressured and overwhelmed over an extended period of time. One of the most important things to note is there’s nothing in this definition that specifies how many stressors it takes to cause accumulated stress. Rather, the focus is on how long the feelings last without any significant interruption. Since our lives are more complex today than ever before, this gives more opportunities for accumulated stress to occur.
An important project at work or issue with a coworker finally gets resolved but not even a week later your Yorkie started acting very lethargic and had to have a sick visit at the vet. They decided to run some labs but before the results are back your boss lets you know you need to go on a business trip and your flight is in 2 days. You’re worried, having trouble sleeping, and find yourself on edge with your partner, family, and friends.
Each of those situations on their own - a project at work, sick dog, and business trip - would be manageable if you and your body were given time in between to recuperate and recover. When a threat (or stressor) is perceived by your body, it automatically activates your fight, flight, fawn, or freeze response so you can survive the threat. But wait, I hear you say, my life isn’t in danger in any of these situations so why would my body respond as if I were?
The answer? Evolution.
You see, we got so good at evolving that we moved up the food chain and instead of being something else’s dinner they became ours. Once you’re at the top of the food chain you have to keep working to stay at the top and we were at the top for about 2 million years. But we were only able to accomplish this monumental task by getting really good at avoiding threats. Or as Darwin put it, survival of the fittest.
Take Control of Your Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn Response
Even though we aren’t fighting saber tooth tigers or bears on a daily basis, our bodies are still wired to respond to perceived threats in specific ways. You’ve probably heard of the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses to threats but what does it actually look like in real life?
A fight response is characterized by anger and verbal or physical aggression. Irritability, frustration, and passive-aggressive tendencies would also fall under this category.
A flight response is characterized by figurative or literal avoidance of the stressor, such as talking with coworkers instead of working on the big project that’s due tomorrow.
A freeze response can be explained as dissociating or distancing yourself from the world - such as staying in bed, avoiding relationships with others, and spending time in immersive video games.
A fawn response helps you avoid the stressor by appearing non-threatening or placating others at personal cost to you. Ever agree to do what someone asked you to do to end the interaction faster even though you didn’t want to do it? Say “I don’t care” or “anything is fine with me” when asked for your opinion in a stressful situation? That’s the fawn response.
So now that you know how and why you’ve become highly sensitized to stressful events what are you going to do about it? More importantly, what can you do about it?
Banish Stress On Your Terms
I’m so glad you asked because this is where coping strategies come into play. In a nutshell, coping strategies are anything you do to help manage your emotions.
Read a book? Coping strategy.
Vent to a friend? Coping strategy.
Take a nap? Coping strategy!
The key is finding the coping strategies that are most effective for you. Here are a few to get you started:
Slow, deep breathing - We’re all really good at breathing, right? What makes this different from regular breathing is how we breathe. Slowly breathe in for 4 seconds, hold the breath for 2 seconds, and then slowly exhale for 8 seconds. Focus only on your breathing, to the best of your ability, while you do this for a minute.
Cold temperatures - While you’re lying down, take an ice pack (or a bag of frozen veggies) and place it on the center of your chest, right over your breastbone. If you find the ice pack is too cold, wrap it in a hand towel before putting it on your chest. Close your eyes and focus on the cold sensation on your chest for 15 minutes.
Exercise - In fight mode and need to get that excess energy out of your body? Go for a brisk walk, run, lift weights, punch a punching bag, or go to a spin class. But be aware of your body’s limits and don’t exceed them - adrenaline can make us feel powerful but the wrong move at the wrong time can have lifelong consequences.
Laugh - They say laughter is the best medicine and science has proven it! Low serotonin and dopamine neurotransmitter activity are linked to depression and cortisol is a hormone, which at high levels, causes you to feel stress. Laughter increases serotonin and dopamine and decreases cortisol levels. So what makes you laugh? A comedy show on Netflix, silly puppies and kittens, your best friend?
Going Forward Stress-Free
Understanding how and why these small annoyances build up is important to breaking them down. Equally important is using effective coping strategies to reduce or even eliminate your current stress and continuing to use them to keep your stress levels low. If you find yourself continuing to feel overwhelmed despite using these and other coping strategies, you may want to consider working with a therapist. Therapy can help you develop a stress management plan that takes into account all of the strengths and challenges you face. If you’re interested in exploring the benefits of therapy, I offer a free 30-minute video consultation and meet with clients across Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Just click here to schedule and I look forward to working with you!