Whether it’s a one-off episode, short-term stressors, or long-term mental health challenges, healing is a journey. Here are five ways to build healing from stress into your life right now – and cope better next time it comes around.
A few weeks ago, I was filming a segment for the DiscoverE Global Marathon webinar I’m participated in. It was a new experience for me, but the biggest big takeaway? How draining it was to speak about (and relive) my mental health issues last year.
Whether it’s a one-off episode, short-term stressors, or long-term mental health challenges, healing is a journey. It’s a series of choices to cultivate a life you can thrive in, and cope when shit happens.
There will be ups and downs. There’s no perfect, there’s only progress.
Women in the workplace are particularly susceptible to stress and anxiety, as we need to work even harder to show up strong despite stereotypes, prove-it-again bias, and paper-cut-like microaggressions prolific in the corporate world.
Constant and incremental healing is critical to prevent the overwhelm and disrupt the downward spiral.
Here’s my tips on how to do it:
- Predict and plan. If you don’t have a weekly planning ritual, start one. Lay out what’s coming, assess where you may need some care, and build it in. This can be preventative, like a weekly workout routine (for me working out is 100% about mental health over what I look like… ok maybe like 80%); or can be specific to a week, like scheduling an evening of alone time in a week with multiple networking events.
- Know the signs. Know how stress feels in your body, because your body will react before your brain understands what’s coming. This will come up again and again from me: your body is your ultimate mental health barometer. It could be a brain haziness or inability to focus, it could be a tension in your chest or a sinking in your gut, your jaw might be a little tighter or your shoulders a little higher. Know the signs of stress, and make choices to intercept it.
Speaking of choices…
- Say No. No is the most powerful word in your mental health toolkit. Even more powerful than “Help”, because “No” can prevent you from needing it. If you find you are driving towards a blazing inferno, you stop. If you are heading towards a stress episode, you stop. I recognize we can’t say no to everything; work still needs to get done, kids still need to be picked up, a girl’s gotta eat; but there are always choices you can make to unload your stressors. For me this was a networking event I had planned on Tuesday evening. I was looking forward to it, but recognizing where I was heading I made the choice to say No. And no-one died.
- Have a self-care SOS kit (that actually recharges you). Here’s a more tactical tip. Get out a notebook and write down the things that make you smile, things that relax you, and things that energize you. Not things that numb you out. Gather what you can and put it in a beautiful box. A journal, candle, essential oils. If cooking calms you down, put a favourite recipe in, if it’s a hot bath, get an extra special bath bomb. For everything else just have a self care “to do” list, like having a cup of tea, calling your mum, or looking cat videos on the internet (hi!).
- Know that it’s OK not to feel OK all the time. Healing is a journey and there will be ups and downs. Don’t beat yourself up for letting yourself get stressed, feel it, appreciate it, learn from it, and make choices to help you get back to OK.
Stress and trauma creates changes that you don’t choose. Healing is about creating changes that you do choose – patently, powerfully, every day, one step at a time.