Coping with Stress
Stress During the Pandemic
The UK’s NHS (National Health Service) has a guide to dealing with stress from Professor Cary Cooper from the Occupational Health unit at the University of Lancaster. He says, “The keys to good stress management are building emotional strength, being in control of your situation, having a good social network, and adopting a positive outlook.”
Professor Cary Cooper’s top 10 tips for stress relief are as follows:
1. Be Active
2. Take Control
3. Connect with Other People
4. Have ‘me’ time
5. Challenge Yourself
6. Avoid unhealthy Habits
7. Help Other People
8. Work Smarter, not Harder
9. Try to be Positive
10. Accept the Things you can’t Change
Read the full ‘Stress Buster’ article
This is all far easier said than done though – I am guilty of letting everything go out the window when I’m stressed. In writing this blog I’m looking for advice on how to stay strong and remain in control when the going gets tough… answers on a postcard please!
Stress can affect the body in so many different ways and can manifest itself in ways you may not expect, both physically and mentally. Hair falling out, unable to sleep or sleeping too much, blisters, hives, aching bones, brain fog. These are just some of the more well-known symptoms. I myself, have three auto-immune diseases, Coeliac disease, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and Rheumatoid Arthritis and it’s like walking a daily tightrope when trying to retain some semblance of equilibrium. I know immediately when stress is taking its toll on me. Apart from the flare ups in my auto immune I get really clumsy and drop things, I can’t sleep, and my mind goes into overdrive resulting in huge black bags under my eyes. Then I struggle to get out of bed in the morning. It feels compulsive though, that I need to keep up the overthinking, I almost feel like I need the adrenalin to get me through the stressful periods in my life.
The irony with all this is that I know perfectly well what makes me feel good, what helps me to deal with stress and yet when things are busy and stressful in my life these are always, without fail, the first things to go. It is perhaps the way I grew up and a testament somehow to my work ethic that my work will always come first and health and wellbeing second. I had an incredibly interesting discussion with a likeminded coach this morning and we both agreed that perhaps we should be trying to instil mindfulness and wellbeing from a much earlier age in order that children grow up with a different mindset. And it struck me that ‘mindset’ is the key word here.
If we teach our children to be more balanced, to know the difference between fixed vs. growth mindsets, to incorporate daily yoga, meditation, visualisations and positive affirmations into their daily lives perhaps then it won’t be such a struggle for them as they get older and have to deal with exam stress and everything that is to follow for them.
I as an adult, along with the vast majority of the population, am going to have to get better at this – especially if we stand a chance of competing in a new post -pandemic world.
When things get busy – do you immediately ditch your yoga class for overtime in the office? When you are stressed do you immediately reach for the chocolate and send your diet out of the window?
I do yoga as a way of coping not only with my auto-immune conditions but also as a means of coping with stress. I am not doing it enough though and I know it. My yoga teacher often says that you don’t have to be doing a full-length class daily, just ten minutes a day is enough. That’s a change of mindset which is needed to be able to do that.
Tips on staying motivated when the going gets tough
1. Consciously decide what your mindset is to be. If you make a conscious decision to prioritise your own health and wellbeing, plan for it, set goals for it and then stick to them. Get yourself an accountability partner – that is somebody who will go to the gym with you, or who will force you out of your pyjamas and into that Zoom quiz no matter how much you can’t be bothered!
2. Block time in your diary for things that make you feel good. Don’t just block it and then allow it to become double booked! If it were a meeting with your CEO you wouldn’t double book it, so why do you allow it to happen when it’s something for you?
3. Move. Even if you have got a deadline to meet and you do have to physically spend more time at your laptop – remember to move. Get up and move every so often – I am guilty of getting stuck into work to the point where I forget to move for hours. It’s unlikely that you’re going to hit your step count on office days like this – but it’s unrealistic to think that you might. Don’t put that kind of pressure on yourself. Try doing some Office exercises for 10 minutes a day!
4. Try not to hit the refined sugar to help you cope. This is my big nemesis – as soon as I feel stressed, I can feel my sugar levels fluctuating so I reach for chocolate. I have learned to try to keep as consistent a diet as possible for me to stay relatively less stressed. Eating more sugar actually makes me feel a million times worse in the long run.
5. On a similar note, I gave up caffeine 13 years ago and apart from the odd green tea I don’t have any caffeine in my diet at all. I highly recommend it because then you can’t use it as a crutch. Try to find a natural substitute for that buzz you get from your morning coffee.
6. Make a conscious effort to find things that make you feel good and can destress you without becoming a burden. If you don’t know what that is yet, then plan to try new things as soon as this pandemic is over – how about rock climbing? Knitting? Photography? Gardening? I’m planning to learn macramé at some point…so watch this space!
This is definitely something I personally struggle with and from conversations I’ve had recently, I think we all do at some point. So I would love to hear how you deal with stress in your daily lives. And, please feel free to get in touch if you need someone to talk to. It’s OK to say you’re not OK.