Mental health advice around change often centres on how to start or how to stop doing something: New Year’s Resolutions, Change Management, addiction cessation or the addition of new, positive habits.
We are frequently encouraged to step out of our comfort zones and embrace a growth mindset.
Proactively seeking change can help us to grow, learn, and develop.
Learning about how neuroscience impacts behavioural change is not only fascinating but gives us tools to make habit creation and habit cessation less painful and more efficient and rewarding. We covered some main points on this topic in part 1 and part 2 of our Change blog series.
But proactive change is not the full picture. At times, change is simply thrust upon us, and it isn’t always good.
Even the best navigators face unexpected obstacles
As the navigators of our lives, we choose our destination and adjust our sails as we travel.
But invariably we will face unexpected storms that result in an unplanned change of direction, or, we will change our minds about where we want to go.
Sometimes, we may feel that we have little control over the waters that we sail in, and the best we can do is to hang on as our environment changes around us.
How can protect our mental health when we are faced with an unexpected change?
Examples could include a medical diagnosis for ourselves or someone we care about, a loss, or a change in financial circumstances or our environment.
Some changes are unexpected, and others we know are coming (like puberty, menopause or retirement), and yet, like freight trains that rumble past exactly on schedule, they still rattle us to our core. We all know that we are ageing and that certain changes are inevitable, and yet, the changes that we are all going to face can come as a very unwelcome surprise when they actually arrive.
How to deal with unexpected change
Humans love structure. Familiarity makes us feel safe. However, life isn’t always predictable. This is one of the reasons why we have developed a stress response - so that our bodies and minds can deal with unexpected threats rapidly.
Take Covid-19 as one example. Very few of us could have predicted a global pandemic or the multiple ways in which our lives were disrupted as a result.
We adapted, because we had to, but not without a psychological price paid by individuals and communities.
Remind yourself of the things that you can control (and make a point of controlling what you can)
Our brains are very good problem solvers. The downside of trying to perpetually problem solve problems that we can’t control is that there is no solution, and this can end to endless rumination.
We may end up trapped in a ‘worry cycle,’ or experience intrusive or repetitive thoughts about our problem, with no end in sight, because the solution is outside of our control.
Image credit: Nick Seluk, the Awkward Yeti
Rumination can result in a state of chronic stress.
Stress can be helpful - stress is a protective mechanism that can help us to rally and focus our thoughts - but it is only helpful when it is short-lived and an appropriate response. We are designed to experience stress in response to an immediate stressor, and then return to baseline. Ruminating on our problems excessively can result in a state of chronic stress where we are stuck in a ‘fight or flight’ position.
When we feel ‘stuck’ in rumination, it can be helpful to reflect on the things that definitely are in our control.
Remembering what we are in control of and controlling those things helps us to feel empowered, in control, and gives us the safety of the known and familiar.
Even in very dynamic circumstances, we likely have multiple things in our lives that we can control.
what we eat and drink
our own bodies, or elements of them - such as the touch of water on our skin, the colour of our hair or eyes, a familiar movement
reliable relationships with loved ones
our jobs- even if our job is the culprit, we can focus on the parts that remain stable
music, tv and books we like - re-reading a loved book or re-watching a loved film can give a sense of familiarity
our control over our own time or portions of it
our home or space
Stress in my Life Assessment
Dr Elissa Epel, a Professor and Vice-Chair of Psychiatry at the University of California, is one of the leaders of stress research. She studies stress and ageing, including positive aspects of stress and how to approach stress in a more positive and empathetic way in order to avoid chronic stress.
One of the tools that Dr. Epel recommends in her book “the Seven-Day Stress Prescription” is to undertake a ‘stress audit’ of our lives.
Take a few minutes to write down all of your current stressors.
Then mark off the ones that are outside of your control.
Take the time to really consider this - is a particular stressor really in your control? You may need to break the stressor down in multiple items. For example, if the cost of living is a stressor, it may be that you can control some of your expenses, for example by switching providers to get better deals. But, you cannot control inflation.
Once you have made your list, make a plan to control the things you can control and let everything else go.
How?
Let go of the rope
Dr. Epel uses an analogy ‘let go of the rope.’
Epel visualises chronic stressors, such as an unavoidable caring responsibility, or an unchangeable medical diagnosis, as an impenetrable brick wall. You can’t go through it, over it, or break it down. The temptation may be to hitch ourselves to a rope tied to this brick wall and perpetually pull and pull on it. But the brick wall isn’t going anywhere. What would happen if we simply put the rope down?
Tell yourself “this is how things are right now,” and move your focus to the parts of your life where you can find joy and purpose, even though you are living with a chronic stressor.
If ‘let it go’ just sounds like too glib of a response for situations in life that are unavoidable, and really, really rubbish, remind yourself that this is a practice, not a one-time solution. Visualise yourself holding the rope, and visualise yourself letting the rope go.
Try applying a similar image to letting go of chronic stressors that are outside of your control.
Artist credit: Nick Seluk, The Awkward Yeti
You can see a fuller explanation of ‘let go of the rope’ in Dr. Epel’s own words, here (interview with Dr. Epel and Dr. Andrew Huberman, timestamp from approx 1 hour 30 min).
Epel provides a list of additional resources here (many of them completely free, and relatively simple).
Real estate in your brain is precious. Don’t let things that you can’t change take up your precious space and energy. Your focus matters. Change what you can change, let go of what you can’t, and let your focus bring you joy.
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