Habits are the basis of everyday life and have an essential function in shaping how we perceive things and feel. So, we are the result of all our habits and the factors that make us adapt. As each of us is looking for a state of well-being, it was expected that the world’s happiness level would be higher than in previous years. With all this, the World Health Organization shows that 1 in 8 people, worldwide, lives with a mental problem, that involves changes in behavior, thinking, and mood.
From here, the problem arises: What are the habits, and factors that make us feel this way?
Factors draining out our energy
There are some factors that regularly leave their mark on our lifestyle and the way we feel. These factors are of cognitive, emotional, physical, or spiritual nature.
Among them, we have:
- Lack of rest
- Excessive attention to public opinion
- Hate
- Toxic relationships
- Pleasing others
- Always being accessible on social media
- Living in narrow places
Lack of rest
We all know that it is not easy to have a good standard of living. Getting everything necessary for survival requires a lot of work, and only in the last 10-15 years has the world started to reach a better standard of living and afford more than just survival.
With all this, we inherited a factor that impacts our life quality as much as our ancestors – we speak about the lack of rest. Insufficient and often poor quality sleep (lack of a sleep schedule and interrupted sleep) is the primary cause of many psychological problems and conditions.
While we sleep, our whole body regenerates. Most importantly, the brain is the main beneficiary of sleep, as it can regenerate only during sleep, given that energy is not spent anymore for movement and other processes, but only for recovery.
Excessive attention to public opinion
One of the basic things we learned from a young age, both from our parents and at school, was: to care. Caring is normal and vital for a peaceful and prosperous society. But throughout our lives, we took this principle to the extreme and we built for ourselves too many boundaries and restrictions. This is how we got from not doing something immoral and unethical to not doing anything in order not to give cause for discussion to those around us.
Yet, we need to understand that it is natural for us to discuss the actions and decisions of those around us because that’s the only way we can make the difference between good and bad, that’s the only way we can spread better practices and ideas, grow, develop and learn.
Also, we have to speak about the human need for stability. I mean, each of us wants stability in order to feel safe. However, the total lack of change brings a feeling of boredom, and depression when it seems that time flies by and nothing has been achieved.
So, the best thing would be to comply with morals and ethics, without being afraid that our decisions will be a subject of gossip. In the end, our decisions may even be a source of inspiration for others.
Hate
Pride is something personal; it is about the respect we ask in exchange for our words and person. But at the same time, it is pride that makes us less open and sensitive to social tensions, that arise due to differences in opinions, principles of life, personal values, etc. Since for each of us, the values and principles of life are rules that must be followed, at any moment when others do not align with them we feel a betrayal.
However, to overcome these tensions, we must focus on things that really matter, like the basic values of human life, and not on political preferences, work habits, food tastes, and others. Respecting human life and humanity are good reasons to focus on, while other subjects are just preferences, which change throughout our lives.
On a physical level, holding onto hatred is about constant energy consumption by the brain for keeping vivid information that makes us angry. This causes the “energy drain” phenomenon and makes us tire faster, sleep worse, and think less clearly.
Toxic relationships
Similar to anger, toxic relationships consume us. An environment in which we are afraid to speak, in which we are not appreciated or welcome, which gives us a state of discomfort and does not make us feel good will become a primary source of psychological diseases.
People need understanding, appreciation, and purpose. Therefore, any environment that does not offer any of these, and represents a source of depreciation and stress, will be the main cause of psychological and physical problems.
Pleasing others
We grew up appreciating feedback because that’s the only way we can differentiate between our good and bad actions. The problem is that we may develop a habit of engaging only in actions that please others, and this may become a problem at the point when we will go against our needs and desires following this habit of pleasing others.
From the moment we internalize this as normality, we may end up with internal conflicts, feelings of betraying personal life principles or abandoning our own goals.
Always be accessible on social media
Since technology has become accessible to a large part of society, and the Internet and social platforms have become a new method of communication, many of us have come to believe that being accessible to others is normal. For this reason, many try to keep the internet always on, receive notifications, and respond quickly to messages or calls. But, the problem is that we are part of different social groups: we have family, we have friends from school, school, college, and master’s, groups with work colleagues, hobby groups, etc. All of these are too much for a person, the notifications and messages received from these groups generate a high level of stress, as we tend to anticipate things, think about what might happen, and prepare to act. But the appropriate question here is: How often the messages we received from these groups have really been relevant, important, and urgent?
I mean, we must not forget that the calls still exist and that in any case of emergency, you will be called. To avoid stress, you can turn off the notifications from social media and focus on important things. You can return to social media messages at any time you think you have time and desire to respond to messages.
Living in narrow places
Chaotic and messy places occupy our minds and prevent us from being productive. In disorder, we tend to fix things. From this rule, an exception is only those who grew up in chaos and found peace only in such places.
In our society, chaos is not a rule. Even more, it is not accepted because it is a source of insecurity. We need to know what and where is everything so we can recognize more easily the dangerous situations.
Besides that, we also need personal space for safety and enough living space. There is a necessary minimum space for living so that psychologically we don’t feel cramped. This is not only about those who are claustrophobic but in general about the fact that people need space to feel free.
Conclusions
There are things we cannot control, but for some, we are directly responsible for. Maybe we have created some habits out of the desire to be involved, appreciated, and seen by those around us, but along the way, many of us forget about ourselves. To overcome the psychological problems generated by the factors listed above, you can comply with the following rules:
- Involvement is fine as long as it doesn’t mean going over your own needs and goals in life!
- Appreciation is okay as long as it is sincere and constructive – not as a result of charity!
- Being seen is good as long as your actions don’t go against your needs!
- Helping is good as long as the help is mutual!
- Being available on social media is nice, but not if real life is put on hold!
- Your well-being comes first! It is vital for your own person, but also for those who care about you!
