Reflections on psychological stress classes

Stress itself is not a disease. How to deal with stress is the core of widening the gap between emotional states.

It's funny to say that when I signed up for this class, I originally went with the mentality of "learn two tricks to get rid of stress immediately", but the instructor poured cold water on me in the first class. At that time, I had just finished a project week and suffered from insomnia for a week. The hair on the pillow could be gathered into a small ball. I tried all the stress-reducing methods I found: I could not sit down for three minutes during meditation and my mind was filled with to-do lists. I had pain in my knees after running at night for two days. I even tried the "tearing up waste paper stress-reducing method" mentioned on the Internet. After tearing it up, looking at a table of shredded paper became even more annoying. Instead, I added a layer of anxiety that "I can't even de-stress well."

Teachers from different schools in class actually had quite different opinions, and they even argued a few words in front of us. Teachers who teach psychoanalysis always say that a lot of pressure that arises out of nowhere is essentially a conflict of identities in the subconscious - you want to be the backbone of the boss who is always available, you also want to be a reliable friend who is always present at friends' gatherings, and you also want to be the perfect parent who can pick up children from class every time. If the expectations of several identities collide and are not straightened out, pressure will emerge from various gaps. What particularly impressed me was that there was a mother who worked in operations in the same group. She used to feel so guilty that she couldn't participate in department team building because she had to pick up her baby. She was always afraid that the boss would think she was "not committed enough" even when she was at work. Later, she cut the expectation of "having to take care of all roles" into "only one priority at each stage" based on this idea. This week, I made an appointment with the old man in advance to pick up my baby two hours late when I was busy with the project. This week, I got off work at the mid-term test of my baby and didn't take on any extra work. Instead, I never had to worry about running between work and family.

Interestingly, the teacher who teaches Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) completely disagrees with this idea of ​​"digging out the subconscious mind". He feels that instead of spending several months dealing with the shadow of childhood, it is better to break away the current cognition first and get quick results. He said that the stress of most people was not caused by the incident itself, but was amplified by his own "catastrophic thinking": he equated "I failed to deliver a report well" with "I am incompetent and will be fired", and interpreted "the leader asked a few more questions about the project progress" as "he was not satisfied with me and wanted to replace me". These distorted cognitions are the amplifiers of stress. I personally tested this method and it worked. I was so nervous that I took three stomach medicines before the quarterly report last month. Then I made a list according to what he taught me. I wrote down all the things I was worried about on the left, and "probability of occurrence" and "what is the worst outcome that I can bear" on the right. After making the list, I found that the worst case scenario was to be scolded and come back to change the plan. It was not enough to cause me to lose my job, and it was ridiculously smooth to get on stage that day.

There was also an argument in class about "whether mindfulness is an IQ tax?" A student who is a teacher said that he takes 10 minutes every day to do mindful breathing and has not lost his temper with his students in the past six months. Another male salesman retorted on the spot, saying that he had been practicing with the app for half a month, and the more he sat, the more he became irritable and his mind was filled with unfinished KPIs, which made his insomnia worse. In the end, the lecturer came out to smooth things over, saying that there is no universal way to reduce stress. Some people are suitable for inward awareness, while others have to release outwards. If you ask an athletic personality who can't sit still to sit still and meditate, it is better to let him play ball for half an hour and get sweaty. The salesperson bought a second-hand road bike after class and rode 15 kilometers home from get off work every day. When he came to class last week, he said that he had stopped taking stomach medicine for almost a month.

To be honest, I don’t force myself to use any “standard stress reduction method” anymore. Change the plan: when you feel irritable, stand up and get a glass of water, use your phone for two minutes to watch cat videos, and then continue after you calm down. ； If you are overwhelmed by an unavoidable deadline, break the big task into irreducibly small pieces and cross off each one after completing it. It will be much more efficient than before.

Of course, there are still times when I can’t stand it anymore. Last week, my cat suffered from acute gastroenteritis and needed to be given an infusion, just as the project was about to go online. After staying up for two long nights, I still cried for ten minutes in the stairwell of the company. Before, I would have scolded myself, "Why am I so useless? I can't handle this pressure." But after crying that day, I wiped my face, went to the convenience store and bought the most expensive milk tea, added three times the pearls, drank it, and went back to work.

No one says you have to be an “emotionally stable adult” anyway, right? Being able to get along well with pressure and not attacking myself even when I have a breakdown is the best thing this course has taught me.