The term Escapism in psychology describes the inclination or desire to look for ways to escape from the stresses of everyday life. It can be called a distraction or maybe a waste of time because the concept is broad. We can also say many people use it as a survival tool usually by engaging in activities that give a brief sense of comfort, pleasure, or separation.
It involves making a conscious effort to remove oneself mentally or emotionally from stressful situations, difficult situations, or uncomfortable feelings to feel relieved or free. You can say it is a temporary pleasure to take a break from what is becoming difficult for you.
Escapism might offer temporary comfort, but it is important to keep in mind that it doesn’t address the important issues. In fact, focusing too much on escape can occasionally make matters worse since it keeps us from confronting our problems head-on and coming up with workable answers.
Psychological well-being is important here because if your escape is making you lose everything just for temporary pleasure, it is harmful and you need to quit it.
Therefore, it is crucial to develop good coping mechanisms for stress and other issues in our lives, even though it’s OK to take pauses and engage in relaxing activities. This could be reaching out to a trusted person, getting expert assistance, or coming up with positive solutions to our problems.
Forms Of Escapism Used As A Survival Tool
Well, the forms of escape a person can take depend on what is available to them like if we see the modern lifestyle, people escape through books, music, social media, and entertainment or they procrastinate a lot.
Generally saying might be these things seem normal but in the long run, they cause harm more than it does wonders or good. It can have horrible consequences and one might end up losing health or well-being.
Moreover, Escapism can take many different forms. Some examples are watching television, playing video games, or reading novels; it can also take the shape of daydreaming, fantasizing, abusing drugs; or even taking on virtual personas. While some Escapism techniques are reasonably safe and offer temporary stress relief, others can develop into unhealthy coping strategies that interfere with day-to-day activities and worsen fundamental psychological problems.
There can be Psychological benefits if a person is escaping within limits by making healthy choices.
It is important to understand what is causing the urge to escape. Understandably, sometimes realities are too difficult, but they are realities nonetheless, no matter how much you run away from them in the end it is standing everywhere.
Suppose you think the situation is getting out of control. In that case, a Psychologist can assist you in addressing the fundamental causes of your desire to escape reality and in developing healthy coping mechanisms by investigating the underlying motivations and effects of Escapism.
In simple words, Escapism is essentially the result of a complicated interaction between the yearning for a short-term escape from life’s problems and the possible consequences of ignoring or evading those problems over time. As such, Escapism in Psychology is an idea that needs to be carefully believed through and investigated in the subject of psychology.
Well, it is important to understand Escapism, let us examine it,
Consider you are a college student who is experiencing a great deal of stress from social pressures, personal struggles, and academic pressure. Therefore, you usually go into the world of online gaming, where you spend hours every day lost in virtual missions and battles, rather than confronting these problems face-to-face. You find temporary delights and feelings of achievement from gaming, but it also acts as an Escapism from duties and issues in real life.
In this scenario, you use video games as an escape. Nevertheless, there can be a price for this escape. Stuff yourself in gaming can eventually result in a lack of personal fulfillment, damaged relationships with friends and family, and a neglect of educational obligations.
Even if playing video games can help relieve tension shortly, it doesn’t solve the deeper.
Nonetheless, this little picture shows how Escapism can appear in everyday circumstances and highlights the value of treating fundamental problems as opposed to turning to temporary pastimes to deal with stress and difficulties.
Well, for Escapism as a survival tool, this is a little example because for some people things are horrible.
Life will show you some hard moments and the best way to survive is to be strong enough to face them and solve them. Confront the reality no matter how hard it is.
It is your life, these are your problems so who would solve them other than you? No one!
The more you delay it the more you are going to be tired. That is it!
Despite the temporary relief escapism may provide, tackling our problems directly is essential to our resilience and progress.
Since facing our challenges and achieving inner peace is the path to true strength, let’s face reality with determination and courage.
Choosing Escapism is a choice, the same choice you can make to change your life for the better. Again the choice is all yours.
