0 828 November 26, 2020 at 07:05 pm Author of the publication: Tatyana Kuzmina
Apathy is an anesthetic for the soul. When a person wants something for a long time, but cannot get what he wants, he feels bad. My Soul Hurts. And the longer the desire remains unfulfilled, the stronger the pain. The person gets upset, angry, despairing. To protect him from torment and from doing stupid things out of anger, a defense mechanism is activated in the psyche - apathy. Desires are reduced: I don’t want anything, I’m not interested in anything.
Neuroscientists attribute apathy to insufficient blood supply or weakened communication between areas of the brain responsible for emotional reward. How to make neurons work more efficiently so that you are no longer an indifferent observer of your own life?
Apathy concretes life if we do not hear the demands of our psyche. You can awaken desires and the ability to fulfill them by learning what exactly the soul requires, what and when to feed it.
The evolution of methods for getting rid of apathy
Bloodletting, expulsion of “demons,” torture, diets—apathy has been “treated” in these ways for centuries, thinking that it is necessary to cleanse the body of excess “black bile” and the soul of sins.
Today, if a person suffers from apathy, he is still, out of inertia, advised to drive away negative thoughts, change his diet, go to Zumba, go out of town, venerate the relics of a saint, switch. But in some cases this is not the case. We need to find a way for a variety of desires to tickle the soul again, and for the mind and body to respond with action.
Man is an additional desire. Our ancestor came out of the common animal series when he wanted not only to eat here and now, but also to stock up for tomorrow. I learned not just to reproduce, but to feel the highest pleasure in a couple relationship. I strived not only to use the world around me, but to learn how everything works and what it was created for.
Our additional desires make us unhappy until we get what we want. And only they move us forward, “humanize” us, and give us fuel to act. If the apathy stop valve has been triggered, the only way to get out of the state of merging with the sofa is to accurately identify your mental needs and learn to satisfy them.
Rule out depression
If a low mood persists for a long time, there is no desire to live, there is a state of weakness and lethargy, then to find out how to deal with apathy you need to consult a doctor. These are signs of depression; medicine for it can only be prescribed by a doctor - a neurologist or psychotherapist. Treatment usually includes taking antidepressants.
But most often, a state of depression occurs in healthy people who temporarily experience apathy and fatigue. How to get out of a state of apathy with reduced performance and emotional burnout? To increase vitality, you can use the following methods:
- acupuncture;
- hypnotherapy;
- music therapy;
- art therapy;
- aromatherapy;
- meditation;
- phytotherapy;
- yoga.
Causes of apathy
As a five-year-old, I tell my mother: “If it weren’t for cartoons, it would be better if I didn’t exist.”
Olga Arefieva
In each of our actions there is an unconscious calculation that after making efforts it will become better. When we expend energy, we expect proper compensation. A person moves his finger only because this position is more comfortable for him.
The smooth operation of the reward mechanism goes astray if:
- we didn’t go where our heart really called
He wanted to write music, and his parents wanted him to get a “normal, earthly, money-making” profession. He entered the Petroleum Institute in the footsteps of his father, got a good job, and quickly rose to the position of head of a department. And there is no joy from achievements.
- day after day it is not possible to achieve the desired result
When conscientious, hardworking, decent people, accustomed to doing everything efficiently and only with their own hands, try to follow the modern image of successful energetic businessmen, they are disappointed because profits are always lower than costs and there is no respect from others. The bottom line is only the nagging of loved ones and self-criticism.
Only by satisfying your own natural desire do you get pleasure and energy to move on. It’s painful to live day after day without achieving results. It’s depressing to expect a promotion, a car, a happy relationship, bright impressions, revealing the secrets of the Universe, without taking the necessary actions. The hardest thing is not having the slightest idea of what you really want.
When you realize your natural lack, you don’t have to force yourself to fill it. The benefit from the effort is obvious - pleasure in life.
Another indirect cause of apathy traumatizes our psyche in early childhood. Our first experience of fulfilling an urgent desire is receiving food. When I want to eat, I get the long-awaited cutlet and feel such pleasure! And at the same time, gratitude to my mother, to the people, to the world, which is so kind to me. This attitude towards others and what is happening is reinforced and becomes a prism of perception, a starting point for positive interaction. But things can go wrong if we are force-fed.
Wanting to feed by any means, loved ones, without knowing it, can cause severe damage to the child’s ability to enjoy life. Nauseating foam, fatty bits in cold soup, boiled onions, lumps of tasteless porridge... Getting what you want becomes associated with stress. We lose the skill of wanting and achieving. Joyless decades ultimately lead to apathy.
Apathy at the cognitive level
“In the absence of external motivating reasons, the patient can sit silently all day, doing nothing. At the same time, there is also an impoverishment of thoughts, “mental emptiness.”
Thought serves desires. Our consciousness arose due to extreme food shortages, which may have led to the death of early humans, our species. Thoughts began to arise on how to obtain and preserve food supplies. The principle of cognitive work, despite the more complex tasks, remains the same for people. If you have a question, the answer will appear; if you have a desire, an idea will appear on how to implement it. If desires fade, mental activity slows down. The brain saves energy, there is no request - there is no need to strain. You stop feeling like someone who influences something. Life passes, and we watch indifferently.
A crust of bread without me, A finger to the sky - without me, Without me - April, without me - January, Without me - drops, without me - a tear-off calendar on the wall.
Egor Letov
The most dangerous thing is that the ability to form cause-and-effect relationships is more strongly affected precisely in those who have a special natural potential to reveal the essence of social, interpersonal and their own mental processes.
Only owners of the sound vector are able to understand the design of the global path of humanity and the significance of their lives in this process. They are most often overtaken by the most severe degree of apathy if they fail to implement the skill of concentrated “listening” to the surrounding reality.
“The operation was graceful, skillful, dangerous and full of deep meaning. “Can any other profession,” I thought, “compare exactly with the work of a neurosurgeon?” There was a strange feeling that I had found what I had always wanted to do, even if I only realized it now. It was love at first sight."
Henry Marsh
A person focused on the big loses the desire to move anywhere, because the goals that the majority set for themselves do not satisfy the “sound” brain. He doesn't want a family, a house with a fireplace, an expensive car, or status. He himself cannot formulate what he wants. This means that he cannot pave the way to achieve his desire.
Realizing their need to participate in something that will change the course of human development for the better, such people gain strength to move towards a great goal. And small desires wake up and come true as a bonus if the general direction is chosen taking into account the main request of your psyche.
“I understood how I am designed and how I can realize my properties to the maximum.”
Not to feel so as not to suffer?
To understand how to get rid of apathy and where to get resources to move towards your desires, you need to know what was given to a person initially. When the goal and actions are consistent with one’s own nature, they do not cause resistance, but pleasure from the process.
“Laziness and depression are a signal system that says that you are not living your life.”
Yuri Burlan
Emotional people are capable of loving brightly and deeply like no other. This same property makes them more vulnerable. If you experience emotional distress from unrequited love or sharp, unbearable pain from betrayal for a long time, the desire to feel in such people is reduced. It seems that this way you can protect yourself from pain. But along with this “shield,” a person with a visual vector deprives himself of the joy of realizing his potential. To forbid yourself to love for him means to deprive yourself of meaning, inspiration, energy. The next stop in this scenario is sensory apathy.
“A composer has only one fault - that he did not write music, a writer has only one fault - that he did not write a book. Everyone is guilty of not doing what they could.”
Yuri Burlan
Visual hearts are designed to beat in unison with others. They gain a powerful boost of strength by empathizing and helping others, like fragile nurses on the battlefield. If they deny themselves this, apathy will wait around the corner from the coffee shop.
Signs of burnout
I am convinced that you can burn out in any intensely repetitive job, even your favorite one. When you have invested heavily emotionally in a short period or your expectations did not coincide with the result obtained. This also applies when some too complex tasks are set, as they say, you took on more than you can carry. And then even when the result is achieved, it becomes like a Pyrrhic victory. When achievement is tantamount to defeat: “one more such victory and I will be left without an army.” And in our case, in a state where there is no energy and strength in the body.
You know, as they say, that at the time when we want to drink water, the body is already to some extent dehydrated. And that you need to start drinking water before you become thirsty. Same with burnout. Sometimes you don’t immediately realize that the resource is quickly running out, but only when you’re already lying on the sofa with an indifferent look, clicking the buttons on the remote control, in a pile of candy wrappers - this is an option for girls. In men, this can manifest itself as lying on the couch with 37.6 and looking like that’s all.
The longer the dead end, the more it looks like a road
We bring ourselves to such states because we do not understand our body.
Signs that may indicate emotional exhaustion:
- People are annoying. Moreover, both close ones and complete strangers, for example, on the street, on the screen of a gadget. You often begin to criticize and judge others. In this regard, there is no desire to communicate with anyone, I want to hide from everyone - “head under the hood.”
- Impaired sleep quality. It is difficult to fall asleep from thoughts, shallow sleep, with frequent waking up or even insomnia. In the morning, when you open your eyes, you have no desire to get up, you feel exhausted from the very beginning of the day. The overloaded nervous system was not relaxed during the night, the body does not recover and rest well.
- Depressing appearance. As in that phrase: the circles under your eyes have become larger than your social circle. This also includes a lack of desire to take care of oneself and dress up. Clothes are chosen according to the principle of being warmer and more comfortable. As a result, you don’t want to look in the mirror again and take pictures.
- Dietary disorder. Either we don’t feel like eating at all, or we eat everything. When cooked, the dishes turn out tasteless and either burn or overcook. As they say - cooked without soul.
- Nothing makes me happy. There are no desires, no dreams. Nothing attracts you in stores, you don’t know what to choose, you don’t feel your needs.
- High level of anxiety. It seems like something is about to happen. You start to get sick more often. During this period, the risk of wounds and various injuries increases.
- Constantly being late. When we are out of sync with our personal flow of life, time seems to work against us. No matter how much time we set aside, we are still late. This also includes absent-mindedness, when we don’t remember what we put where, and we lose things.
- It's a mess in the room where we are. And this is not the case when it is a conscious choice. Some people exist quite organically in disorder. But when it depresses, and there is no strength to put things in order, this indicates a sharp decrease in vital energy.
- The pace is non-stop. Life is in thought - must do this, must do that. And all by herself. And not all for myself. I’ll endure here, I’ll squeeze there, just to be able to do everything for others.
Once we have determined that something is going wrong, we need to understand why and what to do about it.
