The Inner Darkness: what problems prevent people from living
In addition to obvious causes, a person's consciousness and physical condition are influenced by hidden risk factors that are not considered important. Gloomy thoughts, prolonged inactivity, and improper drinking habits cause subtle but significant damage to the body. Izvestia will tell you how to recognize hidden health threats and imperceptible risk factors and why the brain needs a good mood as much as it needs water.
Why do dark thoughts appear?
Destructive power is often attributed to negative thinking, which prevents you from living life to the fullest and enjoying the little things. However, clinical psychologist and body therapist Sergey Volkov believes that the phrase "negative thinking" is not a very accurate term.
— It would be more correct to call it deficient, that is, thinking that concentrates attention around the deficits of life, — explains Volkov. — With this approach, a person constantly delays attention to certain aspects of life. For example, after winning the lottery, someone will focus on the amount of winnings, while the other will focus on the taxes that will have to be paid. One feels joy, and the other feels pity for the loss, despite the fact that he won.
According to Volkov, deficit thinking is based on the search for negative consequences or flaws in the world and various life situations. The clinical psychologist sees two major psychological components at its core: the first is anxiety and fear of the future, the expectation of failure and failure, and the second is cultural traditions.
— In the first case, a person is looking for a trick in everything and tries to be prepared for negative, terrible consequences. The brain is selective: if you prepare, albeit unconsciously, for difficulties, then you will find yourself in them," warns Volkov. — Thinking is not only thoughts, but also the basis of reactions. When we rely on the willingness to fight and overcome, patience or suffering, the unconscious part of the psyche simply has no choice how to simulate the desired situation.
The expert connects the second case with a historical background and suggests recalling oral folk art.
— Perhaps there is not a single fairy tale (except "At the behest of the Pike") where the characters do not suffer. From an early age, children are immersed in a paradigm where only the villains don't suffer," says Volkov. — And any achievement that a person gets without suffering and overcoming is devalued. Remember how grandparents say: "You young people keep complaining, but we used to..." They say, whoever suffered more has more rights.
According to Sergey Volkov, the culture of suffering actually fully justifies infantilism and failures in front of society, allows you not to take responsibility, but to hide behind your grief. But suffering does not solve problems and does not give a person any advantage over others. The expert emphasizes that we are not talking, for example, about grieving over loss. But there is the daily whining that it is cold in winter and hot in summer, and there is suffering for the sake of suffering, for no particular reason. This is how a person relieves tension, it becomes easier for him, but it is difficult for others to deal with him. It happens that someone cannot directly express their well-founded claims to a colleague or boss, accumulates them and slowly "pits" them, releasing irritation in the form of whining. A clinical psychologist advises learning how to relax, admit that the world is not perfect, and express your dissatisfaction not to space, but to what is annoying.
According to the clinical psychologist, for whatever reason a person finds a reason for grumbling and discontent, the world becomes complicated and difficult for him, and existence is meaningless. And in both cases, the expert advises to focus not on the negative, but on the positive aspects. And even if the lottery winnings are meager, you should think about the fact that it is still more than it was.
— And to start thinking this way, you first need to separate the emotional part from the rational one, to understand that your experiences are not the truth, — comments Volkov. — Yes, you may be very upset by the scandal with your loved ones, but does it spoil the wonderful weather? No, but your emotions make you feel depressed and sad. It is a long and laborious process to learn new logic and skills of emotional self—regulation.
How to solve the problem of loneliness
A serious health risk is a lack of communication. Man is a social being: people need someone to exchange words, emotions, and touches with. Loneliness has a painful effect on many people.
— If the issue is precisely the lack of communication, then, for example, you can refuse delivery, and submit applications to government agencies not remotely, but through multifunctional centers. And this is not a joke, but a real way to increase the number of contacts with people," suggests a clinical psychologist.
The clinical psychologist advises to make up for the lack of communication with the help of any external activity: attend face-to-face events, training courses, go to museums and philharmonic halls, and even join the ranks of the most active residents of the house. Any external activity outside of the smartphone will help. But all attempts to establish communication will lose their meaning if you impose excessive demands on people.
— You should not demand from others the absolute acceptance of your ideas and behaviors, the joy of any communication with you, — explains Volkov. — All these are the desires of a very young child in relation to his mother. Here you need to solve the problem with a psychologist, and not at the expense of the people around you.
From Volkov's point of view, sometimes even a modern person cornered by a lack of communication demands an incredible level of personal comfort from others.
— In their view, people should be emphatically polite, understand us at a glance, "keep vibe", keep their distance, do not move away, but also do not violate boundaries, etc. The excessive psychologization of life promoted by bloggers has led to the fact that the requirements for communication have long gone beyond reality. They are based on fantasies and ideas, even if they are good, which exist only in books," says Sergey Volkov.
Laziness destroys the body
Excessive rest is harmful to health and mental activity — laziness and inactivity are sometimes more exhausting than intensive work.
"For life, our body absorbs organic substances, and due to their splitting, chemical reactions occur with the release of heat," explains the clinical psychologist. — This is how we get energy for a process called metabolism. This process is not static, because at different times we need different substances in different amounts. During sleep, the metabolism slows down, and, for example, when jogging, it accelerates.
According to the expert, not only external organic substances are involved in this process, but also those produced by the body itself: cortisol, dopamine, adrenaline, norepinephrine, tryptophan, testosterone, etc.
"If a person leads a sedentary lifestyle, then metabolic processes slow down, and he will experience weakness a priori,— warns Sergey Volkov. — The processes of thinking and mental activity also slow down: due to the lack of movement, the amount of useful oxygen in the blood decreases, which means that the brain does not receive it.
More than half of all psychological problems are solved by exercise, sleep and proper nutrition, the expert emphasizes. "A resource is born in motion. All living things move. What doesn't move is dead. This is a law of nature, and it is impossible to circumvent it," says the clinical psychologist.
How stress depletes the body and "dries out" the brain
Sergey Volkov reminds us that stress is the body's response to external irritation. The body reacts by increasing blood pressure, increasing or slowing breathing, straining the muscles of the body, suppressing hunger, narrowing the attention zone, etc. And it doesn't matter what kind of irritation it is — positive or negative. Great joy is also stress, the expert emphasizes.
— Ten years of a professional sports career, accompanied by the joy of victories, is much more destructive for the body than the horror suffered once, — continues Sergey Volkov.
In the short term, stress helps to gather strength and mobilize the body to solve the problem. Actually saves our lives. The problem, from Volkov's point of view, is that modern people do not know how to handle stress competently.
For example, to cheer up, people who require concentration of attention and vision (accountants and economists) drink a lot of coffee. Caffeine stimulates the production of adrenaline, which allows you to cross the threshold of eye fatigue and focus the pupil on the monitor.
"But this is a typical example of artificially created stress in an organism that is unsaturated with emotions, which systematically destroys the organs of vision, the cardiovascular system, the digestive system, the reproductive system, etc.," comments Sergey Volkov.
Chronic stress (distress) is characterized by the fact that the body cannot absorb enough nutrients to recover from the external environment, but constantly consumes its internal reserves. Therefore, people lose weight when they are stressed. And they get fatter due to stress if they compulsively try to make up for the lack of fatty and sugary foods.
— In this state, a person loses strength every day, joy disappears from his life, and eventually he finds himself in a state that we call burnout, — says Sergey Volkov. — This condition is characterized by a lack of empathy, emotions, indifference to oneself and the world, and decreased productivity in school and work. The thirst for life decreases and there is a feeling of hopeless, overwhelming fatigue.
According to Volkov, this is how psychosomatic diseases of the nervous system, stomach ulcers, cardiovascular problems and migraines are formed. The body collapses under the constant pressure of external circumstances and lack of proper rest. If nothing is done, the person will inevitably end up in the hospital.
— Stress is necessary, but after stress there should always be relaxation. This is the only general recommendation, because every stress depends on specific conditions. But, of course, playing computer games after 20 hours in the office is not a rest, but a continuation of stress with a different emotional coloring, warns the clinical psychologist.
The effect of sugar on human health
Scientists believe that even an excess of sweets can unsettle and reduce physical and mental activity. Meanwhile, there is also widespread advice that sugar gives a boost to mental activity. In this case, the important point is a sense of proportion.
"Sugar can really increase the feeling of fatigue, cause a feeling of lethargy in the head — all this has scientific grounds," says Anastasia Lebedeva, associate professor of the Department of Dietetics at Rosbiotech University, "The human brain is almost completely dependent on glucose as an energy source, but the key factor here is not its very presence, but the stability of blood glucose levels.".
According to the biotechnologist, when a person consumes large amounts of simple sugars — sweets, sugary drinks, pastries, glucose levels rise sharply. In response, the body releases insulin to lower blood sugar levels as quickly as possible. This process often leads to a sharp and disproportionate drop in glucose, a condition that subjectively feels like a breakdown. It is accompanied by drowsiness, decreased thinking speed, and decreased concentration. A person experiences an unpleasant sensation in the head, as if the brain is losing clarity and focus.
— At the same time, the claim that sugar is able to "turn on" the brain is also not completely a myth. In conditions of mild energy deficiency, for example, with prolonged mental stress or skipping meals, a small amount of quickly digested carbohydrates can actually increase the availability of glucose for nerve cells for a short time, explains Anastasia Lebedeva.
The old recommendations to eat a piece of chocolate before the exam have a logical basis. However, the problem lies in the fact that this effect is short-lived and unstable, the biotechnologist emphasizes. If there is too much sweet or it is consumed without a balance with proteins and fats, then a rapid increase in activity is followed by a sharp decline, accompanied by memory impairment, irritability and fatigue.
"In this sense, the crucial role is played not by sugar itself, but by its quantity, frequency of consumption, and combination with other nutrients that slow down its absorption and stabilize glucose levels,— Lebedeva comments.
Water helps to restore strength
Scientists assign an equally important role in cognitive activity to the water balance. The brain consists of 70-75% water, and even moderate dehydration — at the level of 1-2% of body weight — can significantly reduce attention, information processing speed, short-term memory, and decision-making ability.
"When there is a shortage of fluid, blood flow worsens, the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to neurons slows down, and the transmission of nerve impulses is disrupted," Lebedeva says. — As a result, a person feels tired, "heavy" in the head and a decrease in mental performance.
As for excessive water consumption, according to the expert, it rarely leads to serious consequences in domestic conditions. However, with a significant and uncontrolled excess of fluid, an electrolyte imbalance may occur, which can really negatively affect the functioning of the nervous system. With a normal drinking regime, the risk of "leaching" of nutrients is minimal.
According to the expert, pure water is the most effective for maintaining cognitive functions, since it does not contain sugar, stimulants and additional substances that affect metabolic processes. Tea, compotes and other drinks also contribute to the total volume of liquid, but their effect differs for the worse.
— For example, a cup of strong sweet tea can actually increase concentration for a short time due to a combination of caffeine and glucose, but this effect is a stimulation, not a steady improvement in brain function. With regular use, this approach can lead to exhaustion of the nervous system, energy fluctuations and dependence on external stimuli, says Lebedeva.
For stable mental performance, it is not sudden "jolts" that are important, but an even supply of energy, adequate water intake and a balanced diet.
— Thus, effective brain function is based not on extremes, but on balance. Excess sugar and lack of water can actually impair cognitive functions, while moderation, stability and attention to the physiological needs of the body allow you to maintain clarity of thinking, concentration and sustained mental activity throughout the day, the expert concludes.
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