Do you have a tendency to wait until you’re about to snap, or edging towards burnout before taking a much-needed breather?
Next month is Stress Awareness Month, and after what’s been an exceptionally tough couple of years, recognising when you are becoming stressed and acting on it, is so important.
Read: What is reiki and can it help relieve stress?
Think about the day-to-day pace
Of course, we can’t always just take holidays whenever we feel like it – that’s simply not realistic. But, if we’re always an inch away from breaking point when we finally get round to relaxing, it might be time to readdress how we’re approaching the day-to-day.
“We need to be pacing more all along,” says psychotherapist Alivia Rose. Stress and anxiety are things we need to manage daily. “Burnout only happens when we build up to the point where we haven’t recognised the signals, and the anxiety reaches a point where we haven’t addressed the signals, so it’s quite a discipline to keep on top of this.”
Spotting the signs
So, the first key is recognising those signs, says Ms Rose. “If you’re anxious, you’ll notice that you’re not breathing all the way down into your stomach – you’re breathing higher up in your chest. Also you’ll notice you’re more reactive, so things will fluster you or you’ll react more, you might be more irritated, you might want to weep. These are the little flags and clues.”
It’s useful to remember that stress and anxiety aren’t exclusively ‘bad’, however. We shouldn’t demonise any emotions – there are no ‘bad’ emotions per se. Think of feelings as important signals that give us information.
Stress and anxiety can become problematic if they go unmanaged for too long or build up to overwhelming levels. But remembering that they’re a normal part of life, and no-one can avoid them 100 per cent of the time, can be extremely helpful – especially if worrying about getting anxious becomes a source of stress in itself!
Restoring calm
When our anxiety levels rise, we tend to speed up. There are helpful ways to intercept this, though.
“We can start to breath more deeply, get away from our desk, go outside, go to nature – nature’s amazingly important for calming anxiety,” says Ms Rose. “One of the other things is feeling your feet – I know this sounds funny; surely everyone feels their feet – but really feeling your feet firmly on the ground brings anxiety down. Because anxiety works upwards – it goes up and out and then we can go into panic mode. But if we come into our bodies, put our feet firmly on the ground and deepen our breathing, you will start to calm.”
Read: Could you be addicted to stress?
A stress-friendly lifestyle
It’s about building stress-management into your daily lifestyle too, whether that’s with hobbies, exercise, eating well, reading before bed – however that looks for you. Normalise taking lunch breaks and screen breaks and blocking off time in your diary just for yourself.
Habits stick best when they’re things we feel authentically aligned with, so don’t get caught up with what you ‘should’ be doing. It’s much better when a health behaviour or approach fits with you, your personality and your lifestyle. Otherwise it just becomes exhausting to try and maintain.
There’s a deep misconception that getting fit, eating healthily or creating new habits should be painful (the ‘no-pain-no-gain’ perspective). But, if we think about it logically, how could we ever maintain these behaviours if they are so at odds with our innate traits and daily lives?
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Developing new habits can take effort – there’s no doubt it takes some effort and motivation to create change in our lives, but the process should also be rewarding. Focus on you, what works for you, not what anyone or everyone is doing on social media or trends. Usually, the simplest, back-to-basic changes are the ones that bring the most joy and so can last a lifetime.
Read: Five-minute micro habits to fit into your daily routine
A sense of control
Once we get into the habit of recognising our stress and proactively managing it, building healthier boundaries, recognising our limits and learning to say ‘no’ all start to become easier.
We can’t control everything – but being aware of what we do have control over and embracing that as a healthy choice for ourselves, can make a big difference. “I have a thing – before the pandemic – where I used to go for a cup of coffee for an hour and I’d say, ‘Oh, I’m on holiday’, and it completely changed my mindset,” says Ms Rose. “It was only an hour, but actually, just thinking in this moment, ‘I’m on holiday’, did something to me – it calmed me down.”
