How to build a healthy relationship with Stress

How to build a healthier relationship with stress

The last two years has illuminated the fragile mental health of Australians. Recently the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released their?First insights from the National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing,?report. Some of the findings were:?

• 15% of Australians (and more women) experienced high or very high levels of psychological distress
• 3.4 million Australians saw a health professional for their mental health
• 612,000 Australians accessed other services for their mental health via phone or digital technologies
• many Australians (61%) took actions to help manage their mental health
• 15% of Australians felt lonely in the previous four weeks

In my corporate practice many people I work with, including highly successful Executives, feel a sense of shame or failure for needing help with managing stress and their mental health.

Stress and why we can’t avoid it.?From a recent survey I conducted on what impacts being a happier and healthier leader, one of the top responses was concern about how to the manage stress and anxiety for themselves and their teams. Stress and anxiety is normal for most, particularly during a time of uncertainty and change when we believe we no longer have the skills, resources or support we need to cope and survive. However, we cannot avoid stress, as we also need stress to survive.?

Did you know there is good stress??It is called Eustress. Eustress is what motivates us to get out of the bed in the morning, to go to work, get paid, so we can have a roof over our heads and food to eat. Eustress is also what we experience when we believe we have the skills, resources and support we need to overcome difficult goals and people. Distress, is the negative type of stress, that we tend to just call ‘stress’. This is when we no longer believe we have the skills, resources and support we need. If you reflect back on the past 2 years, how many times can you recall feeling you didn’t have the skills, resources or support to; do your job, support colleagues, be there for family and friends, pay suppliers or employees, navigate interest rate rises, have a proper break, the list goes on!

So what do we do about it? How do we build a healthier relationship with stress?

Shame or believing you have failed and ‘should’ be able to cope, is relating to your stress with critical judgement and negativity. This ‘relationship’ with you stress also tends to make stress bigger, and hang around longer. You are better off learning to relate to your stress with curiosity and kindness, which loosens the hold stress has over your mind, and body!?

However, most of us find this a challenge, as somewhere along the way we have learnt that we need to just ‘toughen up’ or ‘take a chill pill’ (metaphorically and literally), or ‘focus on the positive’. Sometimes this approach works in the short-term, while the following steps will help build a long-term - healthier relationship with distress.

Step 1: Recognise the different between shame and uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Even if you don’t want to admit to someone else you are not coping, admit it to yourself, and with some kindness and acceptance. You are human after all. Without uncomfortable feelings like worry, frustration and stress we cannot appreciate the more comfortable feelings of joy, success and calm.?

Step 2: Write, write, write. Heaps of research that shows that writing down our worries, allows our mind to process these, instead of pushing them aside, and sometimes by writing them down it can reveal some solutions. I often suggest to my clients to right their worries with the hand they normally write with and then swop it with the other hand for the solution.?Using your opposite hand means you have to slow down, think about what you are writing and can also trigger creative problem solving.

Step 3: Move your body. Physical activity stimulates hormones that help mediate distress, and not just after the workout. Twenty to thirty minutes of intense exercise such as jogging on a treadmill, cycling, swimming, running, aerobic type class, can also help to sustain a more positive mood over the day.?

Step 4: Gratitude practice. Yep, this really works. Again, lots of research that suggests that having gratitude can also mediate worry, frustration and stress. Try writing down 3 things you are grateful for every day. It can be as simple as your first coffee, patting your pet, seeing the sunshine, a cuddle with a loved one. Those of you with kids, might like to try this at meal times and go around the table, where everyone has to share at least one thing they are grateful for. Distress and gratitude cannot reside together in your mind.

Step 5: Try Mindfulness

I could do a whole article on this one!?Mindfulness practice increases wellbeing in CEOs.?Mindfulness helps relax us in the moment but over time (usually 10 minutes a day over 8 weeks) helps us build resilience towards negative thinking about ourselves and the world.??I often call this your kryptonite for your negative self-talk.?

Step 6: Get support. This can be a friend, mentor, GP, counsellor or coach. There is NO shame is asking for help. In fact asking for help demonstrates courage, self-awareness and a willingness to not only improve resilience for yourself, you are also leading by example.?

Margie Ireland is the author of?The Happy Healthy Leader – how to achieve your potential even during a crisis.?Margie is a registered Psychologist, Leadership Coach & Researcher, and Speaker, highly sought after to help Leaders and their teams navigate stress and change with healthier coping strategies, leading to happier, healthier and high-performing teams. For more information visit?www.margieireland.com