Meltdown Reaction
A new tool to help us cope in overwhelming moments
When we experience immense stress our peripheral vision shrinks. Just one of the ways our body responds which can make the situation seem worse than it is.
Please help me today by testing my new experimental tool to help us in moments of overwhelming stress and emotional hijack - link below.
Have you noticed how your body responds under stress? Our brain turns some senses down and other senses up. Our hearing becomes more attuned, our eyesight becomes tunnel vision.
Our fight or flight response is so powerful that our emotional reaction overrides our logical perspective. We make rash decisions. We react and make things worse.
Last week two things happened in a short space of time that put me under immense pressure.
I hurt my foot running which meant simply walking around the house was painful. This was making everything feel harder. Then one of my family calls in tears, criticising me for something I’d said to another member of the family.
Immediately I start to feel overwhelmed; guilt, fear, shame, frustration. My heart rate quickens, my thoughts blur. And my foot fucking hurts!
These moments occur for all of us. It’s normal that things go wrong and we make mistakes. What I've always found deeply frustrating is that it’s exactly in those moments that we’d benefit from responding in a calmer, more considered way.
However, this often feels impossible because of the strength of our ‘chimp brain’ and the volume of stress hormones coursing through our body.
I’m confident I can get perspective and see things a bit clearly later on but I’d really like to reframe and access a more logical perspective now.
With this in mind I’ve developed a draft framework for a simple online tool, the working title is Think Clearly because when we are hijacked by strong emotions we experience a kind of emotional brain fog - or at least I do.
Before you test it (takes 2 mins) please recall a moment you felt under immense stress. Maybe a tough situation at work, frustrating relationship at home, or something really difficult out of the blue.
Take yourself back to how you felt in those first few moments of stress/ anxiety/ anger/ guilt.
There is a section asking you to take a breath, you can skip this if needed.
Test the Think Clearly tool here
On the finish page of the tool there is a green ‘help Sam’ button at the bottom of the page, please click this to do the 10 second feedback (2 questions).
Thank you for your help, your kindness and attention makes a real difference.
“To love is to will the good of the other.”
― Thomas Aquinas
You are a good person, doing your best. That’s the most each of us can do.
P.S - Marcus Smith adopts military breathing technique to improve his goal kicking - here
P.P.S - Need a hand? Feel alone? Don’t wait, contact someone today. You deserve support as much as anyone else. You are not alone. Reply to this message if that’s easiest.
Text Shout - 85258 - simple support via text, I used when I wasn't sure who to turn to
Call Samaritans 116 123 - no problem too small, I've used a couple of times, once during a relationship break up, once when one of my family said they were suicidal and I wasn't sure who to ask for help
NHS Every Mind Matters - simple and effective resources you can access immediately here