Taking Care of Stress Caused by Social Annoyances
Last Update on August 21, 2020 : Published on June 20, 2020
Stress can be caused by various factors and reasons, there is no setlist but whatever the case, you may not always be able to avoid the cause but you can always change the way you react. If you are in a strict office environment then you may face issues with people sitting on higher designations or if you are a manager then you may be worried about deadlines, targets, and employees who don’t work the way you want them to. Even if you are taking a day off, a noisy or nosy neighbor is enough to ruin it. The point is not just to avoid stress or lash out but also to cope up, deal with it and avoid bottling up. We live in an age where real-life socializing is encouraged on social media but people are suffering from social anxiety, stage fright, depression, and very few people are ready to talk about it. So how can one take care of all this stress? Today, I am going to discuss disturbing elements in our social environment and how you can deal with them.
What is Social Annoyance?
Annoying behavior of people around which directly or indirectly affect your mental well being can be put under this category. Now these people need not be physically near you to disturb you but they can be on social media, strong opinions in newspapers which are clashing with yours, cruelty on television, be it on the news or any show, false news and what not. There are a lot of things which have the potency to disturb almost anyone.
Social Media
If you are on social media, there is a high chance that you yourself may have annoyed someone without your knowledge. We have divided it under different heads. Check if you have been in any of the following situations.
1. Unnecessary Requests:
There are lots and lots of people online who just want millions of followers in a short span of time in order to make quick bucks. So what do they do? Send requests, broadcast messages, shares, likes in bulk. They are not interested in your content but what your followers will give to them. And if it is a single person then you won’t mind but what if almost every other stranger is? If someone is commenting on random posts to share and follow time and again it can cause people to get annoyed. So that is something which should not be done. If you work hard and put out unique and good creations then surely your followers will increase.
2. Random Links
When was the last time you opened up a post and found that there is a genuine and interesting discussion going on in the comment section? I am pretty sure the answer would be “Not sure”. If you open up any post, tweet, update posted by any influential person then the chances of you coming across random comments filled with links to unknown websites and even profiles asking to follow would be in great number. These links may lead a person to a malicious site that can even download viruses or malware without the knowledge of the user and cause more problems later on. If any kind of damage is done then it would lead to more stress.
3. Too Many Posts
There are many accounts on which a content creator may just go inactive or on a holiday for many reasons and may not post anything. With the fear of losing followers, they may start posting too many of their creations to the extent of even decreasing their quality. This can be pretty annoying at times for example if you have followed a science page to get updates of new breakthroughs and now after a period of inactivity you are watching the creator not being able to give out according to the bar he set.
4. Fake News
One of the biggest annoyances caused by social media is the problem of fake news. There is so much fake news getting passed on around the world with the shroud of genuinity that you would just believe that it is for real. Random theories, false inventions, claims, and whatnot. The current state of fake news is that it can breathe life into rebellions, protests, and make things difficult for governments to handle.
So these were some of the ways in which you can get targeted for someone’s unruly behavior online. It is something that you cannot control since the people you are dealing with all live in a virtual world and you don’t know who the person actually is. Surely you can check some details about them but even they may be incorrect. So what can be a possible way to get past it? Deleting your social media account is one way but there are many drawbacks to it, like:
- If you are connected with your office through social media, you can’ quit it.
- If you are working in the field of social media, online influencer, content creator, social media marketing, etc. then too you just can’t get up and get off.
- Most common and simple, peer pressure and the list can go on and on.
So as we were talking about the ways to get rid of this annoyance and stress, how would you proceed? Well one way would be to deal with it. It is the road less taken and it will take some time but you will surely be happy about this decision. So let’s get started.
What You Can Do to Reduce Stress?
1. Limit Screen Time
Keep your screen time in check, you can use any good app available in the market for the job. It will help you to stay off the screen at least for when you are not working. Try to reduce your time you dedicate on social media. If you are working through it then stop spending your leisure time on it. Too much of anything is bad for health, same goes for prolonged exposure to screens. It can even change the way the brain functions and not in a good way. It is also known to cause insomnia, obesity and even mood swings.
2. Walk
Too much off sitting can make you lose muscle cells as they are not being used. Sitting for longer periods have shown to result in a cluster of health issues like obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, depression, social anxiety, loneliness, stress, etc. So if you are already stressed out because of reading comments online then why give it a boost by sitting?
3. Write
Writing about what you felt, what emotions you went through, what reaction you gave, what mistake you did, what could have been a better reaction in that situation, why you behaved in a manner that you did, how did the situation change as it did? All of these questions, try to think about them and possibly answers too before you go to sleep every night. Write to them all in a notebook as detailed as possible. This should be your reflection time without any disturbance. It will help you focus and reduce stress as you are also working on your perception at the same time.
4. Interact With Real People
You may be chatting with hundreds of friends on social media but spending a lot of time in the virtual world can make you socially anxious in real life. It can hamper your confidence, lower self-esteem, fear of being judged, enhanced insecurities, fear of rejection, and whatnot. Imagine being frustrated from social media, you are trying to socialize with people in real life but you now find it too difficult to do it as all those things are now in your head.
5. Exercise
If you are spending a great deal of time sitting, then it is highly probable that you are not exercising at all. Obesity has been found to be linked with mental diseases directly. People suffering with obesity have higher chances of developing ADHD(Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder). Physical inactivity was found to be the major cause of this. Another study conducted in South Africa on women showed that obese people were more prone to mental illnesses when compared to the other control group.
6. Get a Pet
Getting a pet can be one of the best things that you can do to bust all the growing stress. These furry creatures are not only best friends you can find but have scientific reasons too. It was found that pets, especially, dogs and cats are known to relieve depression, anxiety, loneliness, stress and they also helped their owners to include exercise, especially walking and jogging in their daily routine. Even the older people were found to be at ease when they were around friendly pets.
7. Meditate
If you have too much on your mind to go on then it is always advised to sit down, take a deep breath and relax. We, humans, tend to hold up too much stress due to all the expectations, pride, deadlines, benchmarks, hopes and what not. In all of this hustle and bustle of life, we forget to sit down and reflect or more importantly sit down, relax and do nothing. Whenever we get a bit of free time we pick up our phones, launch apps, and engage ourselves into something or other. Research has shown time and again that regular practice of meditation can help you to process negative thoughts and emotions in a way better way, helps relax, enhance focus, and ultimately improve mental health.
So these were some of the stress-causing elements of disturbance, their sources, and simple ways to deal with it. Getting angry and losing your temper is quite easy but what takes strength is to grasp control over it.
I hope it helps.
Thanks for reading!
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