Dealing with the Darker Days: Working Out What To Do

“May I have the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”                                                             Adapted from Niebuhr (Theologian)

Last week we started looking into dealing constructively with difficult life situations, with a realistic assessment of the situation and the resulting negative emotions being the first step.

Remember that it is not helpful to merely try and suppress negative emotions, as this actually only amplifies them in the long run but also makes us experience less positive emotions.¹ In general terms, we have several options how to react to negative experiences: we can walk away from the situation (if we can), we can adjust/repair/optimize it, or we can change the way that we deal with it or experience it.² Whatever your approach or chosen route, try to be as open, flexible and creative as possible when looking for a solution. Make sure you make best use of resources, e.g. asking friends, family or experts for advice, have a creative brainstorm, draw on your strengths and trust your abilities. Quite commonly, difficult situations arise because of conflicts with other people. Interpersonal and negotiation skills may therefore be required. Of course not all situations fit in neat categories, but below are some general suggestions, which may help working out the best course of action:

1. Helpful vs unhelpful emotions

• Unhelpful negative emotions tend to be disproportionate to the trigger, unnecessary or self-gratifying. 
• Minor negative feelings sometimes reduce or disappear on their own accord once you realise that they are unhelpful.¹ For example, if you are under time pressure and annoyed because you have to queue in a shop, you may let the irritation go if you realise that this is not going to shorten the queue but instead just making yourself feel even worse. 
• However, it is often not as easy as this, particularly in more significant situations where we may find it more difficult to let the negative feelings go. Particularly if you notice that certain situations regularly trigger unhelpful negative emotions in you (e.g. if you notice that you have a general problem with anger or irritability rather than just on a single odd occasion in a queue), you may want to address this.
• As a general rule, unhelpful emotions may be best dealt with by improving our emotion regulation and emotional intelligence, increasing our resilience by appropriate self-care, reviewing our beliefs and thoughts, and in some cases by addressing any specific vulnerabilities we may have. In short, the main focus when dealing with unhelpful negative emotions may involve internal work; changing the external circumstances is generally less effective.^1,3,4 Having said that, in some situations, it may be sometimes helpful to also selectively alter some external circumstances or adapt your behaviour. For example, in order to address any underlying issues causing strong emotional reactions to trivial situations, you may need to reduce your work/life commitments at least temporarily in order to have enough resources to deal with your problems.

• Conversely, helpful negative emotions are adaptive and necessary; they help you to move forward. These types of feelings often are an indication to consider external action and looking into changing your situation, particularly if the circumstances are likely to recur or be permanent (see below).¹ However, it is also important to look after yourself in the process, so a combined approach of applying self-care/emotional intelligence and problem solving is called for.^1,2

2. Single vs recurrent or permanent difficult experience

If you are dealing with a single event, which is unlikely to recur or be permanent in the same form, you may not want to spend any more time and energy engaging with it, whether the emotions that are triggered are helpful or unhelpful.¹ For example if a stranger has been unfriendly to you and you are unlikely to see him/her again, there is little point to keep worrying about it- just try to let it go. On the other hand, if you are having repeated difficult situations, e.g. with a work colleague or other person you encounter more frequently, it may indeed be necessary to take some form of action.

Further tips on recurrent/permanent situations triggering unhelpful negative emotions

• As mentioned above, strategies to deal with excessive recurrent unhelpful negative feelings are increasing your emotional intelligence (e.g. by practicing mindfulness), ensuring appropriate self-care (incl. sleep, exercise, food), disputing negative thoughts and working on more flexible beliefs, as well as possibly addressing any specific vulnerabilities. Additionally, you can employ the suggestions listed below in the section ‘Situations you cannot change’.
• When reflecting on your issues/vulnerabilities, values and beliefs, it is essential to avoid overanalysis and rumination- go back to last week’s post to remind yourself of strategies to avoid rumination if needed. During your reflection, try to be systematic and analytical. It may be helpful to do this with a friend or in writing so that you do not get lost in unproductive negative thinking.
• Depending on the type and severity of your life circumstances and triggered emotions, you may be able to deal with the situation yourself, or with the help of a friend or peer support group, or you may seek professional advice. Various effective methods varying from self-help to professional counseling or psychotherapy +/- pharmacological treatment are available to address many specific problems.^3-7
• A common type of unhelpful negative feelings, which can be relatively easily dealt with, are those arising from hedonic adaptation (our tendency to quickly take things for granted as we get easily used to new situations/people/objects) and social comparison. In these situations, the main key lies in changing your attitude and perception. A separate post in a few weeks will deal with these frequent problems separately.

3. Situations you can change vs situations you cannot change

• Situations you can change: Any permanent/recurrent situation giving rise to significant helpful negative emotions, which can be changed or partially changed should be addressed an appropriate, proportionate, measured response.¹ Even if your feelings are justified, avoid responding with a disproportionate and unnecessarily harsh reaction, which often just escalates conflicts on an interpersonal level and may be counterproductive in the long term. Also ensure that your envisaged outcome is really what you want to achieve. It has been shown that people are not very good when it comes to predicting what makes them happy in the long run.^2,5 We will come back to this in a little more detail in another post, but for now just bear in mind that even your most desired outcome may actually not always bring you the full positive effect that you expected. As mentioned above, when trying to change the circumstances, try to be open, creative and flexible, asking others for advice when needed and remember your strengths and abilities.
• In situations you cannot change and for unhelpful negative feelings, several strategies may increase your tolerance and acceptance of the experience. In addition to above mentioned emotional intelligence, basic self-care and self-supportive thinking, these include:^1,2,5
• Modify the situation: E.g. if you are frustrated by your long commute to work but cannot change your job or the place you live, you can listen to audiobooks, e-books or podcasts during your journey. This can transform ‘lost’ commuting time into quality time. It has certainly worked for me and is why this blog came into existence!
• Change your attention in the situation: For example, if you are often irritated by a specific person (who you cannot avoid), you can try to pay attention to neutral aspects of that person rather than focusing on the attributes or behaviours, which you find annoying.
• Change the meaning of the situation: For example, if you are diagnosed with a chronic illness you may interpret this as a total personal disaster to mean that your independent life is over. On the other hand, you could consider the illness as a manageable challenge, which means that that you have to focus more on your physical health and appropriate self-care.
• Putting the situation into perspective and practice gratitude: Even when bad things happen in our lives, quite often they could be a whole lot worse. Try to stay open to the good things you are experiencing during times of difficulty- even the very basic things we so often take for granted. This may include being grateful for having a safe place to sleep, having sufficient food and water, being healthy and not being affected by violent conflict. You can also try to ask yourself if the situation is likely to matter in a few months, a year or five years.
• Practice compassion and self-compassion: Try to see things from the other person’s perspective, try to connect to other people and help others. At the same time, be kind to yourself, look after your own needs and accept help if needed. These things are not necessarily mutually exclusive as you will see in the next few months.

A truly amazing person- What can we learn from…:⁸

Temple Grandin is a person who had to overcome more than one challenge in life, including being autistic and working as a woman in the livestock industry, a field largely dominated by men. Born with Asperger’s Syndrome in a time when autism was widely unheard of, she did not start speaking until the age of 3 ½ years, and she was bullied at school as she was considered weird. However, due the support of her family and an inspiring science teacher, she felt encouraged to pursue a career in animal science, despite the difficulties that autism posed to her. Temple Grandin has a high sensitivity to sensory information (like noise) and great attention to detail as a result of her autistic trait, both of which have been posing a challenge throughout her life. However, she has learnt to manage these traits and to use them in her professional career, in combination with her strongly visual thinking. Today, Temple Grandin is Professor of Animal Science at the Colorado State University. Her work focuses on livestock behaviour and the design of humane livestock handling facilities. She has also established an objective scoring system for livestock handling at abattoirs. In addition to her important work for animal welfare, she has been able to provide an important insight into autism.

What we can learn from Temple Grandin is that many of our characteristics are not per se good or bad. If we have the serenity to accept our traits and accept ourselves as we are, we can learn to make best use of our characteristics and get the courage to influence things we can change.

You can read more about Temple Grandin on her website www.templegrandin.com. Temple Grandin has also written several books and was featured in TV documentaries and a biographic movie drama. She has also given an interesting TED lecture about embracing life with autism.

Further information on this topic:

Mindsight from psychiatrist Daniel Siegel is a truly fascinating read and one of the best books that I have come across during my explorations of this topic. It provides a detailed but easy-to-read explanation of the processes in our brain, which are important for our well-being and optimal functioning, namely bodily regulation, attuned communication with others, emotional balance, response flexibility, fear modulation, empathy, insight, moral awareness and intuition.

What is more, Daniel Siegel illustrates how we can specifically address any difficulties we may have by learning to focus our attention, balancing the left and right halves of our brain, reconnecting the mind with the body, making sense of our memory and personal history, getting in touch with our core-self, attuning to others and confronting uncertainties and our mortality.

Preview: Next week we are going to look at an essential element of well-being, which is often misunderstood and sometimes difficult to achieve: self-compassion and self-acceptance.

References and further evidence-based reading:

1. Fredrickson B. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive. Oneworld Publications; Oxford, England. 2010

2. Lyubomirsky S. The Myths of Happiness: What should make you happy but doesn’t, what shouldn’t make you happy but does. Penguin Books; New York. 2013.

3. Hanson R: Hardwiring Happiness: How to reshape your brain and your life. Rider Ebury Publishing, Random House, UK. 2013. 

4. Siegel D. Mindsight: Transform Your Brain with the New Science of Kindness. Oneworld Publications; Oxford, UK. 2011.

5. Diener E, Biswas-Diener R. Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Blackwell Publishing; Oxford, UK. 2008.

6. Seligman MEP. What you Can Change and What you Can’t: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement. Nicholas Brealey Publishing; London, UK. 2010.

7. Pittman CM, Karle EM: Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to use the neuroscience of fear to end anxiety, panic & worry. New Harbinger Publications;­­ Oakland. 2015.

8. References for the section truly amazing person: http://www.templegrandin.com/templehome.html, http://rhodesprofessors.cornell.edu/RhodesProfsGrandin.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin

If you found this information helpful, please consider supporting the campaign under Just Giving. Of course it is also great if you choose to support another charity or do a practical good deed, but it would be nice if you could let me know that you have done this because you felt inspired by this campaign. Please also feel free to share this post and let me know if you have any constructive feedback- good or bad!

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A Quote for the Week

A faithful blog follower has sent in another great quote, which I would like to share with you as it fits in very well with the theme of dealing with adversity:

'...when we long for life without...difficulties, remind us that oak grows strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure." Peter Marshall (Entertainer)  

Difficult times are certainly not pleasant and they can wear us down a bit; but it is also true that we can sometimes come out stronger the other end. The next post later this week will give some general tips about how to work out what to do in difficult situations, which may help us to grow stronger.

If you come across any other good quotes or you have any comments, please continue to send them in!

Also, I would like to say a big THANK YOU for all the generous donations- including those from anonymous donors, who I cannot thank personally. It really means a lot to me that this blog can contribute a little bit towards the great work of the International Rescue Committee and World Veterinary Service :-) 

I hope that you all have a good week until Friday! 

Dealing with the Darker Days: Improve Your Control and Decrease Negativity

“Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.”

                                                                                             Benjamin Franklin (Politician)

Difficult life experiences and negative emotions such as anger, stress, sadness, frustration or anxiety are an inevitable part of our lives, but we can learn to minimise their impact on us. These difficult situations may include a current difficult event, a memory, or an anticipated future event. It may also involve dealing with another person or an aspect of ourselves, which we find challenging to cope with. After exploring how to build emotional intelligence in the previous post, this and next week’s post are about how to make use of emotional intelligence in combination with a creative problem-solving attitude in order to increase our feeling of control in difficult life situations. To do this effectively, it is helpful to first assess the difficult experience objectively without falling into the traps of negativity and rumination, before working out the best way of dealing with the situation. This is because different types of situations may require different types of action.

Assessing the situation:

• Try to be realistic and objective; it is also helpful if you are in a neutral or positive mood when trying to analyse the situation.^1,2
• Try to answer the following questions about the situation: 1) Type of negative emotion: Are the negative emotions proportional to the trigger and are they justified (helpful negative emotions) or are they disproportionate or gratuitous (unhelpful negative emotions)? 2) Duration of the experience: Is the situation likely to recur or be permanent? 3) Influence on the situation: Can you change the external circumstances of the situation or not?
• Identify your desired outcome

More information on types of negative emotions:

• Helpful negative emotions are justified, proportional to the trigger and based on facts. They are helpful, because they serve a purpose and often alert us to a problem with our life circumstances. They can help us to move forward and motivate us to change our situation.¹ Examples include:
• Feeling some degree of stress or worry prior to events which are important to us, e.g. stress prior to and during an important presentation or examination can be helpful, because it prompts you to stay focused and prepare yourself well, making it more likely that you will be successful.
• Similarly, feeling stressed can be adaptive in some other circumstances, e.g. it may alert you to the fact that you have too many commitments, and that you need to look after yourself more.
• The feeling of some degree of guilt or sadness after making a significant mistake motivates us to learn from our experience and (hopefully) makes us change our behaviour in similar future situations.
• Anxiety and fear in truly threatening or potentially dangerous situations.
• Feeling disappointed, angry and/or sad when being treated unfairly by other people.
• A period of grief following the loss of a person who was close to you, or after a dramatic negative change in your life situation, or if you fail to achieve an important personal goal. It is important to go through the normal natural process of grieving in order to be able to move on with your life at some later time point.

• Unhelpful negative emotions on the other hand, are not adaptive. They are disproportionate to the underlying trigger, self-righteous or may be completely unwarranted:¹
• Having a disproportionate reaction to an event from time to time can be quite normal, particularly at times of stress. However, if you find that you are having an exaggerated emotional reaction to minor events on a regular basis, it could indicate that you have vulnerabilities, which you may want to address. To re-use above example, feelings of outright dread and fear prior to and during important events (e.g. a presentation/examination or meeting) may be paralyzing and decrease your performance. Disproportionate reactions can also be a sign for chronic stress or other mental health issues.
• Unhelpful negative emotions (or absence of positive emotions) can also occur due to making social comparisons (comparing yourself to other people who appear better off) or to effects of the hedonic adaptation.^1,2 Hedonic adaptation means that we can get used to our life situations very quickly. For example we may start finding faults with something, which has previously given us great joy (e.g. a job/partner/house/car).
• Another group of unnecessary and therefore unhelpful negative emotions are those, which arise due to unrealistic expectations. As we do not live in a perfect world, problems are more the norm than the exception.
• Other types of unhelpful emotions include righteous indignation (anger or contempt out of a feeling of moral superiority), Schadenfreude (the joy over somebody else’s misfortune).
• Sometimes, negative emotions can also become a habit and kind of coping strategy, although not in a constructive sense. For example, some of us might find it exciting to display irritation or anger, or use these emotions as a threat to manipulate others. Other people may use self-pity as a form of protection.⁴

To speak with the words of Benjamin Franklin, assessing the type of negative emotion is about finding out, whether the negative feelings you are experiencing have a good reason or not.

Avoid the downward spiral of negativity:

While you are assessing and dealing with the situation, it is important to avoid falling into a negative spiral. Negative emotions and thoughts, whether warranted or unwarranted, can sometimes be overwhelming, making us feel helpless and decrease our ability to think creatively about solutions. As part of your analysis, you may also explore your values, core beliefs and vulnerabilities, which can sometimes be painful. In the last post, we mentioned some helpful ‘first aid’ strategies when you feel overwhelmed by negative feelings. Additionally, it is important to avoid the more long-term downward spiral of negative emotions => negative thoughts => negative emotions by learning how to tackle rumination. Rumination can be defined as having repetitive and unproductive thoughts about current problems, past situations or future events, or of relationships and conflicts.³ Rumination is very different to constructive analysis. Analysis is the systematic, step-by-step contemplation of a problem or situation working towards a solution, whereas with rumination, you have no control over the thoughts or the direction of the thoughts.² Luckily, there are several things, which can be done to avoid rumination:

•  Do not believe everything you think! – This very wise proverb summarises nicely that our mind, which constructs our reality, can sometimes be surprisingly wrong.^3,4 Of course we generally have to trust our judgment, but negative thoughts are often grossly exaggerated. If you are finding yourself often engaged in negative thoughts, then try and learn the skill of cognitive restructuring techniques:³ Whenever you notice a worrying/negative thought, try to be skeptical. Look for evidence whether the thought is true or not. If it is not true, then try to ignore it. If there is some evidence-based ground for the thought, then try to replace categorical unhelpful thoughts with coping thoughts. Coping thoughts are more balanced and flexible statements. For example, if you have made a mistake and your automatic, negative thought would be: ‘How could I be so stupid’ or ‘I am a failure’ with ‘Everybody makes mistakes sometimes. It would have been nice if it had not happened on this occasion, but I will learn for next time.’
• Distract yourself with:

o  Neutral or pleasant thoughts²

o  A pleasant and healthy activity that allows you to re-focus your attention. Examples are sport, gardening, watching amusing programs, reading thought-provoking articles and books, painting or drawing, playing an instrument or meeting (positive) people.^1-3

• Establish a dedicated ‘problem time’ in the day, during which you contemplate your problems, rather than letting the negative thoughts intrude your entire day. If possible, put your thoughts down in writing, which can help you avoid going round in unproductive circles.²
• Talk the problem over with a (level-headed!) friend, family member or other trusted person.²
• Meditate or practice other spiritual activities (including prayers if this helps you).^1-3 Mindful meditation practices can be particularly helpful as you also learn to control your attention better.³

Helpful books on this topic:

The Myths of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky is an excellent guide about common ‘happiness traps’ and full of practical advice about what we can do to feel more in control and increase our happiness in different life circumstances.

If you are a compulsive worrier or prone to anxiety, then you should have a look at Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Catherine M Pittman and Elizabeth M Karle. This is an excellent book full of science-based tips.

                    

Preview: Building onto today’s post, the final step in dealing with negative situations is working out when to apply which strategy or strategies- you can find out more about this in the final part of Dealing with the Darker Days next week. 

References and further evidence-based reading:

1. Fredrickson B. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive. Oneworld Publications; Oxford, England. 2010

2. Lyubomirsky S. The Myths of Happiness: What should make you happy but doesn’t, what shouldn’t make you happy but does. Penguin Books; New York. 2013.

3. Pittman CM, Karle EM: Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to use the neuroscience of fear to end anxiety, panic & worry. New Harbinger Publications; Oakland. 2015.

4. Eagleman D. The Brain: The story of you. Canongate Books Ltd; Edinburgh, UK. 2015.

5. Diener E, Biswas-Diener R. Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Blackwell Publishing; Oxford, UK. 2008.

If you found this information helpful, please consider supporting the campaign under Just Giving. Of course it is also great if you choose to support another charity or do a practical good deed, but it would be nice if you could let me know that you have done this because you felt inspired by this campaign. Please also feel free to share this post and let me know if you have any constructive feedback- good or bad!

View and Save as PDF

Follow the Blog- http://followthegoodlifecampaign.blogspot.co.uk

Donations- https://www.justgiving.com/teams/thegoodlifecampaign

Donations are in aid of the International Rescue Committee and the World Veterinary Service