Mental Health Topics

STRESS MANAGEMENT: SMALL CHANGES WORK BEST
© 2001 Wilmington Family Counseling Service, Inc.

As we enter the new century and look back at the 20th, one of the greatest changes for the individual person is an excelleration of stress. Our economy has shifted from agrarian to industrial to technological. With those changes the speed of our lives has increased to reflect the speed of the microchip. During the 90's work stress has soared as many corporations have been forced to downsize to stay competitive in our booming economy. Those whose jobs were not eliminated are expected to do more.

In addition, the United States passed Japan in 1999 to become the country in which people work the most hours at their jobs. At the same time as stress has increased, people's support systems have dwindled. Although many labor and time saving devices such as microwaves and washing machines have made homemaking easier over the century, do they offset the trend to families with all adults working and no housewives to do the care taking? Although mid-century predictions were for robots who would pick up the slack, no robotic housewives have become a reality.

As the pace of our lives have increased, we have sought respite from stress too often in substances which we imagine will relieve our symptoms but often times only add to them. Mind-altering substances like alcohol, pot, coke, and others may give a passing sense of relief or even euphoria. Nicotine and caffeine may keep us wired, so we feel we can push ourselves to do more. Food from chips and candy bars to hamburgers and pizza may become our reward system as well as another short-cut by using fast-food meals to save time from making home-cooked ones.

Below are listed some specific suggestions for small changes that may make a difference in your stress level over time.

If you find yourself drinking alcohol every day, break that habit by declaring one day a week your 'dry day' and gradually adding to that sober span.
If you are feeling stress because of your body image, work to cut back on the fat you eat by leaving butter off your vegetables or using low-fat sour cream on your baked potato.
Find some time to be alone with your thoughts every day - preferably a few times a day for even five minutes. Relax deeply, forget work and other stresses, and use pleasant thoughts or images to refresh your mind. Put a small colored dot in the center of your watch to remind yourself, especially when you are feeling time pressure, to take this time for yourself. Or hang a photo or poster on your office wall which triggers peaceful, relaxing feelings.
If you are drifting along in troublesome situations, take action to improve them. Do everything you can to rehabilitate a 'bad' marriage or give yourself permission to end it. "Staying together for the kids" often means raising them in conflict and modeling negative behavior for them. Let go of friends who lead you into trouble or are not really friends after all. Leaving troubling situations unresolved means chronic stress which wears away your health and peace of mind.
Work on your relationship with your boss so that you understand his or her problems, and he or she understands yours. Teach your boss to respect your capabilities and workload so that together you can keep assignments and deadlines reasonable.
If you are in a supervisory role, make sure you know how to delegate effectively. Start by looking at today's workload to see what could have been passed on to someone else whose job it probably should have been anyway.
If you are not in a supervisory role, study your responsibilities and suggest ways to streamline tasks or routines to reduce your stress and save your company time and money.
Use time-management skills to list tasks needing your attention and prioritize them. The list may help to organize your time so that the most urgent items are handled first and none are forgotten. As items are crossed off the list, a sense of accomplishment replaces feeling overwhelmed by scattered demands. As simple as it seems, it is important to remember that you only can do one thing at a time.
Find a way to increase your activity level because exercise releases different chemicals in your brain, increases your metabolism to help you burn calories to lose weight, and improves your cardio-vascular system. If you frame going to the health club as taking time to be good to yourself rather than as an unpleasant chore, you will look forward to going rather than finding rationalizations for missing it. Choose an activity that you enjoy and start slowly for short periods of time. At work, take a walk with a friend at lunch or even walk around the building as a break from your usual routine.
Explore new experiences as a way to rejuvenate yourself. Mid-life crises often are precipitated by a sense of not having used one's life as one had dreamed. Don't postpone those dreams. Find even small ways of giving yourself a sense of discovery by doing things you have never done or going places you have never seen.

Stress unfortunately can be debilitating to our families and other relationships as well as ourselves. A recent book, Ask the Children: What America's Children Really Think About Working Parents, reveals that children do not long for more time with their parents they long for us to be less tired and less pressured or to make more money so we'll feel less stress. It's amazing how aware they are of how our stress impacts their lives.

In the new century we cannot hope to eliminate stress, but you personally can choose to adopt one or more of these suggestions to manage your own stress more effectively. Often times making changes -- even small ones -- is hard to do on your own. Services are available to learn how to cope with stress better, change troublesome situations, or change substance use habits which now contribute to your stress. For these and other suggestions regarding stress, read:

Karl Albrect; Stress and the Manager
James Quick; Preventive Stress Management in Organizations
Beverly Potter; The Worrywart's Companion

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