The Last Straw
Years ago, when I was going through a particularly stressful time in my life, I had a meltdown after realizing my house plants needed watering again. I was reminded of that time on Sunday, March 13 when, on top of the ongoing pandemic, Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine and the threat of another world war, I had to set all the clocks ahead an hour.
Apparently, that final affront was on the minds of our U.S. Senators when they unanimously passed a bill on March 15 (two days after springing forward) to end the madness of changing our clocks twice a year. They decided daylight saving time (the endless summer) would be the standard because standard time was just not fun enough.
Mind you, our Senators cannot agree on what box lunch to order for guests, but they did agree on something most of us have been saying for a while: stop messing with time. Their so-called Sunshine Protection Act might as well have been called the Sanity Protection Act.
What feels like last century—in February 2021—I posted a piece titled, It’s About Time. In it, I quoted the very-quotable comedian Amy Poehler who declared, “Time is so 2019!” We lost two years along with our grip.
Stress causes us to emotionally overreact to relatively minor annoyances such as watering the plants or changing the clocks. Evolutionary overreacting may be considered an adaptive response. In the animal kingdom, reacting immediately to a potential threat can save lives but, clearly, having a meltdown about plants or clocks seems maladaptive.
Taking Back the Reins
The amygdala is the oldest part of our brain; it’s responsible for mobilizing our body to deal with threats. The amygdala doesn’t discriminate between real danger and imagined danger nor does it differentiate between physical threats and emotional threats. Unlike our caveperson ancestors, however, modern adults have fully developed frontal lobes which are responsible for reasoning, logic and judgment. The frontal lobes moderate the amygdala. But sometimes, especially during stressful times, our amygdala hijacks our frontal lobes.
Preventing this takeover requires attention, otherwise known as mindfulness. Usually the very first indication that we’re headed toward meltdown is physical. We might have a racing heart, (non-Covid-related) shortness of breath, restlessness, listlessness, or other symptoms that indicate our body is not in homeostasis. Slowing down, breathing deeply and using our prefrontal cortex (the executive of the frontal region) to determine what’s amiss will help us get control.
Blowing Off Steam
Getting our bodies back to homeostasis can also be accomplished by moving those large muscle groups that have been activated by the release of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. Walking, running, cycling, even housework and gardening enables us blow off steam.
In the 1960s and ‘70s, a popular form of psychotherapy promoted punching pillows and using foam encounter bats (aka batakas) to release anger and stress. The theory was that yelling, screaming and striking defenseless chairs would be cathartic and rid clients’ aggression. Unfortunately for many of us who pinned our hopes and invested our time and money on such therapies, it simply didn’t work.
More recent research suggests that rage begets rage. The more aggressively you express anger, the angrier you become. Violent anger turns to rage. These days, those of us who enlisted in primal scream therapy are enrolling in meditation retreats and using journals to process our feelings.
Of course, some people still believe in primal scream therapy (even if they don’t call it by this name). And most professionals agree that repressed anger is unhealthy. Expressing anger and overwhelm can be helpful, but the way in which it is expressed will determine its effectiveness.
It’s Not About the Clock
Most importantly, giving oneself a time out to calm the body and let our precious prefrontal cortex assess the real danger, evaluate our situation, and problem-solve is the way to proceed. Often when I write angry letters (without sending them to anyone), I review them later using my bullshit detector. Frequently, the cause of my distress has little to do with plants, clocks or any number of trivial annoyances.
I still have one more clock to change. Instead of taking a sledge hammer to the clock, I’ll tackle it when my amygdala is under control—or I’ll wait until November 6 when it will, once again, display the correct time.
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
—William James