Thriving in stressful environments: self-care for your mind and body
Escrito por:In this article, part two of ‘Thriving in stressful environments’, we found out how stress, as well as our attitude towards stress, can impact our health and wellbeing.
Leading London psychiatrist, Dr Sunil Raheja, let us know how we should be reacting to stress and gave some top tips for managing it so that we can thrive, rather than simply survive.
Can stress cause physical symptoms or other mental conditions?
Absolutely yes because in a sense the mind and body are very intimately connected. How we think and feel has profound effects because the way we think affects our whole body. There are many causes of death, such as car accidents, suicide and cancer. A proportion of them are related to stress. A high amount are work-related. For example, heart attacks occur on a Monday morning more than another day of the week. There's a reason why that is.
I recommend listening to Kelly McGonigal’s Ted Talk, "How to make stress your friend". She talks about a study that tracked 30,000 adults in the United States for 8 years, they started by asking people, 'How much stress have you experienced in the last year?. Then they asked, do you believe that stress is harmful for your health? Then they used public health records to find out who died. People who were stressed had a 45% chance of dying, but that was only true for the people that believed stress was harmful to your health.
Those who didn't believe stress is harmful, were not more likely to die. In fact, they had the lowest risk of dying, including in comparison to those who had very little stress.
The researchers estimated that 182,000 Americans died not from stress but the belief that stress is bad for you. If this estimate is correct, it would make 'thinking stress is bad for you' the 15th cause of death.
What you think about stress is as important as stress itself it goes back to what we discussed, thriving.
Your response is as important as what happens to you. One can thrive and another can fall to pieces, the guy who invented the word 'stress' should have used the word strain because stress acts as an external aggressor, whereas strain defines the struggle. I have a lot of agency in how I respond to challenging responses and the environment.
How can a psychiatrist teach someone to thrive in changing environments?
We can help you to stand back from your life and look at what you're facing, how it's impacting the present. We can look at the patients' current environment, the way they're living and whether it's empowering them to be at their best. One good thing to help you is increasing self-awareness, looking at what drains you and what fulfils you.
We have an emotional tank and if we keep draining it, we have nothing to give, we need to serve it at the same time as draining it.
A common expression is that 'I'm really stressed at the moment so I have no time to do that'. We have to do more things for self-care to put systems and processes in place to put your steps forward rather than always being on the backfoot.
What tips do you have for people to implement from home?
An important question that comes to mind is, have you got a place you can associate with work? It's important to have clear boundaries and clear structure as to when you're working and when you're not at work. If you can merge them together, you can become overwhelmed and burnt out. We have to remember that self-care is important.
Self-care can involve:
- Sleeping well
- Doing exercise
- Eating healthily
- Connecting with friends and family
Implementing self-care means you can approach work with the best frame of mind rather than chasing what's latest and loudest, incorporating the bigger picture into what you're doing. It's important to distinguish between doing business and actually being productive.
For more guidance on self-care and managing stress, to improve your health, book an appointment today with a leading psychiatrist such as Dr Sunil Raheja. Visit his Top Doctors profile today for more information.
