Well, if you’re not feeling stressed, you’re to be congratulated. I can’t think of a
single person in today’s modern world who hasn’t had to face problems with
stress.
We certainly see a lot of people coming for help from hypnotherapy who have
had problems that stem from simply having too much stress.
OK, to be fair, sometimes their problems that they hope to have treated via
hypnosis usually come from a combination of stress and faulty inner
beliefs, but you get the picture!
It’s ironic that all those things that were supposed to make life easier for us and to help us overcome mental problems
have made things more stressful for us.
Take computers. When these were first launched into the world of business,
everyone thought that this would take such a load off everyone’s shoulders and
enable us to do five days’ work in four days, meaning we could all have an extra
day in the weekend.
Instead, computerisation has just raised expectation and the workload has stayed
the same.
What’s more, increased telecommunications have meant that
work can follow us home from the office and we are “supposed” to be on call at
any time of the day or night.
Or take the idea that having a job outside the home was supposed to be the
solution for women with children to help them avoid mental problems.
This basic assumption of the feminists of the 1960s and 1970s could very easily be
called into question when you see the number of women going half crazy trying to juggle deadlines, childcare and all the
rest of it.
But we can’t turn back the clock and go back to the 1950s when we didn’t have
home computers and Mum was supposed to stay home. And I don’t think
we’d really want to.
But what can we do about the increased levels of stress that modern living has a
tendency to create?
If left alone, then stress can easily lead to the problems that we have to use
hypnotherapy to help treat.
You see, if we continually face stress and don’t do anything about it, this can easily
lead to anxiety disorder.
You could easily define anxiety disorder as continual and excessive stress about
everything.
Panic attacks also tend to crop up in stressful situations, often after the
person having the panic attack has been facing a lot of low to medium grade
stress and then has a high stress situation dropped on them.
Having far too much to do can also lead to us not taking time out for ourselves – which leads to burnout and depression. In many ways, anxiety, depression and burnout are the Big Three for people
today.
So what can you do about it?
Some advice that you hear about or read about just isn’t practical.
I mean, what busy mother with the twin responsibilities of a job with deadlines
and small children who need feeding and care really has the time available to visit
a spa every second weekend for an aromatherapy massage?
Sure, nothing wrong with aromatherapy massages and they help a lot, but a lot of women read this sort of advice and just
say “In my dreams, mate!”
Hopefully, you will find something that will help you reduce the stress in your
life, at least partially.
1. Have switch off times for telecommunications. You do not need to
be available to every single caller at every hour of the day or night.
Small children are bad enough at doing this. You are entitled to have some time in your day when work can’t get at you. So set boundaries – no checking emails after 7:00 pm and let the answer phone
take the messages.
You are allowed to make exceptions for calls and emails from relatives and
friends you like talking to. But work is off-limits.
2. Do at least one small thing for yourself every day. If you don’t take
some time for yourself, you won’t be able to take care of everything and everyone
else.
Negative self-talk can often be a barrier here, as you may be telling yourself that
“it all depends on me,” “everything else is more important than looking after me,” “I’m the only person who can do this,”
and “I don’t have time for fun.”
Deal with these beliefs via hypnosis or some other means and make sure that
you look after yourself.
It only has to be something small, like listening to music you enjoy, picking or buying a bunch of flowers for your desk
or bedroom or wearing nice lingerie under your work clothes even when
nobody’s going to see it.
3. Watch the caffeine. While a nice coffee often seems like a treat to reward yourself and be nice to yourself, coffee is
a stimulant that tends to make people more edgy and jittery.
There are other ways to treat yourself and take time out in a café that don’t
involve coffee (or high-fat edibles!). Why not pamper yourself with some exotic
fruit instead? Or be a kid again and drink fizzy lemonade?
4. Exercise. Our stress hormones are designed to prime us up for action, so
one way of getting rid of them is to exercise.
Walking and dancing are great forms of exercise that can be done for free and are
usually compatible with family life.
5. Sleep well. If you make a habit of staying up late working on deadline
projects and not getting enough sleep, this will affect your concentration and your performance, and this will simply
make your stress levels worse. Have a set sleeping and waking time and avoid
caffeine in the evenings.
6. Ask for help. This can be practical help or it can be emotional/mental help. And
you can ask for help from a range of places,
whether you ask your five-year-old to help you sort the washing or lay the
table, your other half to look after the kids or a client if you can postpone a
certain job until the next day (the client may be glad of a bit of extra time, too!).
Or you could ask for professional help with mental problems, e.g. from
hypnotherapy.