Positive Distraction: Managing Stress

What is reality, and how healthy is it to spend all of your time consumed with facts, opinions, and worry for your future? A positive distraction is a healthy coping mechanism brought to you by TikTok, Books, Video Games, and Movies. These guilty pleasures stimulate our creativity, imagination, and provide a welcomed brain break to harsh realities. In an instant, you can transfer to an amazing dance moves, a risky romance, the role of a ninja fighter pilot, or an Avenger fighting evil.

In American society, the word distraction has a negative connotation. You mean wasting time. Positive distraction or diversion is wasting time for a purpose. It decreases worry, anxiety, and stimulates problem-solving. Problem-solving? Yes, the more creative and imaginative you permit your brain to be; the increased access to areas of your brain to permit divergent solutions to current issues.

Creativity reinforces creativity in the brain. Your positive distraction by definition can transfer brain energy from stressful to stimulation that eases tension and encourages relaxation. Remember when you were young and pretended you were an astronaut, doctor, or anything else other than a kid doing chores? It would assist you in getting through a situation with a positive attitude as you completed your mission and saved the day.

Watching TikTok's about dancing, baby dogs, and kissing your best friend can be positive for your brain. It allows you to be a voyeur into another's world. You can control your content by

using the search, using hashtags, and creating an FYP (For You Page) that delights your senses. You can get politically involved, informed on difficult social topics, and experience a hateful comment if you become a creator depending on what you are looking for on the app.

The positive connections can be healthy for you but be mindful that on any social media platform; it can create more negative stress for you. If you find those with whom you can make a connection, it may also benefit your mental health which may be the appeal to social media applications. Especially during a time when we are social distancing for safety, a connection can be very powerful even if it is for a few minutes of a social media platform. Those that engage in books no matter the type find benefits to their mental health as referenced in the word bibliotherapy. Those that engage in all types of reading from nonfiction, fantasy to the historical drama are whisked away into other periods, increased information, and fantasies.