What do you do if your stress levels are skyrocketing as an entrepreneur?

If stress as an entrepreneur shoots up, it's vital to pause. Step back, breathe, and prioritise self-care. Delegate tasks, set realistic goals, and seek support from mentors or peers. Engage in relaxation techniques like meditation or exercise. Remember, your well-being fuels business success.

Entrepreneurs are strange creatures! Everyone has ups and down. But for entrepreneurs the swings back and forth can feel way more extreme because they have more riding on every success and failure. We have our identities, our financial futures, and often our images of ourselves resting on how our ventures perform. Employees certainly feel ups and downs, but rarely will an employee feel the success of the whole businesses resting on his/her shoulders. So when identifying sources of stress, an entrepreneur must recognize that the weight on individual stressors is often heavier than the thing itself. Work not just to deal with stress, but to take care of your sense of identity through good relational support outside of your business.

In my experience as a psychologist, if you are an entrepreneur, you may find it useful to distinguish between "stressors" and "stress response". Stressors are those factors in the venture that can operate as a threat to the success of the venture. They demand your energy and time and make it difficult to achieve your goals. The response to these stressors is the reaction that each entrepreneur has to the problems or stressors. The more you learn about "how you react to stress" the better you will tolerate the pressure load of entrepreneurship. Above all, you will see when it is healthy to continue with the business and when it is not.

Usually, a mentor or support is needed in one form or another. As the thoughts and thinking patterns are already skewed to cause distress and self-sabotage. So before the actual break down, one needs the right mentoring and support!

Chronic stress can shift and keep you stuck in either the sympathetic (think, anxious or on edge) or dorsal vagal (think procrastination or fatigued) nervous system states. Or it can having you swinging between the two! Generic relaxation practises aren’t helpful in every nervous system state. Being able to quickly self-assess your nervous system state and having a ready toolkit of practices for each state will be extremely beneficial for an entrepreneur. Think of these practices as a skill. A skill that will not only alleviate your current chronic stress but also elevate your resilience on your entrepreneurial journey.

In my personal and professional experience the key to manage stress is the tools in your toolbox. Beginning with awareness that your stress levels are rising. What you can you do to befriend the feeling not push against it. Accept it, acknowledge you are feeling this way, then ask yourself, "what is the best way to manage this stress right now?" Sometimes it could be a nice walk, but maybe you don't have time for that. Then maybe a mindful pause to connect to the present moment and connect with breath is a better option. One of my favorite statements to say to myself is "I breathe in peace, I breathe out peace." To close, it is about taking action to care for yourself.

In my experience, literally blocking out time on your calendar for massages, vacations or just straight “off the grid” disconnected downtime is crucial to your long term health and success. What good is all the money in the world if your body is broken down and tired and you can’t enjoy the fruits of your labors?

I believe that the main bonds that have to be healthy in a startup are those that the founder has with his work team. To be able to face the permanent tension, typical of a entrepreneurship, it is necessary: (a) psychological security (to be able to take interpersonal risks with divergent ideas), b) efficient meeting methodologies (for satisfactory communication), and c) high levels of emotional intelligence in the members of the venture. This facilitates healthy relationships.

Founders often feel alone. It is key that they have support groups, individual therapy, and empathetic understanding in other relationships outside of work. Many times, the founder's focus is only on making the venture work and does not look so much at his exhaustion, his available resources or the other vital spaces that he leaves unattended because he is full-life for the project. That is why the feedback from other significant people helps to balance.

As an entrepreneur, there will always be something tugging at you and demanding attention. In such a scenario it becomes imperative to ensure optimal physical and mental energy. 1. Always prioritize work based on- Urgent and important Urgent but not important Important but not urgent Neither urgent nor important This simple categorization takes away the frenzy and stress related to feeling overwhelmed with too many things at one time. 2. Discipline- bringing discipline into your daily routine and incorporating self care practices such as Yoga, breathwork, workouts, journaling etc not just avoid stress build up but also prepare you better to handle it.

One of the best ways I’ve found to turn stress into resilience is by increasing the window of tolerance of my nervous system through stress biohacking. From having severe anticipatory anxiety to confidently taking corporate workshops, learning to work with my interoceptive signs has been a game-changer for me.

From my point of view, we should all create a regular circle by doing cardio (running w a sustainable technic), some moves (depends on your spine structure, height) then a session of sauna, finally a cold shower.At the morning glucose should be taken from seasonal fruit(sugar is out of equation rest of the day.) + tahina should be taken at least three spoon. The rest is based on the practices, awareness in the moments. By practicing, you obtain a solution reflex. As a sum, I am able to explain in that way. Hope to be helpful to someone or more :)