Stress Management

This post is a window to my soul. You can see firsthand my geekiness and the systematic ways in which I work through stress and depression and personal problems. I let you see my own personal therapy methods. Part 2: Stress Management

To continue the story about how I have been dealing with difficult and stressful situations in my life recently let me tell you the story of ‘Stress Management Diary’.

The podcast about stress management that I was listening to on the flight on my way back to Japan hit me with its relevance to my recent stress problems. Even though I was relaxing and half asleep, I forced myself to rummage in my cabin luggage to find a pen and a piece of paper and I frantically started to take notes.

This podcast turned out to be my saviour. It provided me with tools that I was able to use to beat the stress almost entirely when I came back to my old workplace.

The author suggested keeping a Stress Management Diary everyday for determining what the actual causes of the stress are. There were a few ideas about what should be written down in such diary. The stress should be monitored every hour or two. It was similar to monitoring your mood by using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy approaches, about which I read about a year earlier in the book 'Mind Over Mood'.

I bought that book at the beginning of 2008 to help me deal with some low moods I was suffering when my first postdoctoral contract was running out and I had to deal with the insecurity of maybe getting an extension (while having no other job aligned), job hunting and possible unemployment. I did a similar exercise with a diary back then, with the difference of keeping if daily instead of hourly and doing it on paper. The aim was mainly to monitor the mood and not stress. And I like the idea of Stress Diary so much more!

The podcast inspired me to create my own ‘Stress Management Diary’ file in my computer and started filling it diligently every hour from the first day back at work. There were a few stressful situations that I had to deal with in the first few weeks and keeping this diary helped me to see what the triggers that were setting me off were.

Additionally to the diary file I created ‘Stressful Situations’ file where I was describing the details of the more stressful situations as they occurred. This exercise was meant to facilitate reflection on the triggers for my stress and whether the way I am coping with those situation is helpful or not. Most often my ways of coping were not effective at all...

Since I was commuting up to two hours each way at that time, I had plenty of time on reflection about how the ways to cope with stress. I could think about how to change my responses and what ways of dealing with the stressful situations at work would be actually helpful and healthy (instead of letting others to push my buttons and respond in the way they wanted me to, i.e. by getting all worked up).

Yes, it was taking time out of my working hours to diligently monitor the level of stress, but it turned out to be a great venting space for my frustrations. It was also a useful tool for analysing my triggers and responses to stress; and for reflection if my responses where actually helpful or not. In about two weeks I developed some distance to ridiculous situations at work and calmed down significantly.

Then I stopped writing my hourly stress check-ins, as I thought I was ‘healed’ and already resistant to the stressful situations that had previously caused my adrenaline levels to shoot through the roof. This was a mistake, as at the beginning of October the bureaucracy managed to push my buttons again and I was helpless in dealing with it.

/moaning=on/ They keep playing this game of not giving me a certificate confirming my employment, and it can mess up with my employment in the next place. I am already waiting for more than two weeks. Ok, it is ‘complicated’ because my contract dates need to be adjusted, my resignation needs to be ‘officially accepted’ (someone must put their stamp on it), but still. The friendly English teacher was able to obtain such document from the same people within two days... Ok, I stop my rant here. /moaning=off/

You could think that writing down your stress triggers and responses is a waste of time, but it worked for me and it was highly effective. I would recommend such diary tool for keeping track of stress levels, whether on paper or in electronic form, to anyone who suffers from high levels of stress. It is worth the time and it allows you to think about your thinking pattern, wrong assumptions, and where you are letting someone to push your buttons instead of protecting yourself and not letting this person to touch them. All in all, it worked great for me.