Individuals have their unique preferences for the type of environments that they desire to live in. (Gruman et al., 2017) Life in the city is often fast and exciting, but it is not the healthiest environment in my opinion. City life has its advantages, but it also comes with an abundance of stress due to the mass amounts of stressors and distractions. (Gruman et al., 2017) These stressors and distractions lead to stimulus overload, which limits one’s capability to respond to things in their environment. (Gruman et al., 2017) The effect of stimulus overload is exhausting to our nervous systems and it causes us to block out attention to things in our environment. (Gruman et al., 2017)
I have lived in Washington, DC ninety percent of my life. I have also live in a small town in western Maryland and my quality of life and health was the best it has ever been in my life. During my time in DC, I have experienced many of the six ways of retreat identified by Stanley Milgram. (Gruman et al., 2017) I would show up to events and leave early, to rush through social interactions. (Gruman et al., 2017) I was not cognitive of details and people that were not relevant to my objective, I was avoiding low priority things. (Gruman et al., 2017) I used apps for task like shopping, car repairs, and financial services to limit human interaction. (Gruman et al., 2017) My on-going stressful personal experience that I will be discussing is getting my home built by an independent contractor in DC.
There were barriers put into place during the permit approval process to limit social interaction. (Gruman et al., 2017) We were emailing each other back and forth the majority of the time. I also was not directly managing the resources, everything was done through a third party virtual process. In an effort to reduce the stressfulness I could have been more patient. I was overwhelmed by my timeline’s pressure and sense of urgency. I would have been able to focus my energy on more positive events and behaviors. I was too exhausted to attend social events and spend time with others.
I experienced extremely high levels of stress, frustration and disappointment. I was suffering from chronic pain, chest pains, inflammation, mood swings, and poor sleeping habits. Building the house was an uncontrollable event for me. I was dependent upon the work and actions of other individuals for successful completion of the project. The negative immune responses that occurred was a result of the uncontrollability of the process. (Taylor, 2018) I was frustrated from the filters of having to talk to multiple individuals before reaching the person that was able to resolve my concerns. (Gruman et al., 2017) I tried to establish entities to deal with concerns to allow me to focus on other things. (Gruman et al., 2017) I tried to accomplish this by hiring a permit expediter to limit my interactions with individuals. This did not work out for me as the permit expediter did not perform well. I had to step in to facilitate the process.
Washington, DC is a city with lots of red tape that makes things difficult for the average person. If you do not belong to a community of influence and power it will unnecessarily take you a very long time to navigate processes. I turned to online communities and learned that I was not alone in my struggle. I started attending stakeholder meetings and communication with individuals in the development community. I was able to find a sense of relief. I felt intimidated because my project was very small scale. One of the professionals reassured me that no matter the size, my project is important and deserves proper care and attention.
Face to face interactions at meetings with fellow stakeholders and officials provided the most community support for me. I was lost in the city. During those meetings I was able to find my way. Social interaction is important for relationship building and the sharing of information. Small face to face communities work best for me as I do not suffer from stimulus overload.
Resources
Complementary & alternative medicine for mental health. (2016, April 8). Retrieved from http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/sites/default/files/MHA_CAM.pdf
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied Social Psychology; Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc
Taylor, S. E. (2018). Health psychology. 10th edition. New York: McGraw Hill