High psychological pressure

The essence of psychological stress is the physical and mental stress response that occurs when there is a mismatch between "an individual's perceived external/self needs" and "one's own mobilizable abilities, energy, social support and other resources". It is neither a sign of fragile personality nor "hypocrisy", according to the 2023 National Mental Health Development of the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences According to the report, 92% of adults have experienced high-pressure for more than one month at different stages of their lives. 87% of them can return to normal without drug intervention and can return to normal through self-regulation or short-term psychological counseling. Only less than 3% of high-pressure situations will develop into pathological psychological problems such as anxiety and depression.

The 28-year-old Internet operator I met in the consultation room last week had a quarterly GMV target of 3 million. He stayed up until after 12 o'clock every day for two consecutive months. He was eating Chongqing hot pot with friends on the weekend and suddenly burst into tears before putting the belly in the pot. My friend thought he was choking on the cigarette, but only he knew that the night before, his leader sent a notice in the group, saying that the original goal would be increased by another 20%. At that moment, his mind was strained for two months, and it cracked.

Don't think that this kind of collapse is a small-probability event. Among the 127 consultation cases I have received in the past six months, the first sentence of nearly 70% of people who came over was "I don't know why, I just can't bear it all of a sudden." Regarding the causes of stress, different schools of psychology actually have quite different opinions. Scholars with a psychoanalytic orientation will feel that a lot of sustained high pressure actually comes from subconscious conflicts - for example, you have obviously been exhausted by 996, but you have been instilled in you since childhood that "you must work hard." The concept of "strive to make progress" makes you afraid to resign, or even say "I'm so tired" to your friends. This kind of conscious and subconscious conflict will turn into physiological reactions such as insomnia, acne breakouts, and a rapid heartbeat when you hear the WeChat notification sound, and it will remind you in various ways that "your current state is not right." Researchers of the cognitive behavioral school (CBT) do not see it this way. Their core point of view is: stress is never directly caused by something. What causes you to collapse is your interpretation of the matter. Similarly, if you fail to complete the monthly KPI, some people think "I am just a person." You're a waste, you're going to be fired soon." The more he thought about it, the more panicked he became. He couldn't even sleep. Some people thought, "When I set this goal, I didn't take into account the recent decline in traffic. I'll finish what I can do first. I really can't talk to the boss." Naturally, there won't be too much pressure.

When I read the National Mental Health Report before, I paid special attention to the fact that the current top three stressors among domestic adults are income problems (accounting for 68.7%), career development bottlenecks (53.2%), and family/interpersonal conflicts (39.1%). Among the stressors for students, academic stress accounts for 72.3%. Interestingly, nearly 40% of the stressors are actually academic stress. It comes from the coursework itself and the "unspoken expectations" of his parents - the sophomore boy in high school who came to me a while ago fell 10 places in the mock test. His mother stood at the door of his room every night with hot milk, holding back the words "Don't be too tired" for a long time. He told me, "I would rather she scolded me than seeing her look on her face that was more uncomfortable than me, as if I had made a huge mistake if I failed in the exam."

When many people mention stress reduction, their first reaction is to exercise, travel, or do mindfulness. To be honest, I have seen many people force themselves to run five kilometers to reduce stress. Halfway through the run, they squat on the side of the road and throw up, which makes them even more anxious - because they regard "exercise to reduce stress" as a KPI that must be completed. If they cannot complete it, they feel like "I can't even reduce stress." This adds a new layer of stress. The stress relief methods adapted to different schools are actually completely different. If you always like to keep your emotions in your heart and blame yourself first for everything, then the psychoanalytic "free writing" may be more suitable for you. You don't need to write beautiful words, just find a notebook that no one will read. Write whatever comes to mind, such as "I hate the leader's random assignments", "I don't want to deal with the cross-examination of my relatives", "I just want to lie down and do nothing today". You can even write curse words. There is no need to criticize yourself. The moment you write it, most of the air that is stuck in your chest will dissipate. If you always tend to think about the worst about things, and the more you think about them, the more afraid you become, then you can try the "Fear List" commonly used in CBT schools. Write down the things that worry you in your mind one by one, and then write down the probability of this thing actually happening, such as "I am afraid that I will not be able to complete the KPI." "Except", followed by "Last year, the department only hired one person who failed to meet the standard for two consecutive quarters. I am still 15% away from the goal, and there is still a month and a half. If it is not possible, I can still apply for a job transfer." Write it down and you will find that 90% of the things you are so afraid of every day will never happen. If you are so busy that you don't even have time to sit down and write, you can also try the "5-minute sensory anchoring method" in mindfulness. You don't have to force yourself to be empty, just stop what you are doing, spend 1 minute touching the cup in your hand, feel its temperature, and then spend 1 minute listening to the sounds around you, the sound of cars downstairs, the birds chirping outside the window, the sound of the air conditioner. Just these 5 minutes, without thinking about anything to be done, is much more effective than watching half an hour of short videos.

To tell you something about myself, last year I was working on a manuscript for a popular science book on psychology. I wrote for 12 hours a day for a month. I lay down and kept thinking about the content. Really, there is no standard answer to reducing stress. No matter how good a method others use, it is useless if you don’t feel comfortable using it. There is no need to force yourself to learn from others.

Oh, by the way, if you can't sleep well for more than two weeks in a row, have no appetite for anything, and can't find the energy to do the things you used to particularly like to do, don't force yourself to do it. Talk to a regular psychological counselor, or go to the hospital's psychology department for a consultation. It's just like taking medicine for a cold or fever. It's really not a shame. Also, don’t believe those nonsense on the Internet that “pressure is motivation”. Pressure that makes you breathless is a burden. Take care of your own emotions first, which is more important than KPIs or other people’s expectations.