Does Your Environment Stress You Out?
February 21st, 2010 by Reeta Luthra
Stress from the environment acts on us in both an obvious and a subconscious way.
I was reminded of this late last night. I had a TV film on at a low volume as background noise while working on my laptop.
The film finished and a rap concert started – some rapper I don’t know. The remote control was on the other side of the room, I was engrossed in my work and decided to leave the telly on. It’s just background noise after all and I do like certain rap music.
About 15 minutes later I noticed my energy levels were higher. I was suddenly more alert and feeling “peppier”. However, I had also become very irritable all of a sudden and could feel this irritability clawing at me inside.
I switched the TV off and within minutes the stress was gone and I was back to my usual calm self.
A friend of mine gets that way with dust and smells. Being in a dusty room makes her feel prickly. Also, she used to live in Isleworth which has an aromatically colourful sewage plant. On windier days, she would often break down in tears due to the stress of the smell. Her neighbours however had either got used to it, couldn’t smell it or didn’t mind it – so adding to her stress was the isolation of being the only one with a problem. She doesn’t live in Isleworth any more.
Stress = Sensory Input + Subconscious Interpretation
Our senses are always picking up signals from the environment and sending them to our brains.
Depending on what we’re doing and what our priorities are, our personal (and unique) filter mechanisms process these signals and induce whatever physiological changes need to occur.
With my TV rap concert episode, my brain didn’t tell me:
Hey Reeta, this rap music is changing the current pattern of your brainwaves. Your brainwaves are now adapting to the tone, pitch, rhythm and beat of what your ears are sending me. As your brainwaves adapt, they are going to have a knock-on effect on your concentration, focus and energy. I know you’re working and don’t want your brainwave pattern to change but I can’t help that. You’re going to feel a conflict between what you want to do (work) and the new physiological state you’re getting yourself into.
Nope, my brain didn’t tell me all that. It just went ahead and made the changes and I grew irritable and snappy.
Because the changes happen subconsciously, it can be very easy to miss the association that sudden stress is a direct reaction to what your senses are picking up from the outside world.
Next time your state changes, notice what’s going on around you. Is there something in your environment that is stressing you out through its subconscious impact through your senses?
Take care to notice all sensory input including less obvious influences such as the refridgerator hum and ambient electricity.
In what ways have you noticed your environment affecting you?
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6 Responses to “Does Your Environment Stress You Out?”
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RT @reetaluthra: Does rap music stress you out? http://bit.ly/cSgNuw (today's post)
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Hi Reeta
Great stuff, and particularly relevant for me. I find “tuning out” at most times incredibly tricky – noises from pipes in the house, movement in rooms above creating noise on the ceiling, people chatting and so on. Sometimes these are positive things (for example, I can hear birdsong as I type this), and sometimes negative in terms of what I allow them to do to my mood.
A big challenge, and one I’ve not cracked, is modelling my own ability to tune things out completely, and using it when I want to. There are times when I tune out very successfully, and become so completely absorbed in something that nothing short of a nuclear explosion could distract me…and I want to be able to turn this level of focus on and off at will.
This, I think, is the next stage on from what you outline above (becoming more aware of the effects of sensory input), and I would split the available routes as:
1) Understand the sensory input, what effect it has, work out why it has the effect that it does, and work to change that effect if you want it changed.
2) Understand the sensory input, what effect it has, and remove or replace it if you want it changed.
3) Step back from the sensory input and work out what it is about those times when sensory input DOESN’T affect you. Model this behaviour so you can use it at will.
I think a balance of these approaches might help me!
Hi Simon
The three stages you’ve outlined are a nice summary of the process of change.
Yep, I’ve been there too with regards to the “tuning out” thing.
Have you noticed that sensory input can also be thoughts/emotions based where the environmental noises are the excuse rather than the cause of mood changes?
It’s quite interesting how thoughts have this ability to become a whole sensory input source in themselves.
Thanks so much for dropping by Simon – I appreciate your comment!
My husband and myself are in our 60′s now, and both retired from work but we live very busy lives and do many hobbies and interests which we like. We help some of our neighbours including a man who has memory loss quite bad. He does have a carer but my husband calls over to his house to check if he is ok most days. I find i get most stressed when shopping in bust supermarkets all that noise and crowding at times and my high street is quite busy with traffic most days as it is a through route to Croydon which isn’t far from us we live in Wallington Surrey. We have a motorhome which we go on holidays in most years, we normally head for quite places and stay on the caravan club sites which are very nice so clean and well looked after. We love the Lake district and try to go to the parts where most tourists don’t go. The peace and laid back surroundings is very relaxing and after a few days we feel different people much more healthy and less stressed. I do think that your enviroment can stress you out that is why you need to get away from it sometimes especially if you live in a busy area.
Hi Carole
I know Croydon well as I grew up there!
Now, living in a much smaller town, I notice the noise and crowding there a lot more whenever I visit. It’s quite jarring and always nice to get out again.
It’s wonderful that you are able to counteract the “busy-ness” with your trips away.
Since you spend the greater part of your time at home, have you also found ways of introducing less stress/more peace when you are at home in Wallington?
Thanks so much for your comment Carole – it’s great to welcome you here