April is Stress Awareness Month, and it’s an ideal opportunity to reflect on how well we are managing the inevitable pressures that life holds for most of us. The classic image of a stressed-out person might be a sleep-deprived individual with tense shoulders and a racing heart, who is jittery and unfocused.
However, stress can also show up in behaviours such as emotional eating, dependent drinking, smoking, or a compulsion to scroll endlessly on smartphones. Here’s a look at why many of us lean on these crutches to get through the day, and how to make some positive changes.
More entrenched addictive behaviours can be very hard to break free from without professional help. If you are struggling, you may benefit from our Manchester city centre therapy services.
Why do we fall back on coping mechanisms?
When we are stressed, it triggers a primal response in the body that was designed to help our ancestors flee from danger, or pump them up to fight a predator. The body is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol, which causes the heart to beat more quickly and supply the brain and muscles with an extra dose of oxygen.
However, in modern situations, we generally have less use for the stress hormones that are flooding our system, and it causes us to feel anxious and uncomfortable. To escape these feelings, we reach for a coping mechanism that will activate the brain’s reward system by releasing pleasure chemicals such as dopamine.
This provides a brief escape from the stressful situation, but it doesn’t address the underlying causes. The sense of relief soon wears off, and this leads to further cravings for the source of comfort, such as cigarettes or sugary foods.
Emotional eating
We all eat for reasons other than to fuel our bodies: for enjoyment, culture, or as a means of socialising. However, eating can also be a means of numbing our emotions. If you find that you often eat when you are not hungry, crave certain foods such as sugar or salt, or use food to reward yourself or relieve stress, then you may be an emotional eater.
Excessive smoking or drinking
Some people can enjoy the occasional cigarette or alcoholic drink to relax and unwind, without taking it to excess (although even moderate levels of smoking or drinking can be harmful to our health). For some people, cigarette or alcohol consumption tips over into an addictive behaviour, because the body and brain build up a state of dependency.
How you can break the cycle of stress addictions
Breaking free from stress addictions is never easy, not least because substances such as sugar, alcohol and nicotine are addictive in themselves. Neither is it always possible to simply walk away from a stressful situation.
Therapy can help you explore the triggers that lead to your unhealthy coping mechanisms in more depth, and will give you the tools to address the root causes of your stress, and to put more positive coping strategies in place.