Answer Addiction

Tag: stress relief

  • Can Watching Intense TV Shows & Movies Relieve Stress?

    Can Watching Intense TV Shows & Movies Relieve Stress?

    A survivor described to The Fix how she felt empowered while watching a traumatic storyline on a season of “Dexter.” 

    Psychological research has shown that for some, watching high-stress drama can actually relieve feelings of stress.

    One reason for this is that viewers watching a traumatic event that they themselves experienced can feel that their experience is being normalized—not in the sense that it’s common, but that it is a part of the human experience. This reduces feelings of shame and self-loathing that can be the result of post-traumatic stress disorder after a trauma.

    Alaina Leary, an editor and communications manager in Boston, wrote about her own experience of this phenomena for Hello Giggles. After being raped in college, Leary found that watching crime shows such as Dexter or horror shows such as The Vampire Diaries actually had a sedating effect.

    Leary spoke with The Fix about her experience watching Dexter in the context of her rape. “I could see a survivor (Lumen, the woman Dexter saved, played by Julia Stiles) onscreen dealing with her trauma. In season five, Lumen goes from a traumatized, terrified person to a strong, confident person who has done a lot of healing from what happened to her.”

    Despite the unlikely plot turns that occurred, Leary still felt empowered by the story playing out on the screen. “Lumen experiences very real effects of trauma like nightmares, panic attacks, specific triggers, and difficulties with trust/physical touch,” Leary explains. “I experienced all those things as a survivor too and it was powerful to see that portrayed in a narrative where the survivor heals, moves on, and lives their life.”

    Those who have experienced trauma may find themselves caught in what is called reenactment, where the adult person recreates a traumatic experience, with themselves in a position of mastery, in order to gain a feeling of control over the events. The publication Psychiatric Clinics of North America notes that, “The only reason to uncover traumatic material is to gain conscious control over unbidden re-experiences or re-enactments.”

    In other words, in order for it to be helpful to provoke stress through watching TV, movies or theater, the viewer must be aware of what is occurring inside themselves. Leary was conscious of what was happening as she watched stressful shows, and found it healing.

    “I could channel my emotions into the characters while getting my own sense of healing through therapy and art,” Leary told The Fix. “I am someone who lives with love, compassion, and vulnerability, instead of mistrust, anger, and resentment. Those are my active choices. I get to decide who I am today.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Baking Becomes Growing Outlet For Anxiety

    Baking Becomes Growing Outlet For Anxiety

    Some therapists are even prescribing baking for their patients struggling with anxiety.

    For Kelly Caiazzo, relief from her anxiety comes from an unexpected place: cooking and baking. 

    Caiazzo, 35, told The Portland Press Herald that the constant flow of negative news contributes to her anxiety. 

    “Even when I’m trying to take a rest day and take a deep breath, I’m still getting it because of social media,” she said. “It’s one headline after another about things that are going to make our country less safe from an environmental perspective.”

    So, in such instances, Caiazzo turns to prepping food. And she isn’t alone. In December, The Atlantic ran a piece about millennials turning to baking to decrease stress and anxiety. And, according to the American Psychiatric Association, stress levels are only increasing as 40% of Americans reported feeling more anxious in 2018 than the previous year. 

    It seems people are seeking out comfort foods as well, according to the Press Herald. Pete Leavitt, owner of Leavitt & Sons delis in Portland and Falmouth, said sales of his chicken potpie have skyrocketed in the last year with more than a double-digit increase. Ali Waks-Adams, executive chef at the Brunswick Inn, told the Press Herald the same can be said for their tapioca pudding. 

    Another increase has been seen in the number of people applying for jobs in the food industry, especially people with no prior culinary experience. Stacy Begin, owner of the Two Fat Cats bakeries, told the Press Herald that many “describe baking as a ‘release,’” in their resumes.

    Andrea Swanson, owner of Portland’s Scattoloni Bakery, said she has had an overwhelming increase in enrollment in her baking classes in recent years.  

    “Most of them want to do it as a hobby,” Swanson told the Press Herald, “but a lot of them, especially the bread ones, they’re into it as something to do at home to kind of decompress. They’ve tried bread machines, and it’s not the same thing.”

    Some therapists, such as Hannah Curtis of Falmouth, are even prescribing baking for their patients struggling with anxiety.

    “In baking, there are still rules we can count on,” she said. “If I do it right, and I do it in the right order, I’m going to get the right result.”

    Kathy Gunst, a South Berwick food writer and cookbook author, told the Press Herald she found comfort in baking during the hearings for Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. 

    “People would come into my house and say ‘What is going on here?’” Gunst stated. “And I would say ‘I’m trying to stay sane. That’s what’s going on here.’” 

    For Caiazzo, the urge to cook and bake also gives her a greater sense of control. 

    “Even though I can’t control the world at large, I can have a major impact on taking responsibility for my own personal impact and actions,” she said.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Kanye West: Mental Health Intervention Led to 'Scream Therapy'

    Kanye West: Mental Health Intervention Led to 'Scream Therapy'

    Kim Kardashian staged an intervention for West’s anxiety and enlisted the help of famed motivational speaker Tony Robbins, who then turned him on to scream therapy.

    Most people know the term “primal scream,” but they may not know that it was named after a type of therapy created by a psychotherapist named Dr. Arthur Janov. Now scream therapy is back in the news, thanks to Kanye West, and it may indeed be an effective way to shout away anxiety and depression. 

    West told the New York Times that Kim Kardashian staged an intervention for his anxiety and enlisted the help of famed motivational speaker Tony Robbins. Robbins turned him on to scream therapy, and West recalled, “He could look at me and you know, I don’t know why he mentioned suicide, but he could tell I was very low. Really medicated, shoulders slumped down, and my confidence was gone, which is a lot of the root of my superpower because if you truly have self-confidence, no one can say anything to you.”

    Robbins had West stand in a warrior pose, and West screamed his head off. “I was so self-conscious about the nanny and the housekeeper that I didn’t want them to hear me screaming in the living room. I think that’s such a metaphor of something for the existence of so-called well-off people that they’re not really well-off—they won’t even scream in their own house.” 

    As Yahoo reports, Dr. Janov treated John Lennon and James Earl Jones, and called his research, which is called Primary Therapy, as “the most important discovery of the 20th century.”

    Screaming can indeed be therapeutic, and as psychotherapist Gin Love Thompson explains in Shape, “For the inner-child that was silenced by being repeatedly intimidated, the domestic abuse survivor that couldn’t scream back when attacked, anyone who has suffered severe bullying, anyone dealing with grief or common psychological issues such as depression and anxiety, ‘scream therapy,’ or ‘primal release’ has the potential to be therapeutically beneficial.”

    Thompson recommends that people should not perform scream therapy unsupervised, or rely on it as the only tool in fighting off anxiety and depression. “The client must be taught coping tools before such a therapy is implemented in order to manage what it may very likely stir up,” Thompson continues. “If attempted before the client is ready, or in poorly managed situation, it could potentially be psychologically damaging… The key is learning healthy ways to express our anger and the vital tools responsible for the processing of it.”

    View the original article at thefix.com