How to Manage Stress Better
Stress is part of life. Sure. But does life have to feel as stressful as it does for some of us? What is the difference between people who are capable of joggling multiple chores and yet seem to have saved some energy for dinner with friends or a morning run and those who become immobilize by a prospect with a day that is significantly less packed with chores? How about those who are seemingly at peace even though they are on a way from a nursing home after having visiting their sick parent and those who are anxious with anticipation of future responsibilities and grief? Yes, some stresses in life are not avoidable. We struggle with finances, our previously great relationships go sour or all the deadlines seem seem to be due yesterday. Yet there is a big difference between real stress and perceived stress as well as between avoidable and unavoidable stress.
Stress is defined as "a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances". So what can we do about it? We can learn not to over-react, learn to differentiate time for rest and time for action, combat thought-action fusion, have an honest look at our priorities and learn to let go of physiological tension.
LEARN NOT TO OVERACT
We can reduce our excessively painful reactions by not giving into thinking shortcuts. Types of thoughts associated with high level of stress include personalization, emotional reasoning, all-or-nothing thinking and over-generalization. When we personalize, we believe that everything either our fault or our responsibility. If you got stuck in an unexpected snow storm, is it really your fault that you ended up late? Emotional thinking makes us use our emotions to validate our conclusions. If you have a panic attack thinking about your exam, does it mean that the material is beyond your comprehension? What if you have anxiety about going on vacations? Are vacations stressful or should you be working on your anxiety disorder?
In case of stress, all-or-nothing thinking makes us exist in two diametrically opposite states. We are either at ease as we try not to think about our issues or become overwhelmed at a thought of tackling anything. For some, eating breakfast or returning a simple phone call becomes extremely stressful and subject to perpetual postponing. On the other hand our tendency to over-generalize projects our current levels of stress way into the future. We simply cannot imagine feeling any different.
DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN TIME FOR ACTION AND TIME FOR REST
Stress can lead to sleeplessness, overthinking and inability to disengage from what we stress about. Our actions might actually maintain high levels of stress. Just imagine a student who worries so much about pending exam that she has already spent hours belittling herself for not being smart enough but was not able to open the book and actually study. How about a young entrepreneur who remained concerned about his financial status, pulled an all-nighter create a business proposal but ultimately gave up booking an appointment to obtain the necessary loan. This unhelpful relationship with time is illustrated in the diagram below. Remember, when we over-think but do not take advantage from opportunities to change our situation, we will remain chronically stressed and lower our chances of having the lives that we want.
CHALLENGE THOUGHT-ACTION FUSION
Thought-action fusion refers to the fact that we often confuse thinking with doing. When we remain worried, we spend a lot of emotional energy and yet have very little to show for it. This process makes us feel useless as despite devoting a lot of attention to our problems, we seem to be unable to solve them. It is very important to be thoughtful, to plan our actions or to mentally regroup after painful events or even when things go well. That is how we learn. Yet some of us have hard time redirecting our attention when thinking about our concerns is no longer productive.
CHALLENGE THOUGHT-ACTION FUSION
Thought-action fusion refers to the fact that we often confuse thinking with doing. When we remain worried, we spend a lot of emotional energy and yet have very little to show for it. This process makes us feel useless as despite devoting a lot of attention to our problems, we seem to be unable to solve them. It is very important to be thoughtful, to plan our actions or to mentally regroup after painful events or even when things go well. That is how we learn. Yet some of us have hard time redirecting our attention when thinking about our concerns is no longer productive.
HAVE AN HONEST LOOK AT YOUR PRIORITIES
Are you spread too thin? Are you promising yourself to catch on the week-end only to feel frustrated about the pile of chores that has accumulated for Saturday while in fact you would rather go out to relax a little? Do you end up by not doing anything? Do you blame yourself for not doing enough for people you care for? Do you resent having too many responsibilities? This is often true for all of us. It makes sense to grab a planner and have a look how you're spending your time. Have a look at few weeks at a time and be as honest as possible about what did you do. You can use the activity log worksheet if you want. Now, how much time was spend on doing what needs to be done, rest and enjoyable activities? How much time was spent on active resentment -- a state of feeling immobilized with stress due to over-thinking. We can make a lot of recommendations about what to do or not to do, but these recommendations are of little value without having a close look at your activity logs. Once you're honest with yourself, you can decide how to allocate your time differently. Also, please remember that we have responsibility to study or to take care of our loved ones, we do not have a responsibility to stay awake at night worrying about school or people in our care.
LET GO OF PHYSIOLOGICAL TENSION
Once we become chronically stressed or experience burnout, relaxing our body feels like an impossibility. We might literally become conditioned to remain hyper-vigilant. In an old study with dogs, the animals received warnings about incoming electric shock. The floor in the room that housed the animal was painted in two different colors, let's say red and blue. Once the bell rang, the animal was warned that staying in the red area will expose it to pain and moved quickly into the blue part of the room. Eventually the bells continued to ring, but no shocks were delivered. The animals continued to move according to the warning bells. Overtime the bells stopped. Animals continued to move. The canines have learnt "not to wait for the shoe to drop". They stayed prepared and moved even when it was no longer necessary. How many stressed-out people catch second wind when they finally make it to bed? How many are needlessly restless and easy to startle throughout the day? If we live expecting the shocks, we exist in a state of anxious anticipation. For the conditioned mind, allowing our body to relax seems like a bad idea even when our rational mind wants precisely that. We need to start by learning to tolerate a relaxed body state. Practice of progressive muscle relaxation is the easiest way to teach our body to relax. Those of you who find progressive muscle relaxation exercises to be relaxing, do not need to practice unless you enjoy the routine. Those of you who become restless and uncomfortable during the exercise are the ones who should practice the most. We have to structure these exercises as experiments to test whether or not something dangerous happens when you engage in that exercise (highly unlikely) and whether you can remember how a relaxed body state (probably not, that is why the exercise calls for additional tensing of your muscles before allowing them to relax). One thing for sure: Don't try to force yourself to relax! Allow yourself to regain that ability naturally through practice. Can you imagine how good it feels to be able to fall asleep without our brain waking us up the moment we start drifting off because it continues to associate relaxed body state with vulnerability to danger?
