Your thoughts are spinning in circles, your hands are shaking and you want to run up and down all the time: Inner restlessness is familiar to most people. The feeling can occur in a wide variety of situations. If it is a temporary phenomenon, it is annoying but harmless. However, if inner restlessness becomes a permanent condition, physical and mental health is at risk.
Inner restlessness describes a state of mental tension and restlessness. You literally feel like you're "on the go" and can hardly manage to think clearly. In many cases, the tension also manifests itself physically, e.g. through sweating or trembling.
The condition is experienced by those affected as very stressful to demoralizing. Sometimes even impulse control is impaired, which can lead to outbursts of aggression even in peace-loving people.
Inner restlessness can be due to a variety of causes. Regardless of the specific trigger, the stressful condition often has an underlying Overload underlying. In rare cases, inner restlessness is an accompanying symptom of serious physical or mental illnesses.
In stressful life situations such as after a Separation or job loss, mental tension is a frequent companion. In the short term, this is a valuable warning signal. In this way, your body and soul signal to you that your stress limit has been exceeded.
Fortunately, most triggers of inner turmoil are harmless. However, it is all the more important to be able to differentiate the serious causes. Therefore, we have summarized the 15 most common causes for you below:
The attempt to simply ignore the inner turmoil or to distract oneself convulsively is rarely crowned with success. It is comparable to the famous thought experiment of the little blue elephant. If you are asked not to think about it, it is guaranteed to appear immediately in your mind's eye. It's the same with inner turmoil: ignorance reinforces the problem.
The goal is to get to the bottom of the causes of your mental tension. This is not so easy with wildly circling thoughts. An effective method to interrupt the carousel of thoughts is the Meditation. In this way, you will be able to take a new perspective and find out the reasons for your inner imbalance.
Whether you have a guided meditation It is up to you to decide whether you prefer to meditate in silence or in a quiet way. The important thing is that you fully engage in meditating. Don't be discouraged if you find your mind still wandering at first. Practice makes perfect, as we all know. It pays to keep at it.
Interesting to know: Hair analyses have shown that meditation can effectively alleviate long-term stress. There is also an exciting study on this topic Study.
Inner restlessness is agonizing. However, you are by no means powerless over this feeling. Besides meditation, there are numerous gentle self-help measures that you can try out:
As already mentioned, meditation is an effective remedy for inner restlessness. Alternatively, this also applies to yoga, mindfulness exercises or the progressive muscle relaxation according to Jacobsen. Many health insurance companies now subsidize such courses.
Physical activity has been shown to help relieve mental tension. This is proven by current studies of the RKI.
While exercising, the body releases happy hormones, which helps you to feel relax. The type of sport you do is of secondary importance. The important thing is that you enjoy the movement and the Sports not feel like an additional mandatory program.
There are numerous medicinal herbs that can provide relief from mental tension. The best known are St. John's wort, lavender and valerian. But also lime blossom and lemon balm show a good effect. You can take the herbs in the form of tea or capsules. It is best to get advice at the pharmacy and follow the dosage recommendations exactly.
Thyme, lavender and rosemary oils have a stress-relieving effect and also promote a restful night's sleep. You can choose to do a back rub or a foot rub. For the former, however, you'll need support at best, such as from your partner. Warm the oil in your hands before you start rubbing it in.
If the body relaxes, the soul also comes to rest. Warm water loosens even stubborn muscle cramps. You can find ready-made bath additives for relaxing baths in almost every drugstore.
Of course, you can also make up your own mixture. Good bath additives against inner restlessness are hay flowers, lemon balm, lavender, valerian and hops.
Coffee and nicotine have a stimulating effect. Anyone who already suffers from restlessness should therefore limit their consumption of these stimulants or, at best, do without them completely. If you don't want to give up your morning coffee, we recommend switching to the decaffeinated variety.
Take time for yourself on a regular basis. Your Needs are important. Therefore, create fixed quiet times that belong only to you. You can use these times for undisturbed meditation, for example. Create a pleasant atmosphere by lighting candles or incense sticks and playing relaxing music.
Homeopathic remedies are becoming increasingly popular in the treatment of inner restlessness. However, before taking them, consult with a Alternative practitioner or pharmacist. The following remedies are particularly effective for restlessness:
If your inner restlessness persists over a longer period of time and massively affects your everyday life, a visit to the doctor is recommended in any case. The same applies if the self-help measures mentioned above do not have any effect.
If the inner restlessness is accompanied by physical symptoms, there could possibly be an organic cause. In this case, you should not postpone a visit to the doctor for too long.
Inner restlessness can go completely unnoticed by third parties. However, sufferers often exhibit typical behaviors to (unconsciously) relieve their tension. These include:
The sufferers themselves suffer most of all from the racing thoughts that simply do not want to come to rest. The feeling of being at the mercy of others and the inability to act reinforce the vicious circle.
Inner restlessness affects both your performance and your social life. Relationships as well as your physical health. Mental tension massively reduces your attention and ability to concentrate. This can cause you to make mistakes on the job, even when performing routine tasks.
Since inner restlessness makes you irritable, you also get into conflicts with other people more easily. In the worst case, you could face consequences under labor law. Family and friends often withdraw because they feel rejected by you. The resulting loneliness makes your inner restlessness even worse.
But the physical consequences should not be underestimated either. The body can cope well with short-term tension. However, if the regeneration phase does not take place, the autonomic nervous system remains under permanent tension. Permanent stress weakens the immune system and can even increase the risk of heart attack, diabetes and stroke.
Temporary inner turmoil is part of life and cannot be avoided permanently. However, to prevent an unpleasant phase of mental tension from becoming a permanent condition, you should take targeted countermeasures. But even if your restlessness has been bothering you for a while, there are effective methods for restoring your mental balance.
In this context, we would like to recommend our Meditation Challenge to you. In five days you will complete five different meditations, each with a different focus. However, the focus is always on your mental balance. You don't need any previous knowledge, but can join in directly. The sessions are six to 20 minutes long and can be integrated wonderfully into everyday life.
In addition, we give you as part of the Meditation Challenge the basis for your daily meditation practice. So you are always prepared against inner turmoil. Does this sound interesting to you? Then register today for free.
