There's a beautiful scene in the movie #Home where the psychologist talks to Oliver about how Antony is influenced by social media. Though some popular reviewers critiqued that scene to be lecture-ish, I just loved it.
We experience stress when our thoughts, words, and actions are not aligned. Social media influences our thoughts quite a bit. The more people we follow, the greater the effect of that influence. We follow several people, primarily for the sake of inspiration. We get newer ideas and inspirations almost daily. We bookmark some of the ideas for future reference. We try to implement some of the ideas right away - while we might be successful at a few of them, we might also end up not being able to incorporate some of those ideas in our daily lives.
Irrespective of our actions (or inactions), a simple scroll-through of our feed impacts our thoughts in subconscious ways.
I've always been a strong advocate of this idea - "Don't follow any universal rule when it comes to food. Choose foods according to your body type. Listen to your body". Off late, I've also started emphasizing life situations as a criterion, along with body type.
For any change we try to incorporate (not just concerning food), our life situations play a critical role. Before we embark on a change, these questions will help us become more aware of our present situation:
- Do I have the right resources?
- Do I have the right mindset?
- Do I need my family support?
- Are they in a position right now to give me the support needed?
- Do I have the mental and physical energies to incorporate this change right now?
Sometimes, though we might have the motivation and inspiration, our life situations may not be favorable towards taking the required action. And when we see people who are talking about the same idea on social media, we feel stressed, sometimes self-critical on why we aren't able to implement the same. Our thoughts and actions are not in sync, which leads to stress.
We get triggered, not only from a space of criticism/negative news/fear/anger, etc. Triggers can also arise from a space of comparisons/aspirations/achievements/gloating etc.
The more I dive deeper into understanding what contributes to my wellness, the more I discover the role of mental wellbeing. Our mind deeply influences our body. So it is up to us to fiercely protect our mind - our thoughts, sources that influence our thoughts, muting/unfollowing such sources that aren't applicable or relevant to our current life situation.
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