How To Stop The Stress/Illness Cycle

Physical and psychological stress grind away at your body’s normal defenses, undermining your musculoskeletal, cardiac, digestive, immune, and nervous systems, as well as sleep, hunger, and thermoregulation (the regulation of your body’s temperature).

Here are some of our coaches’ tips on breaking the cycle of stress and illness:

Identify the cause of stress. Be as specific as possible – not “my boss stresses me out” but “deadline pressure announced by my boss for my current project.” That helps you develop a concrete plan for addressing the root cause of your stress. It focuses your problem-solving efforts so you can brainstorm options, research alternatives and their costs, and enlist the help of others.

Prioritize. Not everything urgent can be done at the same time, regardless of how badly others may wish it were otherwise. Identify the consequences of prioritizing one project over another. Weigh the pros and cons, communicate clearly to everyone affected, and be ready to explain your decision.

Take action. For many of us, doing nothing is the most stressful option of all. Simply starting to take positive action — even if it’s small — can dramatically lower stress. Often the risk of making a “bad” choice is actually quite low — and the stress of doing nothing, or procrastinating the decision, is much higher.

Understand when you cannot take action. If you’ve done everything you can to ensure the desired outcome, step back and acknowledge that whatever remains is beyond your control. Focus on your circle of control and your circle of influence.

Leverage the strength in your relationships. At home, let yourself be the one who leans on your family. Kids, spouses and partners often wish that the family member under stress would accept their help. Give them the gift of feeling, and being, genuinely helpful to you. At work, don’t attempt to put out fires all by yourself. Ask others, including your supervisor, for help, ideas, or just to serve as a sounding board for your own thinking. Many people are flattered to be asked and you’ll often be pleasantly surprised to get good ideas that you haven’t already thought of.

Work mindfully. If you’re going to devote your attention to something, focus fully on what you are doing and why. Act purposefully and deliberately. Focus is especially important when deadlines loom. It buys you the time to make good choices, which is critical for successful results and your emotional health.

Give yourself a break. This can be as simple as a walk around your yard or your office, a trip to the cafeteria to refill your iced tea, or a few minutes surfing the web or knocking off a quick task that doesn’t require much attention — say, stapling receipts to expense forms or folding laundry. Your brain will continue working productively in the background, and you’ll get a break from worrying while actually accomplishing something useful and productive. Win!

Build de-stressing into your life. Protect your sleep. Take your lunch break. Experiment with things like meditation, yoga, playing music or other activities that take you to a happy place and calm you. Identify unhealthy de-stressors — like smoking or over-doing coffee or snacks. Their benefits are temporary and can have a significantly negative long-term effect on your health.

Recognize that “this, too shall pass.” Tomorrow, next week, next month — today’s issues will eventually pass into the mists of time. It won’t always be like this. You can only do so much at a time. Do your best to tackle what’s in front of you — and know that you gave it your best shot.