Stress is a silent killer. Not only does it increase the risk of several life-threatening conditions from heart failure to stroke, but it also nefariously reduces cognitive function, disrupts your sleep, causes digestive issues, results in premature aging, and can worsen or kickstart an anxiety disorder or depression.
Stress is a survival response. In short bursts, it works to increase tension, adrenaline, and even cognitive function. In essence, it makes us hyper-aware of our surroundings and more prepared to respond to the fight-or-flight situation we find ourselves in.
Of course, most in the modern world do not get stressed because of fight-or-flight situations. Work stress, economic stress, global stress, health stress - these are the types of stress that impact us on a regular basis. They are not, however, easy to avoid. If work stresses you out, chances are it will continue to cause you to stress every day you go in or even get an email.
If you experience chronic stress, which is categorized as a lower level of stress that is ongoing, or episodic acute stress, which is a high-stress situation on a regular basis, then your health is probably taking a hit.
You need to get on top of your stress, and you need to do it in a way that puts you first. A short-term solution like a holiday isn't going to help in the long run. No, instead, you will need long-lasting options that change your approach to the stressor and your body's ability to manage the stress.
Managing your stress can minimize the risk of burnout, and it can also help you avoid complications like compassion fatigue. You never want an adverse reaction to stress to cause performance issues in your career, especially if the work you do directly impacts the health, safety, and wellbeing of someone else.
This means that those that work in compassion roles, like social workers or nurses, are not only at the most risk but also the ones who require the most comprehensive strategy to manage their stress and worries.
Being stressed for yourself is one thing, after all. Being stressed for others is another. By understanding stress, understanding your own stress triggers, and of course, working on building a better routine that improves your health and wellbeing you can lead a happier, more fulfilling life.
Top Tips to Help you Get On Top Of Your Stress
When you are well, you can do better. When you are well, you can live better. Start today by following this guide:
1. Take Note of Your Stress Triggers
One of the best ways to manage stress is to first identify what it is that stresses you out. You may know vaguely what stresses you, but until you can clearly identify the specific moments, thoughts, or instances that spike your cortisol levels, you will be more or less trying to avoid triggers in the dark.
A good way to get started with identifying your triggers is to keep a notebook or note app ready. As soon as you experience a downturn in your mood or a spike in your stress levels, make a note of what happened just beforehand.
Over the course of the next few weeks, you will collect enough data to then sort the triggers into categories. This way, you can identify the patterns and clearly understand what it was that caused you stress. By understanding in this broad sense, you can work to mentally prepare, avoid, or negotiate to improve your stress management.
2. Be Aware of the Risks of Your Career/Situation
Taking note of what stresses you out personally is an excellent place to start. When it comes to managing stress, however, prevention will always be the ultimate goal. With that in mind, it is important to take note of what risks you face in your workplace or in your situation. If you work in a role like social work, for example, you are at risk of experiencing and developing compassion fatigue. This unique type of stress is particular to those who frequently work with those who are in difficult situations, especially if they tend to lash out in anger as a result.
By understanding the intricacies of compassion fatigue, and most importantly, by being aware of the signs and symptoms, you can identify early signs and set firmer boundaries as soon as possible.
This applies to your personal life as well. If you are a carer, or if a loved one is sick, then these are high-stress situations that you need to be aware of so that you can take appropriate care of yourself, as well as your loved one.
It even applies to those who have recently experienced trauma. Reading up in advance can help you identify new symptoms and thought patterns for what they are, which can be an effective tool for stopping those thought cycles before they take over.
3. Work to Improve Your Physical Health and Routine
Investing in self-care is essential, especially for those in high-stress roles like social workers. Between compassion fatigue, high volume cases, and the sheer importance of what you do, it is natural to feel pressure and feel stressed. Though it is natural, it is not helpful. Ongoing stress can result in you feeling detached as a coping mechanism, which in turn can impact your ability to do your work or may cut your career as a social worker short.
Self-care is the first step towards building up your fortitude and improving your overall wellbeing. It starts with your health and then continues into your emotional and mental health.
By starting with your physical health, you will be able to improve your ability to manage stress and heavy workloads without immediately feeling overwhelmed. There are three cornerstones to healthy living. The first is your diet, the second is exercise, and the third is sleep. By making a routine that ensures you live well like this, you can immediately improve your ability to manage stress.
Follow up with wellness improvements that help give you ways to decompress. Spending time with friends and family, spending time on your hobbies, and generally having fun can do wonders from there.
4. Build a Safety Net
It can be hard to manage stress when you don't feel stable. That is why it is important for everyone to prioritize a safety net. This means many different things. To start, you will want to start saving up an emergency fund. This fund is not to be touched unless you have lost your job or are in absolute desperate need of money.
Having your affairs in order, especially if you have children, is another safety net that you will want to create. By planning for the worst-case scenarios, you can then minimize the worry that these scenarios will ever happen.
5. Rely on Your Support Network
You are not in this alone. You have friends, family, co-workers, and even the government there. By understanding who is in your support network and what kind of help you can get from them, you can immediately start releasing some of the weight and pressure from your job and day.
In some cases, you may even need to look into professional services. Friends and family can be great people to turn to when you need to talk to someone, but they cannot be the ones you go to when you need to dump all your problems. They don't have the ability to help you, especially if the issues are ongoing, and trying to help you can actually negatively impact them as well.
By seeking out professional mental health services, you can have someone trustworthy to share your problems with and even your darkest thoughts. They can help you rationalize how you feel, can help you express how you feel, and can even help devise strategies to help you get to a mental space that you want for yourself.
Why are stress levels so much higher now?
There are many huge reasons why society as a whole is experiencing higher levels of stress than ever before. The pandemic alone caused massive strain on the health and interpersonal relationships of people; if you were made redundant, then you also that the stress of not having a stable job, having to rely on benefits, and the thought that those benefits may not be enough.
Add in the war in Ukraine, the rising cost of living, and the massive paradigm shift in the workforce, and the reasons why we feel stressed have compounded. We are in a state of massive flux that is being felt around the world, and it is natural to not be handling it well on top of your everyday stressors that were already enough to cause acute stress or chronic stress.
Understanding what exactly it is that causes you stress can help you minimize it and also address it in a healthier way. If you find that the news and its constant bombardment cause extreme stress then finding an alternative publication or a short-form update that keeps to the bare facts without embellishing might be better.
