Proceed With Caution: High Stress Levels Ahead!

By Julia M. Rahn, Ph.D.

Are you one of many individuals who have read good articles on how to manage stress?  Do you say to yourself, “yes this makes sense and I should practice some of those techniques”?  Maybe you have even tried for a minute or two or a full day to keep the suggestions alive.  Nonetheless, somehow life keeps happening and your attempts at stress management fall to the end of the priority list.  You say to yourself, “When I have time, I will try again”. 

The fact is this is a common experience for most professionals even though everyone knows that unmanaged stress is never a good thing.  Decreased productivity, poor co-worker relations, increased absenteeism due to needing a “mental health day” or to take care of a physical illness are just a few of the red flag consequences of unmanaged stress.   All of these negative outcomes originate from individuals not taking care of themselves when stress levels begin to increase but wait until their stress is at Level Red to do something about it.  Time and energy are then spent managing the consequence of high stress levels, often causing more stress and more negative consequences. 

Imagine the positive outcomes if everyone knew their individual stress signs (Yellow Flags) and did just one or two small behaviors to counteract crashing into Level Red?  Not only would productivity and intra-office relations improve, but bothersome mental and physical health symptoms would also decrease.  Before anyone attempts to change behavior, however, they must know their own Yellow Flags that indicate danger zone ahead.  Here are some known and little known Yellow Flags indicating a crash is impending:

• Early morning (3 or 4 a.m.) awakening

• Eating that “oh I shouldn’t” piece of candy found in your coworker’s candy dish

• Feeling on edge most of the day

• Feeling like you are walking through molasses on your way to work

• Hitting the snooze button 10-15 times each morning

• Procrastinating on important projects

• Drinking that “oh I shouldn’t” extra glass of wine at night

Once these signs are acknowledged there are many proven techniques to prevent Level Red breakdown that also gives you better chance at managing your stress, come out of it feeling healthy, productive, and empowered.   Here are five techniques you or your employees could actually do, starting today, often with immediately stress reducing results. 

1.   Remember to Breathe.  Breathe by directing air into your diaphragm and extending your belly, then hold it a second or two, and then slowly let all of the air out your mouth or nose.  Repeat 3-5 times.  Breathing in this way will help slow your thoughts down, clear your mind, and get more oxygen into your system to help you work more effectively.

2.   Say a simple mantra to yourself.  No you don’t have OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), if you repeat over and over “yes I can”, “I can stay calm” or “stress is manageable”.  You can also pick words that are meaningful just to you.  This strategy really works to start changing negative self-talk into productive self-talk.

3.   Take a walk around the block.  It will help your mind switch tracks from focusing on the problem to figuring out a solution.  To stay in solution-focused mode, it is believed that exercising at least 20 minutes a day will keep those neurons firing productively. 

4.   Complete a mini Progressive Muscle Relaxation protocol at your desk.  Pick various muscle tensing activities, such as pointing your toes toward head, clenching your fists, and raising your shoulders to your ears.  Separately, tighten each muscle grouping for 30 seconds and then release, feeling the difference between tensing and relaxing.  Once you stop tensing, your body wants to relax and will assist you in helping these specific muscles to relax which also promotes overall body and mind relaxation. 

5.   Draw circles.  By any chance do you find yourself getting frustrated while sitting in a meeting and are not in the mood to think positively, can’t leave and go for a walk, and have already tried the breathing and are still frustrated?   One last resort before blowing your cool is to just take your pen to paper and draw circles.  The process of actively doing something in your control plus the symbolic representation of the circle (i.e. wholeness and completeness) should be enough to get you through to the end of the meeting.  Of course, after the meeting it is suggested you take a walk, remembering to breathe deeply in order to process out the built up stress effects from the meeting.

As you can see, stress management can be simple.  Now that you know these five helpful stress management techniques, you only have one decision to make.  You can either commit to a few minutes a day of conscious practice of these stress management techniques or you can continue to avoid acknowledging your Yellow Flags that indicate you are not managing your stress levels.  You have a choice to stay healthy and happy in the fast lane with green lights ahead or crash and burn from hitting stress alert - Level Red and suffering through the related consequences.  It is your choice.  Please choose wisely.

Read other articles and learn more about Julia M. Rahn.

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