Stress can get the better of us.

Even as a mental health practitioner, I wasn’t immune.

I have struggled with stress and burnout a lot over the last few years. 

Triggered by lockdown and then the ongoing challenges of running a small business. Learning how to do everything from basic bookkeeping and accounting, tax compliance, human resources, marketing advertising while also continuing to learn and grow as a therapist. 

I was doing all this while completing my Family Therapy Masters during that time and training in EMDR and Couples Therapy.

Like that wasn’t enough, I was also working on growing the podcast This Complex Life and starting a YouTube channel, while also growing The Therapy Hub team. It was safe to say I had much to stress about.

I lost sleep or would sleep too much and never feel rested, and my physical and mental health declined. I was cranky and irritable and it was a real struggle at times.

So I had to practice some of the tools that I teach my clients and find a few new ones for myself.

Stress is normal, we need some stress to motivate us and activate us to do things. I hit the books and read the burnout book by Emily Nagoski, Ph.D. and Amelia Nagoski. I’ve done a little summary of one of the key parts of the book, the stress cycle. You can view it here. Turns out prolonged stress or too much stress or stress where we don’t complete the stress cycle,  can lead us to feel cranky, tired, overwhelmed, and can have a number of physical and mental health impacts.

What are some ways that we can reduce the overall levels of stress? 

One of the best ways is to reduce our exposure.

For example: when we wake up, we check our phones. We might start responding to emails. We might have an email that means we’ve had to change what we had planned for the day, all of this can happen within a few moments. Before we know it, we can be drawn into the days stress before we’ve even had our morning coffee.

Are we working towards thriving, or just trying to decide which balls to drop? 

What are all the sources of stress? You can write them down all the things that you think about in a day all the stresses that come your way and then on the same piece of paper, write down two or three ways that you cause other people to stress take a moment to think about that

Stress has a way of coming back around to us. If we are so angry that we yell at our partner, then they might withdraw and then we don’t understand why they have withdrawn from us? Or a parent being so stressed if they’re ignoring or dismissing their child and then wondering why they doen’t have a connection with them or trust them or share things with them. A boss causing a colleague so much stress that they leave, the boss has to spend more time and effort and energy finding a replacement. It all comes back around.

I didn’t want to keep myself in this loop. Being so stressed I don’t sleep well, then I’m too tired to exercise and then I feel groggy all day. Or I’m forgetful and frantic and make mistakes that pile up and I have to fix them at a later date.  The cycle continues and can feel never-ending. 

So I tried to break it. 

7. ways I’m trying to reduce my stress 

1. Auto ordering frequently used household items such as veggie box,  auto delivery dog food, coffee subscription, etc
2. Unsubscribing from a number of newsletters that make me feel like I’m missing out on something. Choosing instead which organisations to follow or bookmark the page so I can choose what events are interesting to me.
3. Listening to fewer educational podcast and switching to music, having more walks without any stimulation.
4. Not checking my emails, first thing in the morning
5. Outsourcing and being okay with it. Done is better than perfect or progress over perfection (you may notice there are several typos in some of my newsletters as I tried to get things out on time, and not worry about double checking are triple checking things)
6. Asking for help, with practical things like help walking the dog or asking a friend to meet me in a location that makes it a little bit easier for me sometimes, or even asking someone else to take the pressure off by choosing a location for our next dinner, taking the lead on planning our next catch up
7. Booking in my diary the times that I go to the gym and do yoga. This means it’s harder for my workday to get out of control and gives me time to switch off and do something. I enjoy instead of continuing to work on things that may bring little return on that time investment. I don’t think I’ve ever regretted a gym session or a yoga class.

I’d love to hear from you, what do you do to reduce stress?