Destroy the system. Take a break

It was right before my birthday. Too much darkness – the gloom of November, the gloom of the pandemic, the gloom of politics. Too many difficult emotions inside and outside my relationship. I didn't know how to recharge, how to get water for my empty well. I realised that I was not the only one to feel emptiness: one friend's body and head both ache from stress at work, another one is saddened by the failures in keeping her patchwork family together, yet another "almost killed her husband". Reality has pressed down on us.

Seems like a good time to do something crazy: read a self-help book.

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First, Emily Nagoski, a sex educator and speaker, wrote the book "Come as You Are. The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life". She was surprised when, during the six-month promotional tour in the USA, readers most often told her: it's nice that you wrote about sex, but the most important for me was the chapter on stress and emotions in the body.

Then her twin sister, Amelia, was hospitalised with terrible back pain. Doctors examined her for four days until they said: You're okay, it's just stress. Please go home and relax. Easier said than done!

Emily, a public health expert, offered Amelia a book. In it, her sister read that emotions are in the body. Rage, for example. And stress. A professional conductor, trained to bring out emotions on stage, had no idea about this. Then they decided to write a book for all burned out women. For those who feel overwhelmed with their responsibilities and still worry that they are not doing "enough". "So for all the women we know – us included" – they say.

Burnout is especially common among people in caring professions (schools, universities, health care workers), but also parents. More often women. Why? The sisters recall the concepts coined by the philosopher Kate Manne in the book "Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny" – there are two kinds of beings in the world: the "giver beings" expected to bestow time, attention, feelings, and bodies to another class of beings – the "living beings". The latter have the moral obligation to "live" and express their being. Women belong to the former. They must always be "pretty, happy, calm, generous and responsive to the needs of others". So they can never be: ugly, sad, nervous, ambitious or sensitive to their own needs. They have to fight to take care of themselves.

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To begin with, we need to clear up a few things. Emotions are the body's chemical reactions, they have a beginning and an end – they are like tunnels in this respect: if you walk through them all the way you will get to the light.

Emotional exhaustion, a very important element of burnout, is the result of getting stuck in a particular emotion – not experiencing it all the way through. Let's take a look at stress. First, let's distinguish between stressors which trigger a stress response in us (work, money, self-criticism, memories), and stress – a neurological and physiological change in our body. Remember that stress is an adaptive response, developed through evolution to help us when we are being chased by a lion or a hippo. What does it do to our body? It pumps blood more strongly, increases its pressure and the rate of breathing. It tightens the muscles, reduces pain sensitivity, and sharpens attention and alertness. The body focuses on survival, so it slows down everything it does not need at the moment: digestion, immunity, tissue growth and regeneration, and the functioning of the reproductive system.

If we experience stress all the way through, we will manage to escape from a lion to someone's hut, we feel peace, love for everyone around, ease up, and the body returns to the path of normal functioning. However, we sometimes get stuck in the stress response tunnel. Even if the lion suddenly disappears (struck by lightning or shot by us), the body is still tense, because it does not yet understand that it is safe (think of your boss, children, a traffic jam or social system in place of the lion).

"We talked to an activist who worked to legalise abortion in Ireland," says Amelia at the XOXO 2019 festival. "All the activists were convinced that once the law was passed, they would feel great. Instead, there was exhaustion. Reason – the body can be secured by legislation, but it does not know it."

Sometimes we get stuck in a tunnel because it is safer not to react in the way we want, for example by screaming at gross taunts in the street, or when "it is not appropriate" to do what we want – punch a misogynist client in the face. Sometimes the stressor – a difficult task that we postpone from day to day – does not disappear and you have to face it again.

Now, note: it's not about finding a solution to a problem. Even though we've dealt with the stressor like the Irish activists, stress may not go away, but also – and this is good news – we can reduce it and feel better, even though the situation has not changed.

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The sisters enter the stage of the XOXO festival in contrasting clothes – Emily wears a black top, sweater and trousers, Amelia – a similar set in shades of white. Emily has bluish hair, and Amelia has pink hair. They look at each other with a playful smile and sit down on the floor at the same moment.

"If you take away nothing else from this speech, remember that you can always rest. Take a break from what is stressing you," they say and receive a huge applause. Their entire speech is full of humour and distance.

They present four scientifically based ways of ending the stress cycle. Neither is reinventing the wheel, and you've heard about some of them so many times that you don't want to read about them any more. Make an exception.

Option 1: physical activity.

Everyone knows that it does you good. Most people need 20-60 minutes of some pleasant exercise a day. Movement is the best way for your body to understand that you have moved from a dangerous place to a safe place. That is why, after cycling, running, dancing or yoga, we feel so good, light and relieved. For some, like Emily, the world literally becomes more beautiful. – I've never felt like this after just moving, and we're twins – Amelia interjects. – The second method works equally well: imagination.

Option 2: imagination.

Amelia gets on an elliptical cross trainer, but instead of watching TV, she imagines herself as Godzilla crushing the building where she works on her PhD (and it's full of heterosexual white men who constantly give her dirty looks). "By the end I was not only sweaty, but also full of power and ready for the next task," she says.

"Reading a book or watching a film is also good for stimulating your imagination – it guides you through the entire cycle of emotions, the whole path that the protagonist has to overcome."

Option 3: Expressing yourself creatively.

Carrie Fisher, aka Leia from Star Wars, became famous for the saying "Take your broken heart and make art out of it." Art creates a context that encourages feeling and expressing emotions. You don't have to suffer to create something. I think back to a conversation from years ago with Arno Stern, the founder of the Thursday Academy, where children and adults come every week for two hours to paint whatever they want.

Option 4: connection or positive social interaction.

Such banal courtesies to strangers, as, "What a beautiful earring you have, sir," they send a message to the brain: the world is a safe place and it makes sense. Little effort, great benefit. You can go further in relationships – the sisters cite a few fun ways, proven by research,

– Hug someone close to you for 20 seconds a day, standing, leaning against each over with all your weight. That's a long time, right? Well, you have to really like and trust this person. The body then feels at home.

– Kiss your partner continuously for 6 seconds (not six times per second! – stresses the world-famous researcher of relationships John Gottman). If you can afford a kiss that long, it's a clear message to your body: it's okay.

– Hug after sex for a minimum of 6 minutes.

"We need a bond just as much as we do water and food. We are not designed to function completely autonomously," write the Nagoski sisters. In 2015, a meta-analysis of 70 studies involving more than 3 million people worldwide was published, which found that social isolation increased the risk of premature death by 25-30 percent.

If you don't feel like building bonds with humans, you can turn to spirituality, deities, animals, or nature. Petting a cat also works. The point is, tenderness does us good.

There are more ways in the book, so I'll add some.

Option 5: breathing.

It is obvious, and who does not forget to take a few deep breaths in the face of a wave of stress? It is worth focusing especially on long exhalation.

Option 6: laughing.

Laughing together or remembering times when you laughed. Hearty, diaphragmatic, naughty, unrestrained (and if you think that you need a reason to laugh, I recommend the Polish yogin Piotr Bielski).

Option 7: crying.

We know it brings relief, but we often refuse it because someone could lump us in with crazy women. Meanwhile, it's perfectly fine to watch your favourite tearjerker to just unwind.

How do we know stress is gone? That we have finished the stress response cycle? "It's like changing gears on a bicycle, it's easier to pedal. You breathe deeper, the racing thoughts stop," write the sisters.

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The sisters have divided the book into three parts. In the first one, they “stop bleeding” in several ways that I have described. They also tell you how to deal with the emergence of frustration and – no more and no less – how to find meaning in your own life. It sounds pretentious, but research shows, "People with a stronger sense of meaning enjoy better health and use preventive medicine more often to protect their health." The sense is that we are connected to "Something More". Most often, people draw it from one of three sources: striving for ambitious goals that will become the heritage of humanity, spiritual vocation and love, an intimate, emotional bond with others. The following question helps make sense of it, "In what situations do I feel most strongly that I am doing what I should be doing?"

All of these tools help us survive – and fight our true enemy.

Sometimes we are so exhausted and without hope for change that we become as helpless as rats in the famous experiment of learned helplessness. Those that were thrown into the water, but had no island on the horizon, stopped swimming after a while and began to float; later, placed in another difficult situation – electric shocks – did not leave the cage, even though the door was ajar. It was similar in experiments with people who were faced with an insoluble problem. Except that people were told in the end that they had no chance, which eased their symptoms of a breakdown. "Knowing that the game is set up lets you feel better immediately," write the sisters. And they mention the "The Hunger Games" where Katniss Everdeen is forced to play a game in which she has to kill other children. "She gets advice from her mentor: remember who your real enemy is. Not us and not the other participants. The game itself is the enemy, trying to convince us that it is not.".

In our world, that's the p-word. Patriarchy. Someone can tell us that it's just our imagination, like the heroine from the film "Gaslight", whose husband dimmed the kerosene lamps so that the light vibrated, and then told her that she just couldn't see it right (from which the term "gaslighting" originates). We can hear that it is supposed to be as it is, indeed, we can feel this way ourselves – here the giver syndrome appears, "it blinds us to patriarchy". Meanwhile, childcare and housekeeping are still the domain of women – on average they spend 40 hours a week on it, and men – an hour and a half. Even in more balanced countries, such as the US and Canada, women spend 50 percent more time doing unpaid work. Not to mention the various laws that sanction violence against women – like prohibiting abortion. We should also remember that, for example, marital rape has only been illegal in Great Britain since 1991.

The Nagoski sisters guide readers through the process of understanding the mechanisms of oppression and, following Gloria Stein, warn, "The truth will set you free, but it pisses you off first." The feeling of the bicycle blockade in Krakow comes back to me. First, I screamed these dirty words with embarrassment, and then – when it turned out that it was possible and the world would not collapse – at the top of my lungs. And my personal anger was in it, and my anger as a woman, Polish woman and mother. And then: freedom and – for a moment – relief.

The sisters describe step-by-step how to help deal with the anger and pain that the awareness that the game is set will generate in us. The third of these steps is: "Destroy the patriarchy. Smash it to pieces." They even prepared a special work card.

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"The giver syndrome tells us that rest is 'self-indulgence'. This makes as much sense as saying that breathing is a weakness or indulgence. Providing the body with the necessary rest is an act of resistance against the forces trying to set the game," the sisters write. A cliché? Have you never caught a cold at the end of a demanding project? Slept 14 hours a day in the first three days of your holiday?

Now, note: on average, we should spend 42 percent of our time a week resting. "It's absurd" – the authors predict that we will react in this way. But those percentages include time for exercise, meals, bonds, other things, and – sleep. Deep sleep. All doctors agree here – the lack or deprivation of sleep means a series of dramas. Chronic sleep deprivation is responsible for up to 20 percent of serious car accidents, increasing by 40 percent the risk of diseases that are the most common causes of death (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer's disease). It disrupts the functioning of the brain, worsens communication, and increases anxiety. Yet we feel that we must deserve sleep. And when we feel that we sleep "too long", we feel guilty. Let's get out of this, now! When we sleep, our tissues regenerate, our mind integrates the experiences of the whole day. We remember. We regulate emotions. Without sleep, we are an inferior version of ourselves. For ourselves and for others, you "giver being".

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Maybe you know the "madwoman in the attic" in the novel "Jane Eyre"? The main character, Rochester, imprisons his mad wife in the attic. It's a metaphor so successful that it has entered the world of science. The "madwoman in the attic" is the person in your head who is constantly dissatisfied, critical, whipping themselves, but at the same time vulnerable. She has all sorts of cool tools to wreak havoc within us: harsh self-criticism – even if we're good enough, she's ready to chew us out with the words "who you think you are, don't get out of line" – and toxic perfectionism. Let's get to know her, take a look at her, let's hug her. Sometimes "there is only a little girl underneath and she doesn't want to upset anyone". (A lot of guys have someone like that in their head too, and they experience various forms of oppression. Don't feel left out).

Why is all this important? "Because if you are cruel to yourself, you drive yourself into guilt and shame, you increase the amount of cruelty in the world. If you are kind and compassionate to yourself, kindness and compassion will increase in the world."

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PS It will hurt on the way. The sisters, unlike many self-development specialists, warn that healing wounds is painful and "opens a well of unbearable sorrow". And they also write about the lobster: when it grows out of its shell, it hides under a stone to shed its armour and build a new one. It is defenceless, naked, and vulnerable. But eventually it gains power that it would never have had otherwise.

Author: Maria Hawranek

Article was published in "Wolna Sobota” of "Gazeta Wyborcza” from 24 December 2020.