Life is not a palette of black and white. There is a lot of grey area. In fact, life is more like a rainbow: there are even colors that you can’t ever see. If you are struggling with changing yourself, even if you know what you’re doing wrong, it is okay.

What makes it hard to manage adjustments in life?

 Here are some reasons why change and coping with change is hard:

Our brains are not always plastic

Unlike what we have been taught as children, our brains are not entirely plastic. If it were, we would easily be mind-washed and we would never be able to progress collectively as humanity. As we grow older, our ability to adapt to things decreases.

 This can also change depending on how you are raised, and your culture. Some people are more prone to certain types of change as compared to others. In simpler words, as we grow older, the plasticity of our brain exponentially decreases. 

Coping with change when you’re older is considerably more difficult, which is why many people visit a stress management counsellor to get their life under control. If we could do it on our own, there would not be a need for a professional to help us cope. 

Some things are harder to change:

Like we mentioned earlier, some things are easier to change than the others. For example, changing your diet is easy. Changing the school, you go to is easy but adapting to your new school is difficult – especially if you have memories and emotions attached to the previous one. 

Changing your innate habits are difficult

Your innate habits such as anxiety and being anxious when meeting someone new is not something that you can change overnight. It’s not like there is a kill-switch that will toggle your anxiety on and off whenever you will it. 

• Similarly, it is not like you can kill away your stress when people say, “don’t stress over the little things”. Life is not that easy.
• You can’t just throw your stress away just like that. If you could, people would not be going bald or dying because of stress and anxiety.
• Your Stress management counsellor will help you develop activities which will make it easier to handle change and stress.

Humans are wired to be suspicious

Humans are wired to be suspicious of anything that happens in our vicinity. We especially find it hard to adapt to a new environment because of how our bodies have adapted. Because in the olden times, humans had to constantly come from one location to another, this change in environment would often require a high level of alertness and active maintenance. 

• This alertness is often confused with anxiety and stress.
• The average human takes about three to four weeks to finally settle down in a new place, though it entirely depends on how they are raised and if they have done this moving before.
• Some people even take years to properly adapt to their new environment.

If you are having problems, we recommend choosing a stress management counsellor. 

If you have any further queries about life adjustments, coping with change and why changes are so hard, please reach our to Sarah Bergman at Counselling on the Coast today. We will try our best to help you.