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Stress rolls off my wife's back. Not mine. These tips, derived in part from my new book Careers for Dummies, have helped me and some of my stress-prone clients. Perhaps one or more will help you.
Make structural changes
Are there ways you can structure your life to reduce stress?
- Is your commute stressful? Might you be allowed to telecommute at least part of the week? Or if you have to commute, rather than succumb to annoyance, do you routinely distract yourself (for example, with an audiobook)?
- Is there a coworker, boss, or customer who causes you undue stress? If an effort to improve the relationship has failed, or you're confident would fail, could you reduce your interactions with that person?
- Would self-employment reduce your stress? Some people, like me, do better when in control of the situation, so I'm self-employed. Other people would find self-employment more stressful. How about you?
- You can get stressed if your work is too difficult, voluminous, or requires a taxing level of quality. In your current job, could you ratchet down your work's intensity? Would it help you to acquire new or improved skills? Do you need to look for another job?
- Children can be a source of joy, but also of emotional and financial stress. The norm is to have two or three kids, but the question is: What would be right for you?
Tactics
The aforementioned strategies will likely have the biggest de-stressing effect, but these tactics can also help:
- Take micro-breaks. Long breaks, and certainly vacations, paradoxically can increase stress, if only because you worry that you should have been accomplishing more. But taking lots of small breaks through the day, from one-second deep breaths to three-minute walks to a quick call to a friend can yield real benefits at little cost.
- Let go of what you can't control. Easier said than done, but if an issue is out of your control, try to distract yourself by attending to something you can change for the better.
- Don't rely excessively, if at all, on meditation. Meditation is enjoying a revival, but some of my clients and I have found its de-stressing effect to be transient. A few minutes after awakening, the person is back to baseline. My clients and I aren't alone in this. The title of a New York Times article by famed University of Pennsylvania professor of psychology Adam Grant is "Can We End the Meditation Madness?"
The takeaway
We may never completely conquer our genetic predisposition to be stress-prone, but structuring our lives to minimize stress and then using tactics such as micro-breaks and letting go of what we can't control can be lifesavers — literally.
I give an eight-minute talk on stress management for the stress-prone on YouTube.
This article is part of a series of simple career tips drawn from my new book, Careers for Dummies.
