De-Stress and Turn the Page, Part 1

Managing Acute Financial Stress Starts with Becoming Aware of Your Stress Responses

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot about how therapists can effectively treat and help suffering people manage Acute Financial Stress (AFS) here, here and here. Money has been causing people to feel chronic anxiety, depression, isolation and hopelessness, and we haven’t been doing all that we could to help them. So I’d like to offer a series of ways to approach thinking about AFS.

This article is adapted from a talk I recently gave, so it’s a bit interactive. Go grab a pencil and piece of paper. You won’t regret it.

Public Speaking is Terrifying

For me, stress and anxiety spike when I think about speaking in public. Though I’ve been teaching for 20 years, I still get nervous. My heart rate increases. I get sweaty. My thoughts jangle in my mind. And I have the impulse to run, thus embarrassing myself but avoiding the dreaded feeling of being the center of attention.

Knowing this is my standard reaction to speaking to a new audience, I’ve developed a five-step trick that helps me to both introduce my topic and carry me through those early jitters.

1. Open the talk by announcing I feel nervous
2. Ask the audience for help easing my anxiety
3. Reading their faces in response to my request (there’s always a wide variety of reactions to this)
4. Before they answer, ask them to stop and take note of how they felt about my request
5. Talk about those initial feelings as a group

(time to grab your pen and paper or other note taking device)

So I want you to do this too. Ask yourself:

• What feeling does this bring up for you?
• What opinions or judgment do you have when asked to help someone?
• What’s your first impulse?
• How would you respond when someone asks you to help them?

Take your time. Really think about your answers, write them down, and we’ll get back to them in a second.

Reducing Stress Starts From Inside

Everyone you know will answer these questions differently. We’re all wired to react in our own ways to the same stimuli. Some people felt annoyed, while others were sympathetic. Some want to dive in to help, while others want to step back. And because our answers can vary wildly to such minor situations, imagine how different our responses could be when the stakes are higher.

A healthy response starts by creating a deeper understanding of how we interact with our environment and the conflicts that arise in it, both externally and in our own minds.

Through a tiny bit of self-examination, you now may be able to understand yourself better. “In a situation like X, this is how I tend to respond. I can accept it or try to grow through it.” This is at the heart of our emotional responses to life stresses. A healthy response starts by creating a deeper understanding of how we interact with our environment and the conflicts that arise in it, both externally and in our own minds. Examining all of this starts with knowing yourself, choosing your actions and having a voice.

Self-Knowledge is Power

As a clinical psychologist, I’m often working with people who don’t know themselves as well as others know them. It’s this lack of self-knowledge that can lead to so much of the stress we experience each day. Knowing how to reduce stress is the difference between living a life of calm, peace and satisfaction — even less disease — versus living at the margins of your sanity, always feeling a day late and a dollar short.

Life confronts us with dozens of potentially stressful episodes every day and being your own advocate — knowing yourself at your core — enables you to keep stress in check and act in your own best interests as often as possible.

I’m sorry to say there’s no magic wand to remove all stress from your life because it’s a process that takes time. But learning a few tools has been invaluable to me and, hopefully, to my patients.

Identifying Your Stressors

In general, we feel unhealthy stress when demands upon us exceed our perceived resources. Consider these experiences:

• You have 8 hours of work and 4 hours to do it.
• You’re trying to serve the needs of people who are in opposition to you or to each other.
• You’re under-stimulated.
• You’re over-stimulated.
• The day is short. There isn’t enough time, and you feel as though you’re failing your family, your job, yourself or your expectations.

The psychology of stress comes straight from the activation of the autonomic nervous system, meaning our hormone levels remain high and our cardiovascular system works overtime, which leads to problems physically, emotionally and mentally. Over time, stress weakens all the systems in our body, and in the short term, we all know how it feels to be stressed out. Like with any system, stress changes how we feel, react and behave, so make note of which of these symptoms you’ve experienced in the past:

Cognitive

• Memory problems
• Inability to concentrate
• Poor judgment
• Seeing only the negative
• Anxious or racing thoughts
• Constant worrying

Emotional

• Moodiness
• Irritability or a short temper
• Agitation or an inability to relax
• Feeling overwhelmed
• A sense of loneliness or isolation
• Depression or general unhappiness

Physical

• Aches and pains
• Digestive problems
• Nausea and dizziness
• Chest pain or a rapid heartbeat
• Loss of sex drive
• Frequent colds

Behavioral Symptoms

• Eating more or less than usual
• Sleeping too much or too little
• Isolating yourself from others
• Procrastinating or neglecting your responsibilities
• Using alcohol, tobacco or drugs to relax
• Nervous habits like pacing or nail biting
• Hyper-vigilance

Chances are, you’ve had more than a few of these, and, as I mentioned earlier, being aware of these responses is the first step to reducing the stress your feel. Sometimes just seeing the sum total of what we’re dealing with is powerful.

Take a moment to think about how your assortment of symptoms is impacting your life. At first, it can feel overwhelming, but that’s part of the process of addressing our stresses. Becoming more self-aware will provide some immediate comfort from the feelings of stress produced by recognizing stress in our lives.

In my next piece, you’ll find solutions and exercises that have helped some of my patients, but the first order of business is to begin thinking about these things in your own life and how they affect you.