There’s a lot we can do to make life a smoother ride.
Our first instinct is to take
control over our circumstances, but that's not always possible.
The more direct route is to understand how stress takes us over in the everyday - by emotional hijack. All thanks to anger, for example, an annoyance like a parking fine can leave us incensed. Meanwhile, few of us escape the experience of fear
making us tense, or of some alluring prospect carrying us off on a surge of compulsive desire-evoked excitement.
Just as commonly, we might see some desperate hope dashed. At such times, our mood can collapse, setting us up for a descent into demoralising gloom. This reaction is akin to “cold turkey”, and relates to the snatching away of our supply of dopamine, an addictively pleasurable brain chemical by which compulsive desire
revs up our pleasure and drive.
As befits compulsive desire, this same dopamine has a real kick, and can make us giddy with a sense of success, like we’re now teacher’s pet. By contrast, the reverse of compulsive desire
- gloom - can dent our sense of purpose and have our confidence wrecked.
By becoming more aware of these“stress forces” of anger, fear, compulsive desire
and gloom, we start to regain the upper hand, and our life becomes less stressful.