Stress Management Strategies

The core of stress management is never to completely eliminate stress, but to stabilize the stress value in a range that "can promote action and does not cause internal friction" through three layers of "threshold regulation - scene diversion - energy replenishment". There is no universal formula that applies to everyone, and the effectiveness of all strategies is directly linked to the individual's stress perception threshold.

When I consulted for employee EAP for Internet companies in the past two years, I came across two very typical examples: One is a girl who works in content operations. She is used to listing her daily to-dos on an entire page of A4 paper. She always says, "Once the work is done, the stress will be gone." As a result, the work piles up. Last month, because I missed an important event push, I cried in the conference room until I couldn't breathe.； The other is a boy from the algorithm team. He goes to an Internet cafe to play shooting games for three hours after getting off work every day. His colleagues think he is lying flat. As a result, he received S performance for three consecutive quarters. When asked how he did it, he said, "My brain has been strained for 8 hours at work. If I try harder, my efficiency will be even lower. I don't have to think about anything when shooting, and my mind will be clear after shooting."

The current mainstream stress management research is actually divided into two factions. No one is right or wrong, but they are suitable for different groups of people. The cognitive behavioral school (CBT) prefers to adjust your interpretation of stress. To put it bluntly, don't add drama to stress - what you are afraid of is often not "the project will not be done well" itself, but the worst consequences of the chain that you have imagined "if you don't do it well, you will be fired, laughed at by everyone, and have no future in this life." When I was helping the operations girl to coach, I asked her to write down the worst-case outcome: "Even if the push is missed, up to 200 yuan will be deducted, and the leader will say a few words to me at most, and it is impossible to fire me." After writing it down, she laughed, saying that she had imagined this matter as if the sky was falling. This method is particularly effective for people with overthinking and sensitive personalities, but if you are in an emergency moment when you are about to go on stage to give a speech and your heart rate has soared to 120, it will not work to be reasonable.

At this time, the method of the neuroscience school is more effective: regulating hormone levels directly through physiological responses. Supported by research data, sustained high stress will spike cortisol levels in the body, and 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, 30 seconds of cold exposure, or even 4 deep breaths (inhale for 4 seconds, hold breath for 4 seconds, exhale for 6 seconds) can quickly reduce cortisol by 20% to 30%. I have a friend who works in an investment bank. Every time he goes to a road show, he hides in the fire escape and flushes his face with cold water for 30 seconds. It is more effective than drinking three glasses of Americano. His heart rate drops directly from 110 to 80, and he does not shake when he speaks on stage.

Speaking of this, some people must want to ask the question that has been debated on the Internet for a long time: Do you need to bear the pressure? I've seen two completely opposite answers, both of which make sense. I once met an entrepreneur who was engaged in cross-border e-commerce. When the supply chain was stuck last year, he struggled for three months. He only slept 4 hours a day, looking for sources of goods and negotiating logistics. Finally, he revitalized the business. Now his annual profits are tens of millions. ； I also have a friend who is a designer. Last year, he encountered a particularly difficult client. He changed the plan to version 47. After struggling for half a year, he was finally diagnosed with moderate anxiety. He resigned and stayed at home for a year before he recovered. To put it bluntly, the criterion for judging whether to carry it is not "delayed gratification" or "stop loss in time". It is your own body's signal: if you have insomnia, can't eat, are inexplicably flustered for a week, or even start to have physiological reactions such as hand shaking and headache, don't hesitate and withdraw immediately. What you are carrying is not pressure, but consuming your own health capital. ； Even though you feel tired, you can still eat late-night snacks after get off work every day and go out with friends on weekends, then it’s okay to carry on for a while. Growing up requires a bit of pressure.

When I'm working on a manuscript or a deadline, I don't use fancy methods. I just sit down and open a document and type the first line, even if it only takes 10 minutes. Really, as long as you get started, the feeling of pressure of "the mountain of things is overwhelming you" will disappear at least half. Don’t believe the nonsense about “traveling to relax when you’re stressed out.” Last year, I tried to take annual leave and go to Yunnan for a week. When I came back and saw the pile of to-do documents at my work station, my stress doubled. Instead, I might as well spend 20 minutes after get off work every day to go for a walk in the park and watch the grandparents dancing in the square and the children chasing after each other. The tension immediately relaxed.

Oh, by the way, there is another basic method that many people ignore: eat well and sleep well. I have seen too many people either overeat or unable to eat a single bite when they are stressed. They stay up until two or three o'clock and check their mobile phones saying that they can't sleep anyway. The result is a vicious circle, cortisol cannot be controlled, and the stress becomes more and more intense. Really, if you ensure that you sleep for more than 6 hours a day and eat hot meals for three meals instead of instant noodles, your stress tolerance can be improved by at least 30%. This has been confirmed by many clinical studies and I am not making it up.

In fact, at the end of the day, stress management is like adjusting the volume of headphones. Some people like to turn it up to 80% and feel comfortable, while others find it noisy to turn it up to 30%. You don't have to learn other people's parameters, just adjust it to a level that you feel comfortable and can still hear the content clearly. After all, when we move forward under pressure, it is never to crush ourselves, but to get what we want.