Therapy can be a valuable resource that helps us effectively manage career-related stress, alleviate workplace anxiety, and significantly enhance our overall professional growth by providing us with practical and effective coping strategies tailored to our individual needs.
Being a professional on our job can be challenging in many ways. Stress can be a part of it and honestly, we are built to handle stress. Just not chronic stress.
How can you tell the difference?
Productive stress activates us and keeps us focused. If we can experience it and then go back to baseline - go back to feeling like ourselves again - then all is good. We can enjoy the beautiful moments of life and be ready for the next stressful challenge.
But if we don’t get a chance to recovery emotionally and physically then we are pushing into the next challenge on empty. Everything feels harder. It takes us longer to get our work done. We feel terrible before, during and after. And we start to question our overall abilities in work and in life.
That’s all too high of a price to pay.
Here’s what we can do….
Get to know the first physical sensations you experience when you feel stressed.
Interpret it as a natural response to how your nervous system is reading the situation. (For example, the thought that you might lose that promotion if you don’t get the next project right is a naturally stressful thought.)
Use somatic techniques (things you can feel, smell, taste, hear, see) to take your stress down by at least one notch. Within a couple of sessions, I - and other therapists - can teach you some cool techniques.
Consider what’s the next best move after you feel a little more grounded in safety and abundance. (For example, should you send that email telling off your boss or take a night to sleep on it?) Don’t feel grounded enough to make a decision yet, see step 3.
Keep in mind that stress serves an essential biological function for our overall well-being. It is indeed the body's natural response to perceived threats or challenges, activating the "fight/flight/freeze" mechanism. This response is crucial as it enhances our survival by preparing us to react quickly in dangerous or challenging situations. Understanding this concept can help us manage our stress responses more effectively in daily life.
Being stressed out is not a dysfunction. Being stressed all the time and spending tons of energy trying to manage it, is.
Stress Management is a skill like any other. Learn the hacks from people like me, practice that new mindset and those science-backed coping skills and most importantly, remind yourself you are human like the rest of us.