Techniques of psychological protection. Learning to take a punch

Nowadays stress is a part of our life.

People are used to fighting him.
Sometimes this struggle takes a lot of energy, and often a person is not able to cope with stress at all. Especially in the modern world, which is filled with bustle, aggression and overload. This directly affects our psyche and the body as a whole. At such moments, we must learn to take the blow, be as focused as possible on the problem, and try to solve it with minimal consequences for ourselves.

This is what we will talk about today!

Be a little selfish

The habit of constantly sacrificing yourself and putting other people's interests above yours will ultimately lead to you starting to feel tired, dissatisfied, and accumulating resentment. Don’t expect those around you to suddenly see the light and definitely repay your kindness. We all look at the same things differently, so people may be nice to you but genuinely not notice your needs. Maintain healthy egoism within yourself. Learn to prioritize and take care of yourself, not just others.

You need to know what stress is

Stress is a psychological and physiological state of a person that occurs at moments when he needs to adapt to circumstances. That is, a person’s response or defensive reaction to external pressure.

The greater the external pressure, the stronger the resistance reaction. The causes of stress can be both negative - a quarrel with a loved one, problems at work, financial instability, and positive - falling in love, victory, success at work and much more.

The ability to take a blow only applies to negative stress, which leads to certain problems and illnesses. As for positive stress, this is just additional energy production, which is motivation to achieve new goals.

What is personality orientation?

Personality orientation is a person’s ability to adequately assess what is happening. For example, there are two types of people. The first type, when any situation arises, will begin to get nervous, twitch, fuss, and people will develop fear.

The second type, when the same situation arises, will remain calm, balanced, confident that he will resolve this situation based on his own experience. With such an example we can determine the orientation of a person.

When a person perceives various information from the outside as a danger or threat that can arouse his emotions, then the ability to take a blow is needed. You need to know how to behave correctly, how to direct this negative energy in the right direction.

So, knowing already about the concept of stress and personality orientation, determine which type you are? If it’s the second, then we can only be happy for you, but if it’s the first, then we’ll look at some methods and tips on how to take a blow.

Get used to the idea

The thought of demanding something or arguing can be uncomfortable, especially if you are used to going with the flow and find it easier to remain silent than to speak up. But remember that standing up for your opinion is a positive habit. You don't have to get cocky or be a bitch for others to respect you.

According to Psychology Today, true self-confidence is going after what you want in a manner that is respectful to others. Stop viewing expressing your opinion as an act of aggression, and the idea of being more assertive will no longer seem scary.

Ability to take a punch

There are three stages of stress. The first stage is the alarm reaction, the second stage is adaptation to stress, the third stage is exhaustion.

“The first stage is characterized by body resistance. If we consider this stage from a medical point of view, then a person begins to increase the production of hormones. Often this stage is characterized by the occurrence of any inflammatory diseases.
The second stage represents the body's adaptation to stress. Again, from a medical point of view, the adrenal glands begin to activate and corticosteroids are released in large quantities. This helps to suppress any inflammatory processes.
The third stage indicates that you have experienced the first and second stages of stress. The man spent a lot of vital energy. This stage is the most dangerous. Because it is fraught with big problems both from the psyche and from the human physiology.”

Therefore, it is necessary to try to prevent stress at the first stage; for this there are two proven methods:

Focus on the problem. It is necessary to take control of the situation. Don't exaggerate the situation. Determine the cause of stress. Is this really a serious problem? Or is it insignificant and can be easily overcome?
Concentrate on emotions. In this case, the person controls his emotional reaction to the problem.

Also, some people prefer the method of “letting go of the situation,” that is, accepting it. In the case when these methods do not work and the third stage of stress occurs, you should resort to the following methods:

Relax your body: start breathing deeply to eliminate excess tension. Shake your arms and legs, relax the muscles of your face, stomach and back.

You must remain in this state of relaxation for at least 5 minutes.

Relax your mind: you need to lose your thoughts about the problem. Count to 10, turn on your imagination, close your eyes and imagine that you are in a completely different environment, comfortable and pleasant for you, give yourself a break.

But that's not all. The above examples will certainly help you partially cope with stress, but our goal is not only to combat stress, but also to be able to perceive it with minimal consequences for ourselves. To do this, you need to learn stress resistance.

Information and psychological influences

Fragment of the monograph by S.I. Makarenko. Information warfare and electronic warfare in network-centric wars of the early 21st century. - St. Petersburg, 2020.

The main way of conducting information-psychological warfare is the use of information-psychological influences.

Information-psychological impact is an informational, psychotronic or psychophysical impact on the human psyche, influencing his perception of reality, including his behavioral functions, as well as in some cases the functioning of organs and systems of the human body [390].

Any person as an individual, an active social subject, a bearer of a certain worldview, possessing a certain sense of justice and mentality, spiritual ideals and value systems, can be subjected to direct information and psychological influence, which, transforming through his behavior, actions (or inaction), influences social objects of different levels of community, different systemic, structural and functional organizations. Thus, with the help of information and psychological influence it is possible to influence not only individual consciousness, but also group, mass and public consciousness. Moreover, this influence can be both positive and negative [390].

Depending on the goals pursued, informational and psychological influence, as a rule, is carried out on specific areas of individual, group, mass and public consciousness [390]:

motivational (beliefs, value orientations, drives, desires), when it is necessary to influence people to encourage them to take certain actions;
cognitive (sensations, perceptions, ideas, imagination, memory and thinking), when it is necessary to change in the right direction ideas, the nature of perception of newly received information and, as a result, a person’s “picture of the world”;
emotional (emotions, feelings, moods, volitional processes), when the internal experiences and volitional activity of people are at gunpoint;
communicative (communication and relationships, interaction, interpersonal perception) with the aim of creating socio-psychological comfort or discomfort, encouraging people to cooperate or conflict with others.

Information-psychological influence can be carried out using various methods (techniques, forms, techniques) and means, most of which, continuously developing and improving, have today turned into complex technologies for influencing the psyche of people, collectively called psychotechnologies in the literature. For example, psychotechnologies include modern information technologies influencing individual, group, mass and public consciousness using television and radio broadcasting equipment, video and audio products, as well as high-level computer technologies that allow diagnosing and correcting a person’s mental and physical state through direct access to the subconscious [390].

Areas of organization of information and psychological influence on the human psyche, group, mass and public consciousness include [390]:

objects of information and psychological influence;
subjects influencing these objects;
communication between subjects and objects of information and psychological influence;
means and methods of information and psychological influence.

Objects of information and psychological influence [390]:

a person as a citizen, an active social subject, including specific representatives of government and administrative bodies, armed forces, law enforcement and security agencies, employees of state and non-state organizations, institutions and enterprises, whose activities have or may have important social consequences;
the system of formation and functioning of the spiritual sphere, public consciousness and public opinion, including: systems of education and training; systems for disseminating socially significant information; systems for disseminating sociocultural values, etc.;
social groups and associations of people as components of the social structure of society with group consciousness, including political, professional, national-ethnic, demographic, religious, specific regions and others;
authorities, state and military administration;
bodies of representative and executive power of the constituent entities of the Federation and local self-government;
public and political organizations, socio-political movements, associations of citizens on various bases, etc.;
power ministries and departments;
the population of the country as a whole as a socio-historical community of people with its own social consciousness;
state and society acting as objects of information and psychological operations of other states, especially during periods of international conflicts, crises and armed clashes.

Subjects of information and psychological influence on an individual (his psyche, consciousness, body), a group of people, the population of regions and the country as a whole [390]:

state and government institutions (including foreign), legal and security (military) organizations;
public organizations - political, religious, cultural, national-ethnic, etc. (including foreign);
healthcare institutions;
financial, economic, commercial and trade organizations (including foreign ones);
criminal structures (including international);
microgroups (at the place of work, study, service, residence, friends, family, casual acquaintances, crowd, etc.);
individual subjects (citizens).

The subject of information-psychological influence according to its location can be [390]:

internal, i.e. belong to the country whose objects are affected;
external (foreign).

External subjects of information and psychological influence can be individual states, their political, economic, military, intelligence and information structures [390].

The most important means for states to achieve political goals in the near future may be to influence the psychology of the enemy - individual, mass, group and public consciousness with the aim of destroying state and public institutions, provoking mass unrest, degradation of society, and the collapse of the state [390].

Rice. 5.2. Classification of means and methods of information and psychological influence [390, 391]

Means and methods of information and psychological influence can be classified in terms of physical essence, principles and mechanisms of influence (Fig. 5.2) [390, 391].

Persuasion and suggestive methods

Persuasion is a method of open verbal (verbal) information and psychological influence on the consciousness of an individual or group of people, the basis of which is a system of clear, clearly formulated arguments (arguments), built according to the laws of formal logic and justifying the thesis (point of view) put forward by the subject of influence.

Suggestion or suggestion is a process of unreasoned informational and psychological influence on a person’s consciousness, associated with a decrease in criticality in the perception and implementation of the content of the communicated information, with a lack of active understanding, comprehension, detailed logical analysis and evaluation in relation to past experience. Unlike persuasion, suggestion is not based on a person’s logic and reason, but on his ability to take the words of another person for granted, as instructions for action. With suggestion, information is first perceived containing ready-made conclusions, and then, on its basis, motives and life attitudes for certain behavior are formed.

Information and technogenic methods

Propaganda is the dissemination of political, philosophical, scientific, artistic knowledge (ideas) and other information in society with the aim of forming in people a certain worldview - a generalized system of views on the world around them, the place and role of man in it, on people’s attitude to objective reality and to each other. friend, as well as corresponding ideals and beliefs, principles of cognition and activity, and value orientations.

Means and methods of presenting unconscious acoustic information.

Means and methods of presenting unconscious visual information. It is assumed that visual means, unlike verbal ones, allow a person to almost instantly perceive a programmed information-psychological influence (although it can work much later), and this influence is deeper and more durable, since visual systems influence not only the intellect, but also on the emotional-sensual basis of a person.

Hypnotic methods of information and psychological influence, based on the revealed fact that with appropriate suggestions in a hypnotic state, you can program a person to perform certain actions.

The method of neurolinguistic programming is a special psychotherapeutic technique, the essence of which was the coding (programming) of a person using both verbal “formulas of behavior” and non-verbal (facial expressions, pantomime, etc.) means of influence.

Training methods of information and psychological influence are methods of regulating a person’s mental state, such as: managing attention, operating with sensory images, verbal suggestions, regulating muscle tone, controlling the rhythm of breathing.

Mystic-esoteric suggestion.

Information and technological means and methods of information and psychological influence, which include:

information and technical psychotechnologies using television, computing, broadcasting equipment, audio, video, printed and film products;
exposure through computer video games and the Internet;
generators of special radiation;
acoustic systems with an “intelligent” signal (including infrasound and ultrasound);
optical means in the visible, infrared and ultraviolet ranges;
bioresonance stimulation of the brain.

Information and psychological influence with the help of these means and methods is achieved in the direction “from technology to man” and is most widely carried out through the media.

Psychotropic means of information and psychological influence:

psychotropic drugs;
other biologically active substances that primarily affect a person’s mental functions (including emotions and behavior), and are also capable of transferring him to an altered state of consciousness.

“Phenomenological” methods of information and psychological influence

Unconscious information interaction through the senses through the use of methods of psychophysiology and human sensory physiology.

Means and methods of manipulating consciousness

A specific type of hidden information and psychological influence, aimed at programming ideas, opinions, motives, life attitudes, stereotypes, aspirations, moods and even the mental state of people in order to ensure the kind of behavior that is needed by those who own the means of manipulation.

Combining means and methods of information and psychological influence

Simultaneous use of two or more means (methods) of such influence.

The use of all the above-mentioned means and methods of information-psychological influence in the classification is discussed in sufficient detail in [390].

There are three stages in information and psychological influence [405]:

operational, when the subject carries out informational and psychological influence on the object;
procedural, when there is acceptance (approval) or rejection (disapproval) of a given impact by the object;
final, when responses appear as a consequence of a restructuring of the psyche of the target.

The restructuring of the psyche under the influence of information and psychological influence can be different both in breadth and in temporal stability. According to the first criterion, a distinction is made between partial changes, i.e. changes in any one psychological quality (for example, a person’s opinion about a specific phenomenon), and more general changes in the psyche, i.e. changes in a number of psychological qualities of an individual (or group). According to the second criterion, changes can be short-term or long-term [405].

The use of information and psychological influence in a combat situation has its own characteristics [405]:

not only humane, but also inhumane methods and techniques of psychological influence are allowed;
psychological influence is carried out in combination with the use of means of armed struggle;
there is a desire to achieve maximum psychogenic impact.

Information-psychological influence only gives the greatest real effect when the peculiarities of the functioning of individual, group and social consciousness inherent in these specific areas are taken into account [405].

Stress resistance

Stress tolerance is the ability to overcome any stressful circumstances. What do you need to know in order to have this skill? The most important thing is self-confidence as a full-fledged person.

As a rule, such psychological defense is trained by the will of a person. To educate her, they usually resort to sporting events. The main such training is running and dousing with cold water. At the same time, the body produces all the necessary chemical elements, and therefore the ability to overcome any stress with sober thoughts.