How often do you experience overwhelm, stress, anxiety or burnout during your working week?

That's the question I asked professional women on LinkedIn via a poll over the last week. Over 120 women voted.

The results are alarming

Overall, just over 80% of the working women who responded identified that they experience feelings of overwhelm, stress, anxiety or burnout at least two or three times a week and almost a third indicated that they felt like that every day of the working week. That's huge!

Before I set up the poll, I knew career wellbeing was at risk.

I have been running workshops and individual coaching sessions for professionals of any gender whose careers are under pressure because of stress, anxiety and burnout for several years now.

Like many, I had read?a BBC article on the topic in 2021?which reported that women were under greater pressure than men. It seemed a likely outcome given that we were in the pandemic at the time, and working women still traditionally take on more of the caring responsibilities and associated life admin than men.

Being triggered by a pandemic hit our collective wellbeing hard. Add to that the ongoing war in Ukraine, and now the conflict in Gaza in the headlines and having to navigate our way through a virulent cost of living crisis amidst political and public sector turmoil and unrest and technological disruption, and it's little wonder that levels of stress, anxiety, overwhelm and burnout are persistently and perniciously high.

I wanted to test a theory

I wanted to see if working women were any less stressed. Though my poll on LinkedIn is just a small litmus test and not scientifically robust, it does indicate that things are definitely not any better.

As?Ruby Wax said on the Laura Kuenssberg show?last weekend (6 mins 10 secs onwards), our exposure to the war in Gaza, in particular, tips us into fight, flight, or freeze mode as the ancient programming of our amygdala's response to threats kicks in.

Once triggered, men's and women's brains don't cope well and leave us in a state of stress and overwhelm. As my mindfulness/meditation teacher would say, "We need to move from a triggered state to one where we can rest and digest."

So how can we do this?

Using the power of micro-breaks

The first thing to remember is what we constantly forget as women: you can't pour from an empty cup. Yet, we continue to put everyone else and everything else before our own needs pretty well all the time. It's little wonder that we feel locked in a battle against time and the fear of failure most of the time.

Being in a state of fight or flight is not good for our bodies or our careers as it makes our responses to even mild events or comments from colleagues so much more robust and emotionally laden than if we had been feeling calm.

This is where the power of a micro-break comes into its own.

Even five minutes just sitting quietly somewhere you won't be disturbed when it all feels too much can make a world of difference.

Doing some?belly breathing?with your focus on the lower part of your body and letting your weight sink into the chair while feeling your feet firmly on the ground will help a dysregulated nervous system come back into alignment so your sympathetic and parasympathetic systems work in harmony again.

Counting your breath can also help.

Simply get comfortable, again letting your weight sink into your chair and feeling your feet on the floor. Set your timer to five minutes, and then count one as you breathe in, then two as you breathe out and so forth up to ten without forcing it. I find that counting after the breath has started keeps me focussed on the whole breath itself, which usually stops my mind from wandering.

If a thought does interrupt you, however, let it pass like a cloud in the sky, start at one again and repeat for as many cycles as fit in the remaining time without any pressure.

By the time your timer goes off, you will almost certainly find yourself back in balance, feeling like your internal weather is brighter and feeling human again.

The relationship between time and being present

Every time that I get triggered by events, and then come back to that point of balance, I feel like I have time again and the sense of panic has been replaced by a sense of being fully present. My attention is on the now, rather than remembering something that went badly in the past or imaging a disaster or other unintended outcome in the future.

When we are calm and relaxed, our brains work to support us. We feel less tired and stressed and have more in the tank for the rest of life at the end of the day. We are also much less inclined to reach for a drink or chocolate in search of a hit of dopamine to help us feel better about life - and that's got to be good for our health!

So next time you feel triggered, as the jazz musician Dave Brubeck would have recommended,?"Take Five"?and simply count your way back to balance.

Wishing you a calm and productive week!

Best wishes

Carolyn

PS If I can help you with any aspect of your career and its wellbeing,?let's have a virtual coffee?and make a plan together.