Many iconic leaders and business tycoons credit their success to their intuition or gut feeling. They claim their intuitive decision-making saves them from last-minute fallbacks and elevates their sense of innovation. Intuition, or the gut feeling of knowing something without any statistics or studies, is predominantly a combination of experience and gathered knowledge working subconsciously. It is a prized quality tool that positively affects our lives when we nurture it.On the other hand, stress leads to a distressed mind, clogging our intuitive ability and weakening it. It is crucial to understand how stress affects your intuition and ways to prevent it.
How Stress Affects Intuition?
Compromises your cognitive ability
Intuition is magical when it is powered by wisdom and true knowledge. With stress, the mind is no longer still, and acquiring knowledge and reasoning becomes impaired.
Creates fear
Stress pushes you to think of quick solutions in fear of losing your reputation or resources. But intuition is never hasty and is at its best when the mind is still and quiet. Stress overpowers the mind, not allowing intuition to function.
Influences your decisions
It’s essential to manage stress to develop intuition. Stress opens up your emotional doors and keeps you from thinking straight. It influences your decisions without the effective presence of mind.
It brings ego to the fore
One of the overrated human feelings is ego i.e., the sense of pride or superiority over others. Stress due to unpredictable or difficult situations often threatens our ego, which might make us function from an ego-induced frame of mind, affecting our intuition. The mind mostly ignores other factors when it makes ego-induced decisions which may lead to dishevelled circumstances.
It leads to a loss of clarity
Stress is the cause of many health and mental problems like insomnia, high blood pressure, obesity, depression, etc. With these pertaining issues, the mind loses its intuitive ability, focus, and direction in life.
It leaves you with mediocre achievements
Intuition nurtured with meditation, knowledge, and solace graces your life with many innovative ideas and achievements. Stress dilutes the intuition to the point that your achievements become mediocre. It may lead you to not trust your intuition anymore due to confusion.
It clouds your intuition
Stress emanates negative emotions which cloud your intuition. It brings down your confidence and makes you feel insecure about your choices in life. This, in fact, also changes your outlook towards life and makes it a burden.
It kills your empathy and compassion
Your feelings and expressions depict stress when you are pressured. Empathy and compassion within you take a toll and you feel different than you used to. This, in turn, poses a problem as you connect with people. And your relationships directly impact the development of your intuitive ability. This is how stress affects intuition psychology.
“When you listen, listen to something more. Not just to the sound, but to the silence too.”
-Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
How to Develop Your Intuition?
By Being Informed
Always keep yourself well informed about the subject matter. Knowledge builds intellect which also affects your subconscious mind and helps develop your intuition. Every decision comes out well-rounded when your intuition is backed by a strong foundation of knowledge.
By Easing out
When you ease out and relax, you don’t put any pressure on your mind. Most creative ideas emerge from you when you are peaceful.
By Listening to your Body Signals
Sometimes your mind and body send signals in situations that may look better from the outside but won’t feel good to you. For example: Being at a loud party or going on a trip with friends. Listening to these body signals could help develop the unconscious mind and intuition.
Through Meditation
Meditation provides answers to key problems in life through the gift of silence. When the mind is still, free from worries and anxieties, it helps you access your natural intuition. That makes your sixth sense active and profoundly influences your decision-making capabilities.
“Quieting the mind gives a sense of intuition, brings the mind to the present moment and brings balance.”
-Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Meditating at least for 10 minutes a day can improve your control over emotions and tap into your intuitive abilities.
“You can develop your intuition through regular meditation. When the mind is free of cravings, aversions and distortions, it settles and becomes sharper. That is when intuition develops.”
-Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Balance it Off
Often people invest in choices(with time/money) by listening to their gut feelings. While it may work for them at times, they must understand that they should not pay heed to only one call, but rather balance their intuitive approach with rational thinking.
Frequently Asked Questions on Stress and Intuition
Intuition is an awareness or knowledge within the subconscious mind without any evidence. Thoughts are views, ideas, or opinions in our minds that result from conscious awareness of something.
Only a strong intuition can beat stress without faltering. And strong intuition is possible with meditation, positive self-talk, knowledge, establishing connections with people, and experience.
Intuition happens silently and suddenly results in clarity of mind. Overthinking is chaotic and happens over a long time often leading to confusion.
Intuition happens in present moment and is positive in nature, whereas feeling might be positive or negative and associated with the past.
Intrusive thoughts are disturbing, and you would like to get rid of them. They are repetitive and persistent. Thoughts based on the intellect are real thoughts.
Intuition is divided into 4 types based on Information Analysis -
Experiential, Situational, Relational, and Creative.
Your intuition is warning you when you get a strong gut feeling not to do something, without any reasoning.
