Self-adjustment in stress management includes

Cognitive calibration of stress perception, physiological anchoring interventions during stress overload, and long-term stress tolerance base building. There is no doubt that those who say "self-adjustment is just to endure it and it will be over" and "as long as you lie flat there is no pressure" have either never tried a real high-pressure scene, or they think adjustment is too simple.

When I was doing EAP services for the Internet industry two years ago, I met a 32-year-old operations director. He only slept 4 hours a day for three consecutive weeks before Double 11, and he was carrying the nodes of three major projects at the same time. At that time, he asked me if I had any "one-second stress reduction method" and said that he really couldn't take time off. He didn’t want to drink chicken soup, but before I could give him a plan, he went to the emergency room because of an irregular heartbeat. While lying on the hospital bed, he was still saying, “I’ll just hold on and it’ll be fine.” You see, many people’s misunderstanding of self-adjustment is that they regard it as a “beautified version of hard work.” In fact, it is not at all.

Let’s talk about cognitive calibration first. There is actually quite a lot of controversy among different schools. Mainstream cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) will advocate that you adjust your irrational beliefs, such as changing "I must do everything with perfect score" to "I can complete 80% of the core first." I have seen many people working on projects use this method very effectively. Every time they want to explode, they just cross out half of the work in hand according to priority, and they feel relieved instantly. However, some researchers of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) do not agree with this idea of ​​"forcibly changing your thoughts." They feel that the more you force yourself to "not be anxious" and "be positive," the tighter your emotions will be. It is better to directly accept the state of "I am very stressed and annoyed now" without forcing yourself to be an emotionally stable adult. I once met a class teacher from a key middle school. She had to invigilate exams, correct papers, hold parent-teacher meetings and deal with student conflicts during the mid-term week. Her method was to carry a small notebook with her and write down all the curse words and complaints when she was annoyed. After writing, she would close it and throw it away in a drawer. She never forced herself to "think more". With such a simple method, she never had the same migraine that she had during exam week throughout last year.

What’s interesting is that many times you don’t have to compete with your brain. The stress response is initiated physiologically before psychologically. If you bring your body back to a steady state first, your emotions will naturally stabilize. This is the core of physiological anchoring intervention. Some people like the 478 breathing method in mindfulness. Inhale for 4 seconds, hold the breath for 7 seconds and exhale for 8 seconds. You can do it while sitting. It is indeed useful for many people who are easily flustered. However, many people also say to me, "The more I count my breaths, the more annoying I am. All they can think about is whether I have counted wrongly." That's okay. Yes, you can quickly raise your legs 10 times, or clench your fists to the limit and then suddenly release them, repeat 3 times, or even go to the toilet and slap your face with cold water for 30 seconds. As long as it can draw your attention from the to-do list in your head back to the "current physical feeling", it will be useful. Last time we held a quarterly review meeting, a product manager was scolded by his boss in public for 20 minutes. His hands were shaking so much that he couldn't even hold a pen. He excused himself to go to the toilet and gave him a cold face for half a minute. Then he came back, sat down, flipped through two pages of information, and then recovered. It was much more effective than sitting there for half a day and taking deep breaths.

The first two are for emergency purposes. If you really want to prevent yourself from being overwhelmed by pressure so easily, you still have to do some long-term construction. To put it bluntly, it is to save some "anti-production" capital. A lot of popular science will tell you to have a regular schedule, exercise every day, and maintain healthy living habits. This is true, but you don’t need to be too dogmatic. I previously read a clinical psychology study from the University of Oxford, which said that as long as it can put you into a state of "complete flow relaxation", even if it is watching a mindless TV series for half an hour, or squatting on the roadside to feed the cat for 10 minutes, the effect is much better than forcing yourself to run 5 kilometers, but thinking about KPIs while running. I've been through this trap myself before. When I had a lot of projects in the first half of last year, I forced myself to run 3 kilometers every day after get off work, euphemistically calling it "exercising stress resistance." As a result, when I ran, my mind was filled with the plans to be handed in the next day, and the more I ran, the more annoying I became. Later, I changed to taking a detour after get off work every day to buy a strawberry ice cream and eat it while walking. During those 10 minutes, I didn't think about anything at work and just stared at the trees on the side of the road. During that time, my Stress Self-Assessment Scale score dropped by 30%.

In fact, when it comes down to it, there is really no standard answer to self-adjustment. I have seen some people reduce stress by practicing calligraphy, and some people reduce stress by kneading instant noodles. As long as it does not hurt yourself or affect others, any method will work. After all, the pressure is your own. Only you know which part is the most stressful. You don’t have to follow other people’s lists. Just try slowly and find a rhythm that you are comfortable with. It’s not a big deal if you collapse occasionally.