Las vacation They are usually the most anticipated time of the year. After months of work, obligations and a frenetic pace, they come as the perfect opportunity to disconnect, rest and recharge.
However, this is not always the case. For many people, just when the body finally slows down, the anxietyhe insomnia or one feeling of discomfort difficult to explain.
Waking up at dawn with a racing mind, suffering a panic attack on the beach or feeling more restless on the couch at home than in the middle of the work day are more common situations than they seem.
The psychologist Ana Galánspecialized in anxiety and emotional management and member of the Official College of Psychology of the Valencian Community, assures that this phenomenon has an explanation and that is that for months the body maintains a state of constant alert and it is precisely when we stop being busy that it begins to release all the accumulated stress.
In conversation with The Vanguardthe expert analyzes why we live “anesthetizing” our emotions through hyperactivitywhat happens in our nervous system when we finally rest and what we can do if anxiety appears just at the moment when we most expected to enjoy ourselves.
«When we live with continued stress, the body goes into alert mode»
-Why does anxiety appear just when we finally rest?
-Because the body does not react to what happens today, reacts to what has been accumulating for weeks or months of constant activation such as obligations, decisions, rush, demand. While this requirement is still there, the organization prioritizes hold on and keep going.
The discomfort does not disappear, it simply remains in the background because there is no space to address it. When the holidays arrive and the external noise decreases, that space suddenly opens, and that is when the body begins to let go of what it had been holding for a long time as Muscle tension, tiredness, palpitations, thoughts that had not had a place.
-Is it very frequent?
-Yes, more than people think. It is called relaxation-induced anxiety. It’s not that rest causes discomfort, it’s that it finally stops covering it up. It is a pattern similar to the one that has been described in some people who suffer migraines right on the weekend or at the beginning of vacation, when the level of stress they have been experiencing suddenly drops.
And it is also documented that some people, especially those prone to anxiety, may feel worse precisely when trying to relax.
-What exactly happens to the body after a long time of sustained stress?
When we live with continued stressthe body goes into alert mode and the sympathetic nervous system is activated and begins to release cortisol. And that, in itself, is not the problem. It is completely normal and necessary. The problem appears when they remain activated for too long without turning off. A body that has been on alert for months does not know how to disconnect just because the last meeting of the year has ended.
The nervous system does not distinguish between “there is no longer a threat” and “I have finished my tasks”; He needs time and clear signals to understand that he can let his guard down. For this reason, many people arrive on the first day of vacation expecting to feel instantly relaxed, and instead find themselves with tachycardia, tightness in the chest, or a restlessness that they don’t know where it comes from.
-And the waking up at three or four in the morning, with your head racing?
-Waking up at dawn is not always an alarm signal in itself. At this time, sleep is naturally lighter and the body begins to prepare to wake up; Cortisol, in fact, has its own rhythm throughout the day and begins to rise towards the morning.
What changes in a person with accumulated stress is that this process is amplified: the nervous system is more sensitive, sleep is broken more easily and a simple micro-awakening becomes a complete awakening, with palpitations and the mind already looking for something to worry about.
The research relates a more severe insomnia with higher morning cortisol levels and poorer overall sleep quality. If you wake up at three in the morning thinking about problems, it is not because a new one has appeared, but because your brain has been on alert for some time and takes advantage of the most vulnerable moment of sleep to start looking for threats.
«We live in the era of emotional anesthesia»
-Are we anesthetizing emotions while we are busy?
-We live in the era of emotional anesthesia. We have turned being busy into a way of not feeling. When we are busy all day, the brain prioritizes the urgent things like working, responding, solving, taking care of everything… And that doesn’t leave room to feel what’s underneath. It is not that the emotion waits its turn, it is that it is not felt directly.
And therein lies the catch: anesthesia does not solve anything, it only blocks the signal while the effect lasts. As soon as you stop, as soon as the pace slows down, that effect wears off, and what has been there all this time, such as sadness, fatigue, fear, doubts that we had not wanted to look at, begins to be noticed again.
The constant occupancy works like a patch which relieves in the short term, but in the long term it only causes the nervous system to continue accumulating what it never released.
-When does it stop being normal tiredness and do you have to ask for help?
-When the discomfort begins to repeatwhen limit what the person can do, or when it appears fear of one’s own body.
Frequent anxiety, repeated panic attacks, continuous awakenings, a feeling of permanent alert, intrusive thoughts, avoiding plans for fear of feeling unwell, crying easily, not being able to enjoy anything or always needing to be busy so as not to feel: all of these are signs that we are no longer talking about occasional fatigue, but rather an overwhelmed nervous system.
The clearest sign is usually when the person begins to organize your life around fearwhen you stop making plans in case you get anxious, or avoid stopping because you fear that you will feel worse if you do.
-What can be done if anxiety appears just on vacation or in moments of calm?
-The first thing is let go of the idea that “I should be enjoying myself”because that phrase adds an extra layer of suffering and is the anxiety of having anxiety. The goal is not to force yourself to have a good time, it is to help your body feel safe again, and that takes time.
Helps keep true routine of sleep, food and movement instead of going from one hundred to zero all at once; introduce rest little by little, move gently, reduce stimulants if there is a lot of activation, practice slow breathing or grounding without turning it into another requirement, leaving moments without a screen and writing what appears to get it out of your head.
-What else is that anxiety telling us?
-The message is not that you are incapable of enjoying. The real message is usually that Your body has been holding more than it could process for too long.. And there the work is not just to rest for a few days, it is to learn to regulate the nervous system and review the pace of life that was covering up all this.
And above all, don’t fill your vacations with plans just so you don’t have to feel (resting doesn’t mean continuing to cross out checks from a list).
By Judit González Pernías, La Vanguardia.
