Studies have shown that our minds are predisposed to dwell on the bad, and there is surely no shortage of distressing news to dwell about.
Attempts to alleviate this stress by turning attention elsewhere typically backfire and worsen our emotional state. In doing so, we unintentionally make the original situation much worse. A psychologist in Santa Monica, California named Susan Zinn said, “we have to think about how to replace them with a higher-value coping ability” rather than giving in to these mindless routines.
Here are some of the most typical ways that people’s irritability might be exacerbated by their own lack of coping mechanisms, as well as suggestions for developing those mechanisms.
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1. Neglecting to Eat while One is Hungry
You can get a real case of hanger. Stress hormone cortisol is released into the bloodstream in response to low blood sugar.
Canadian writer, psychotherapist, and trauma recovery expert Heather Kent says low energy makes people “irritable, lethargic, sluggish, and angry.” Our tolerance thresholds have lowered.” It can make it harder to focus and, by extension, do well, she said, adding to the frustration.
One strategy is to set an alarm for every few hours in order to assess one’s hunger levels, while another is to incorporate meal breaks into one’s day like one would a meeting.
2. Intense Emotional TV Viewing Habits at Night
You turn on your favourite crime series to binge-watch right before night, when you should be winding down your mind and body. While some of us find these shows to be completely tolerable, for others, watching them might leave us feeling irritated or even unhappy long after we’ve stopped watching. Problems with this occuring at night can be particularly disturbing.
For Kent, “staying up and being distracted by TV encourages us to stay up later, and then we’re like, ‘Oh, crap, I have to get up in five hours,'” he said. Much more often than I’d want, that occurs. Poor sleep quality is directly correlated with your level of irritability the following day.
3. Being a Shut-in All Day
It’s easy to lose track of time during the day, especially if you’re busy working. It’s possible that this boring routine is grating on you if you’ve reached the end of the day or several days without leaving the house at all.
Zinn proposed a strategy proven by science to help you feel less irritable first thing in the morning: Take a walk outside within the first half an hour after waking up to expose yourself to natural light.
4. Responding Quickly to Incoming Phone Calls and Messages
According to Zinn, the average individual checks their phone close to fifty times a day, and it takes about twenty minutes to refocus entirely after checking a phone.
Nevada Mental Health physician Dr. Timothy Jeider explained that this can cause issues with time management and a general sense of being overburdened, both of which can contribute to irritation.
We all know the feeling: “after we’ve gone down the rabbit hole, we kick ourselves for becoming distracted and wasting time, which annoys us, undermines our focus and productivity, so we seek for a distraction from displeasure,” he said.
5. Doomscrolling
Social media have made the practise of doomscrolling inescapable. According to Kent, the constant barrage of fake news, conspiracy theories, and pandemic scares can have a devastating effect on people’s psyches.
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All of this, she added, makes people more prone to violence and fury, and the epidemic has made many of us addicted to the constant stream of information that comes from the media.
