Improving Your Ability To Handle Stress
Get moving. Upping your activity level is one tactic you can employ right now to help relieve stress and start to feel better. Regular exercise can lift your mood and serve as a distraction from worries, allowing you to break out of the cycle of negative thoughts that feed stress. Rhythmic exercises such as walking, running, swimming, and dancing are particularly effective, especially if you exercise mindfully .
Connect to others. The simple act of talking face-to-face with another human can trigger hormones that relieve stress when youre feeling agitated or insecure. Even just a brief exchange of kind words or a friendly look from another human being can help calm and soothe your nervous system. So, spend time with people who improve your mood and dont let your responsibilities keep you from having a social life. If you dont have any close relationships, or your relationships are the source of your stress, make it a priority to build stronger and more satisfying connections.
Engage your senses. Another fast way to relieve stress is by engaging one or more of your sensessight, sound, taste, smell, touch, or movement. The key is to find the sensory input that works for you. Does listening to an uplifting song make you feel calm? Or smelling ground coffee? Or maybe petting an animal works quickly to make you feel centered? Everyone responds to sensory input a little differently, so experiment to find what works best for you.
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Physical Signs And Symptoms Of Burnout
- Feeling tired and drained most of the time.
- Lowered immunity, frequent illnesses.
- Frequent headaches or muscle pain.
- Change in appetite or sleep habits.
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We All Fall Off Sometimes So Its Really Important To Not Beat Yourself Up Over This
Self-awareness is key.
Once you start feeling the overwhelm and stress coming in, stop. Take a break. Give yourself time to rest and recharge, so you can come back with clarity, purpose, intention, and heart.
Dont push yourself even more when youre feeling really overwhelmed, because the only thing youre pushing yourself is only a black hole of burnout. Trust me, this is a recipe for disaster.
Its okay to take a break. Its okay to take several breaks. Its okay to put yourself first and take care of your health. Self-love isn’t selfish it’s treating yourself right and also taking ownership of your actions. Both actions of doing the work and giving yourself time to rest and recover.
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Avoid Stimulants And Alcohol To Alleviate Stress
Most people turn to a variety of stimulants such as caffeine, nicotine, medication, and even alcohol as an easy cure for stress.
According to an animal study by a team of scientists at the Department of Neuroscience at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, rodents exposed to stress had a weakened alcohol-induced dopamine response and voluntarily drank more alcohol compared to controls.
This line of research has implications for people with PTSD who have an increased risk for over-consumption of alcohol and drugs, said Dr. John Dani, who led the research team.
Caffeine and nicotine are also known to increase your anxiety and stress rather than alleviate it. Thus, none of these alternatives is the sound approach to reducing stress. Instead, you should try to improve your diet and avoid stimulants as much as possible.
Prioritize The One Thing You Have To Do Today
What comes next is the pivotal moment in your escape from feeling overwhelmed.
You most likely got into the situation youre in now because it felt like most tasks carried equal importance. But they dont.
And giving reaching inbox zero the same priority as finishing the presentation for tomorrow will only send you spiraling.
Instead, you need to force yourself to prioritize your task list and then pick just one to complete. .
This feels ridiculously small. And thats the point.
Action breeds more action. And thanks to something called The Progress Principle, crossing off even small items gives us a surge of motivation and confidence. The key here is to pick a task that is manageable and that you can clearly see that youve completed.
According to Dr. Alice Boyles, the things that add stress to your day are most often tasks that arent objectively hard, but psychologically hard. Like writing an email youve been dreading or giving someone bad news.
Finishing a task you started but didnt finish is a great way to kickstart your confidence.
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Be Patient With Yourself & Your Puppy
There is no benefit in blaming yourself or your puppy theyre not targeting you with their behavior and you can only do your best. There is no easy part of training or owning a dog so give yourself a break. One day, the puppy stage will be over and you will have an older, calmer dog lazing around your home and chilling on the couch.
Keep in mind that you and your puppy are learning, so dont take your frustrations out on them. Its okay to lose your patience sometimes, that is normal, but dont make a habit out of the intimidating, spanking, yelling, or harming your puppy.
Although youve brought the puppy home, if it is not working out you, don’t feel bad if you have to return them. Youre not obligated to continue raising the dog if that means a bad environment for you, your family and the puppy. It’s obviously a hard decision to make and should not be taken lightly, but understanding that you honestly may not be the best home for them will make you both happier in the long run.
Push Back Against Perfectionism
At this point, you should have a challenging, yet manageable list of work to do and a clear path to get started. But youre not out of the woods yet.
Perfectionism is often what causes us to feel overwhelmed. The perfectionist complicates even the simplest task, leading to more work, more pressure, and more stress.
As you work yourself out of feeling overwhelmed, maintain your perspective on what really needs to get done. Here are a few tips:
- Know when good is good enough. Work in short intervals of 3060 minutes. At the end of each, look at what youve accomplished and ask is this enough?
- Accept the law of diminishing returns on your effort. Remember that at a certain point more work doesnt equal better work. When you hit a wall, ask if you really need to push through, or if this is just a sign that its time to stop.
- Ask for 30/90 feedback instead of waiting until youre 100% done. Bring in other people to help at strategic moments. Ask for high-level feedback at 30% done and more specific comments at 90% done.
- Do one thing at a time. As writer Kara Cutruzzula explains: Its hard to be overwhelmed when youre simply doing one thing at a time.
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Tip #: Try A Grounding Exercise To Connect To The Here And Now
Grounding techniques can help you anchor your mind and body to the present moment, especially when youre feeling overwhelmed. Its about feeling more attached and in tune with your current environment . To ground yourself, try to focus on relaxing your muscles using Kids Help Phones tension release exercise. You can use it anywhere, any time.
Find Something Else To Do
When you worry or feel overwhelmed, you are probably playing scenarios in your head of things that will never happen. Worrying is the negative thoughts that are taking over your brain and that are influencing how you feel.
Take a break when you notice the first signs of stress. Take a step back and ask yourself what you need, mentally and physically.
Try journaling, talking a walk outside to get some fresh air, listen to music that lifts your mood, listen to a podcast, or watch your favorite show.
Deep breathing is also a great way to calm your mind when youre anxious. Focus on how you breathe, and you will reduce stress immediately.
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Take Some Form Of Action Specifically Take Time For Yourself
Take a break. Take a breath or at least a minute to stop and breathe. Take a moment to plan. Take lunch with a coworker to talk it through. Take a meeting with your supervisor to express your frustrations . Take an entire night to sleep. Take a vacation.
Take some time for yourself.
The point is to take action to help get out from under the rut you may find yourself in. Taking a moment to distract yourself and evaluate your current situation allows you to see things more clearly.
Only then can you genuinely identify whats overwhelming you at work and then take action to address it.
Decide On One Thing You Want Your Focus On And Be Intentional About It
Okay, so after youve gone out for your break and given yourself some time away from all the noise and overwhelm, its time to get intentional and get some clarity. I havent read the book Essentialism yet, but have heard really good things about it.
So if you havent read it yet either, the gist of it is getting only the right things done. So not all those other things that you think you should do or things other people have told you were important, and I think intuition plays a really big role here.
Its a way of life and doing only the things are in essential and in alignment with our goals and beliefs, and forgoing all the other things.
Because the truth is everyone will always have their own opinion about what you should be doing, but if you focus all your energy on pleasing everyone else, youre setting yourself up for a very miserable and stressed out life. It’s like getting a corporate job that you didn’t want, but you did it to please others.
Moral of the story: Don’t do things for other people.
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What Are The Signs Of Stress
How you might feel
You may behave differently if youre stressed. You may:
- withdraw from other people or snap at them
- be indecisive or inflexible
- have problems getting to sleep or staying asleep
- experience sexual problems
- smoke, drink alcohol or take drugs more than usual.
If the stress is long-lasting, you may notice your sleep and memory are affected, your eating habits change, or you feel less inclined to exercise.
Some research has also linked long-term stress to gastrointestinal conditions like Irritable Bowel Syndrome or stomach ulcers, as well as conditions like cardiovascular disease.
Things To Do When You Feel Overwhelmed At Work
Shot of stressed business woman working from home on laptop looking worried, tired and overwhelmed.
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Many of us are in the state of a major transition: returning to the office, starting a new job or school, searching for a new job, etc. If youre feeling overwhelmed, below are five things you can do to help alleviate your anxiety and get through your day:
Make A List Of What Is Overwhelming You
Sit down and make a list of everything you need to get done personally and professionally then prioritize it. Rank everything chronologically, based on deadline, meeting time, etc. Shorten your list to what you need to get done today. This should help you identify what absolutely needs to be done today and what can wait, help to alleviate some stress and give you a sense of control.
Delegate What You Can
Examine your list and determine whether there is a task you can delegate: is there a part of a project a colleague can help with, can you get a dog walker or a baby sitter, can you get groceries delivered, is there any way a colleague could give you the cliff notes from a meeting, etc. Think about how to give yourself the time you need to execute your most urgent tasks, and whom you can reach out to for help.
Set Manageable Goals
Set Boundaries
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The Science Of Stress
Knowing how overwhelm affects the body will help you recognize when its happening and release the stress in a healthy way.
Dr. Andrew Huberman is a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. In his podcast, Huberman Lab, he explains that our bodies have hard-wired systems to manage stress.
Human beings inherited this stress response over millions of years of evolution. These highly-developed systems helped our ancestors survive treacherous, often life or death situations, like running away from a lion or hunting for food.
Overwhelm is a full-body experience
Stress is expressed through the entire nervous system, connected to the head, heart, spinal cord, and all the organs.
At the moment of stress, the sympathetic chain ganglia in the middle of your body activates. Your body releases acetylcholine, a chemical that normally helps move muscles. Other neurons respond to that reaction by releasing adrenaline .
That epinephrine activates specific parts of the body needed to respond to stressful situations, like speeding up the heart to support movement . The body focuses extra energy on the systems needed to escape danger.
At the same time, other systems take a back seat until you are safe, like digestion. Thats why you may lose your appetite before a big exam or important meeting.
The stress response tells your body to do something! or say something! It pushes you into action, a sense of agitation that makes you want to move.
If You’re At The Mercy Of Deadlines
In todays pressure-cooker work culture, many of us are racing from one target to another. Its exhausting to be perpetually under the gun, explains Pal, and it can make you feel like youre chronically falling behind. Indeed, employees who say they often or always have enough time to do their work are 70 percent less likely to experience high burnout, according to the Gallup study. You may or may not be able to control your deadlines , but most of us can optimize our schedules so we use our energyand, as a result, our timemore wisely, says Pal.
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How To Deal With Feeling Overwhelmed
When inundated with too many demands on your time and energy, it can become impossible to think clearly and act with purpose. Learning how to deal with feeling overwhelmed will empower you to reclaim a sense of calm and focus, even when nothing seems to go right.
Not all stress is harmful, and sometimes, overwhelm can be a useful challenge to your status quo if you know how to respond.
This article will show you how to deal with feeling overwhelmed so you can manage stress, maintain emotional well-being, and even turn stressful situations into powerful motivators to level up your life.
Tip #: Build Your Own Self
Prioritizing your own mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health is a key to your overall well-being. Practising a self-care routine can help you work through lifes challenges on your own / with a supportive community. If youre looking for ways to balance your mind and body, Kids Help Phones self-care checklist includes some strategies you can use to take better care of yourself when things get tough.
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What To Do When You Feel Overwhelmed
You cant just ignore stress or wish it away.
But when youre overwhelmed, your decision-making and problem-solving skills are at their worst. Its not a space from which to make big decisions like whether to quit your job or drastically change your life.
When youve regained a sense of calm, you can more effectively access the thinking, creative parts of your brain. Then, you can focus on finding solutions to the challenges and stressful situations in your life.
These strategies will help you not just manage overwhelm, but use it to motivate you in setting goals to create the life you want.
Ways To Cope With Stress And Overwhelm
Writer and Life Coach at NotesOnBliss.com
You’ve got so much to do that you don’t know where to begin. That sickly feeling of anxiety is rising. Yet you’re frozen.
Just when life demands that you be charging ahead, firing on all cylinders, actioning to-do lists and kicking goals, your old frenemy Overwhelm decides to pay you a visit. Don’t feel alone. It happens to the best of us. And there is hope.
Here are 10 effective ways to cope with stress and overwhelm from having too much to do.
1. Meditate or take a moment to be still
It sounds counterintuitive — deadlines are looming, how can you stop?
When the Dalai Lama is busy, he meditates for twice as long. This is because meditation calms the body and stills the mind. It’s been proven to reduce your anxiety and stress levels, sharpen your memory, and increase your focus.
If you’ve never meditated before, just spend a few minutes sitting in silence. A good relaxing mantra to repeat is, “I’ve got nowhere to go, nothing to do. Nowhere to go, nothing to do.”
2. Action a few quick and easy items first
It goes against the traditional wisdom of prioritizing the most significant things, but getting a few of the simplest tasks completed will shorten your terrifying to-do list, make you feel like you’re making progress, and get you back in the flow of taking action.
3. Cull or postpone anything that doesn’t really need doing
4. Set realistic goals
5. Lean on people and delegate
6. Be kind to yourself
8. Don’t multitask
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