Experience on stress management

Stress management is never about completely eliminating stress, and there is no one-size-fits-all formula. It is essentially about finding an adjustment threshold that matches your own stress-bearing ability, and finding a comfortable balance between "overwhelmed by pressure" and "too relaxed and unmotivated."

Damn, I’m not afraid of jokes. When I first came into contact with stress management, I completely copied the “standard answers” ​​on the Internet: meditate for 20 minutes every morning, prioritize the to-do list according to the four quadrants, and write an emotional diary to review after get off work. This set of procedures is more regular than clocking in at work. As a result, when the Double 11 project came online last year, I had to answer more than 20 cross-department communication calls every day, and had more than 40 items on my to-do list. When I was meditating, all I could think about was "Have the front-end bug I mentioned just now been fixed?" and "Have the operational materials been synchronized?" After sitting for 20 minutes, my heartbeat became faster. The more I wrote my emotional diary after get off work, the more annoying I became. In the end, I just threw the notebook away and ordered fried chicken, which made me feel much better. Only then did you realize that others were using effective methods, but in the wrong setting and with the wrong personality, it might become a new source of stress for you.

Later, I read a lot of relevant research and asked friends who are clinical psychologists to find out that in fact, there is no unified conclusion on the path of stress management in the academic community. The two mainstream directions are applicable to completely different scenarios. One is the cognitive-behavioral school of thought, which advocates adjusting your understanding of stress first - many times what overwhelms you is not the thing itself, but the catastrophic assumptions you have made yourself, such as "If this plan cannot be improved, I will be optimized." In fact, 99% of the situations are not so serious. If you remove the unreasonable expectations, the stress will naturally decrease. The other is the view of the physiological regulation school, which says that cortisol will soar when people are stressed, and the rational thinking area of ​​the brain will shut down directly. It is useless to reason with yourself. You must first move your body to lower hormone levels. Running for 10 minutes, washing your face with cold water, or even chewing gum for two minutes are more effective than sitting there and mentally building yourself up.

I tried it during the week of the Q3 financial report last year. At that time, I had to check the distribution data of 12 channels. If I made a mistake in a number, the whole department would have to recalculate. I sat in front of the computer and the more I thought about it, the more panicked I became. I even entered the Excel formula incorrectly. Later, I simply turned off the computer and ran downstairs for 10 minutes. When the late autumn wind blew, I broke out in a slight sweat. When I came back, I sat down and looked at the table. Instead, I found at a glance a problem with the statistical caliber that I had not noticed before. Don't tell me, when you are in a hurry, moving your body is really better than any kind of mental construction. Instead, I do quarterly planning on the weekends. When time is not so tight, I prefer to use the method of cognitive disassembly to break the daunting goal of "complete the quarterly plan" into small tasks such as "solve the three core issues of the last quarter first" and "list two new directions that can be implemented." After completing each one, I will not feel burdened at all.

There has been a lot of quarrel on the Internet about "whether pressure is motivation". I have also struggled with it before. It was not until I saw the status of two friends around me that I realized that there is no standard answer to this kind of question. My little boy who works in To-B sales is naturally suited to a high-pressure environment. Last month, their team set a KPI that doubled year-on-year. No one could keep up with it. Instead, he was like a chicken-blooded person, spending time with customers every day. In the end, he exceeded the target by 20% and won the quarterly sales crown. He said that if his leader set a goal that he could easily accomplish, he would not be motivated and would just goof around. But another friend of mine who is a freelance illustrator is just the opposite. If Party A presses hard and asks him to produce 10 drafts in three days, he will sit there and pick his hands for a whole day without being able to draw a single stroke. Instead, he will be given a week's buffer time. He will take his time and produce high-quality drafts without having to work overtime. Who do you think is right or wrong in these two situations? It’s just that everyone’s threshold is different. There is no need to force yourself to conform to a certain “correct” state.

I don’t have a fixed stress management process now, it all depends on the status of the day. I have a decompression dice in my bag that I can squeeze and play with. When I get bored, I squeeze it for two minutes. ； There is also a "10-minute rule" that I have figured out. If you feel that the pressure is so great that you want to escape, force yourself to do the least mental tasks for 10 minutes, such as tidying up the desktop and filing previous chat records. Usually after 10 minutes, the state will return. If you are still annoyed after 10 minutes, don't force it. Get up, get a glass of water, walk around, or even go downstairs to buy a cup of iced milk tea, whatever makes you comfortable. In the past, I followed the trend and bought some anti-stress massage and sleep-aid aromatherapy. To be honest, they were useful but not much. I worked overtime until two o'clock in the morning when the last project was online. No matter how fragrant the candle was, it couldn't stop me from wanting to get off work. I was also afraid of knocking over and burning my computer. Later, I left it at home to gather dust.

Now I dare not say that I have understood how to deal with stress. Sometimes when a sudden problem occurs in a project, I still feel so anxious that I can't sleep at two or three in the morning. But unlike before, when I get anxious, I scold myself, "Why are you so useless? I can't handle this little pressure." Humans are not programmed machines. Today, if you have a good rest and are in good condition, you can withstand 10 points of stress. Tomorrow, if you have a cold and feel uncomfortable and everything is not going well, you may feel tired even if 3 points of stress are involved. Just be flexible and adjust. There is no need to force yourself according to other people's templates. After all, we manage stress to make ourselves more comfortable, not to achieve some KPI, right?