5 Stress management strategies - to help with your midlife career
Stress has become an accepted element of our midlife professional careers. Are there ways we could minimise the negative effects?
Let’s face it, many of us midlife professionals have grown accustomed to high levels of stress in our daily working lives.
But what happens when we can’t contain the stress as well as we used to?
What happens when it begins to spill over into our non-working lives?
Are there ways we can manage work stress so that it doesn’t lead to burnout?
To answer these questions, I asked one of Midlife Unstuck’s guest contributors, Joy Langley, founder of Stop Feeling Stressed Out, to give us her top five stress management strategies to help us midlifers. She wrapped her recommendations around her personal experience of stress throughout her career.
Over to you, Joy!
ROLL OUT THE RED CARPET
True confession time…I was a stressed out 20-something and 30-something.
When I finished my degree education I thought the world was my oyster.
With the naïve bravado that only the young possess, I believed someone would roll out the red carpet. And I’d be crowd-surfing my way through a fabulous career.
I needed a reality check fast – deep breath!
Since then I’ve learned to use my over-active imagination to my advantage and apply stress management ideas to keep me in the calm zone.
STRATEGY #1 : Reframe unrealistic thoughts.
Distorted thinking patterns create disappointment, stress anxiety and depression.
Distorted thinking patterns create disappointment, stress anxiety and depression.
Examples include: magnifying the negative aspects of a situation while filtering out all positive aspects (and vice verse), black and white thinking, catastrophising or jumping to conclusions.
Use the rose-tinted glasses in moderation. and mix with a healthy dose of realism.
My introspective exercise of choice required a mirror like the one used by the wicked fairy in Snow White plus the incantation “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?…”
STRATEGY #2 : Pivot. Be prepared to retrain and upgrade your skills and knowledge bombs.
With the rose-tinted glass under lock and key, I re-set my aspirations and retrained as a Personal Assistant. I can’t complain as there were jobs galore…the only downside was I absolutely hated them.
Up went my stress levels!
I managed to blot out my sense of failure, worthlessness and self-loathing by filling my life with dodgy relationships, and friends happy to get drunk to numb the collective pain.
STRATEGY #3 : Find your North Star - your internal passion GPS.
Figuring out what I wanted was harder than it seemed initially.
I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted.
And I couldn’t blame it on the early onset of dementia.
Without sounding too melodramatic, self-help books and self-development gurus saved my life!
My stress levels dropped under the daily repetition of affirmations, positive thinking, reframing negative thoughts and reminders to fight for my dreams!
STRATEGY #4 : Future proof your dreams (and your pension!).
Getting clear on my stress triggers and designing my work with them in mind were crucial steps in ensuring that stress was minimised.
I was getting on a bit by now…shhs! I was about to hit the big four zero.
But I’d learned how to play to my strengths, what my stress triggers were, so I went all out on creating change.
I ditched a long term relationship, retrained as a counsellor (see strategy #2), and I was 100 per cent ready to take on the world and upgrade my life.
STRATEGY #5 : Never stop reviewing your negative thinking habits and behaviours.
It’s difficult to be grateful for the tough experiences in my life, but they re-ignited my innate need for growth.
OK, it helps knowing psychological ideas, but my successful stress management was not simply down to the application of positive thinking.
The word ‘gratitude’ crept into my life.
How can you be grateful for difficult life events? Job redundancies, failing relationships and deaths?
Well, because they re-ignite our innate need to grow, like a tiny seed waiting to be germinated by fire.
Yes, difficult life events are stressful! But shift your perception, to make way for new perceptions, and new behaviours and thoughts.
Don’t knock the value of age & wisdom.
They definitely fuel courage, the ability to take calculated risks, to think outside the box, and give you the balls to go for what you want.
If you have a growing urge to change something…do it, use the surge of motivation and exhilaration in a positive way.
The last time I checked – that was called ‘feeling alive’ and that your life mattered.
Guest Contributor: Joy Langley: Founder of Stop Feeling Stressed Out
Joy Langley, Guest Contributor - Midlife Unstuck’s Stress Series
Less Stress Operate at Your Best
When you feel less stressed you will operate at your best. Triggering your ‘stress response’ means you literally cannot think straight! Less stress allows you to enjoy better emotional, physical & mental health. It’s important to learn how the ‘stress response’ goes on and how to switch the ‘stress response’ off to prevent chronic illness and burnout.
I am a qualified therapist and life coach (CBT cognitive behavioural therapist) based in the UK. But in my late twenties, I was a very troubled soul - a stress ball! Because of poor career choices and bad relationships. I got depressed, lost, and extremely anxious.
Fast forward, my main mission is to spread the word about stress management strategies that create a mindset ‘shift’ and turn off the ‘stress response.’ My free online ‘Stress Busting’ challenge show-cases some of these.
Although my therapeutic work teaches the nuts & bolts of thoughts, emotions, and behaviours (the T.E.A.TM Method) my gradual spiritual awakening has taken my thinking to another level. Thoughts are things, they are units of energy. Ideas like this plus developments from the world of neuro-plasticity and spiritually evolved thought leaders have given me a deeper understanding of humans and their connection to something much bigger than they could ever imagine.
For more information
Email: Joy@stopfeelingstressedout.com
Website: https://www.stopfeelingstressedout.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stopfeelingstressedout/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenjoylangley/
