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Many men and women today experience a certain panic disorder that greatly affects their lives. It is brought on by the over-excitement of the body’s stress-response system. This over-excitement can be caused just as easily by doing something pleasurable as by experiencing something painful or unpleasant. The thrill of getting married or watching the home team win can produce as much stress as struggling to meet a publisher’s deadline or facing an angry boss. Strangely enough, the body really can’t tell the difference.
In fact some experts believe that the “happy stresses” in life are more likely to lead to high adrenalin flow. This is significant since many challenging, pleasurable demands (such as a high-pressure job or the competing needs of our children) stay with us a long time. We even come to depend on them for a sense of fulfillment. But like water dripping on a stone, they may eventually wear us down.
This dependency on certain “exciting” activities, hobbies, and challenges has something in common with well-known addictions such as alcoholism and drug abuse. Excitement is a drug addiction –only the drug is from within, not outside, the body.
That is, it’s actually possible for us to become addicted to our own adrenalin! The addiction starts when the body produces large amounts of adrenalin and related hormones under conditions of stress. This adrenalin creates a surge of energy to help the body respond to the stressful challenge; and this surge often feels good! Pain is suppressed, and we feel excited and powerful.
Because the adrenalin response can be intensely pleasurable, however, it is possible for us to actually become hooked on the “adrenalin high” to the point that we crave it again and again. We learn to psych ourselves up to a high level of adrenalin arousal with certain actions and attitudes just to feel good.
The idea of adrenalin addiction has important implications for how we respond to stress, because the very adrenalin that gives us a high is also the drug that causes us distress when used to excess. If we do not learn to back off from our adrenalin highs, the very pleasure we derive from even healthy endeavors can be a slow form of self-destruction.
Many people would be shocked to discover that they are hooked on their own adrenalin. They abhor the idea that some medication or artificial stimulant would ever bind them in its clutches. Yet they are oblivious to a dangerous addiction that can develop without their even being aware of it.
How do you know when you are addicted to your own adrenalin? A good sign is having one or more of the following reactions concerning a specific activity:
• You would rather engage in your activity than sleep.
• When you stop your activity you feel unhappy.
• You feel excited or encouraged only when you engage in your activity; at other times you feel “low.”
• Whenever you feel depressed you turn to your activity to make you feel better.
• You fantasize a lot about your activity when you are away from it.
The more you can answer “yes” to the above statements, the greater the likelihood that you are hooked on the adrenalin high that activity gives you.
Athena, Came here following Neatorama. This is an excellent article I enjoyed reading.
Each of us needs to discover the specific adrenalin-reducing tactics that work best to relax the mind and body. Many people have found the following tips helpful: 1. Talk audibly to yourself. Tell yourself to calm down, to quit acting as if life were a 100-meter dash. Remind yourself that you are just a part of a bigger whole. If you stop playing Messiah, you will have considerable less stress. 2. Practice conscious physical relaxation. You must allow your body to unwind so that healing and restoration can take place. One way to help your body relax is to exercise regularly. Appropriately tailored to age and level of fitness, exercise can improve not only your physical health but also your mood and general feeling of self-esteem. 3. Remember that frantic behavior does not guarantee success. Though society sometimes rewards us for hurriedness, real happiness and long-term success in a job or at home come only from keeping everything in proper perspective. 4. If you feel you must succeed in the situation before you, ask yourself, “Is the price I must pay really worth the benefit?” The answer will probably restore a sense of balance and remind you of long-term goals and values. 5. Learn to deliberately slow down. Develop the ability to choose to go slow when you need to. What’s the real hurry? Few friends, fellow workers, or superiors will increase their respect for you because you hurry. If anything, most would be more trusting if you slow down. 6. Quickly resolve those emotions that are adrenalin “biggies”: anger, resentment, frustration, irritation, and excitement. Apologize if you are wrong. Bury your hurts that are a result of oversensitivity or cruelty. 7. Review your life goals. Ask, “Is the challenge before me absolutely necessary to my life goal?” Consider carefully if this quest will eventually build you up or just destroy you. 8. Look closely at the faces of those around you. Do they seem like friends or foes? Are you forgetting that they are people also, with right, longings, aspirations, with a need for love? Have you slowed down enough to really understand you children? Do everyone a favor by easing up your demands on them. When you do, a sense of peace will be restored. 9. Relax your expectations and take time to enjoy the world around you. Recover your total personality and poise. Try to be gracious, and keep your perspective about what is really important and necessary.