Stress management and mental health talks

The core of stress management and mental health maintenance has never been to "eliminate stress", but to learn to live with stress and find an adjustment method that suits your personal characteristics - there is no standard answer that is universally applicable, and the most effective one is what suits you.

Last week, I was doing on-site consultation at an Internet company. At about three o'clock in the afternoon, I bumped into a little operating girl who was born in 1998 and was squatting in the fire escape and crying. Her eyes were as red as a rabbit. She was still holding the 618 activity plan that had been sent back to the 7th edition. She asked me irritably: "Teacher, do I have a particularly bad ability to withstand stress?" Why can't I handle something that everyone can handle? ”In fact, it is really not her problem. Many people panic when they feel pressure and want to squeeze it to death immediately. In fact, pressure is like sand in your hand. The harder you squeeze it, the faster it leaks. If you loosen your grip, you can hold it firmly.

It's interesting to say that different psychologists' explanations of the causes of stress are so different that they seem to be talking about two completely different things. Psychoanalytically oriented counselors will feel that your current excessive stress reaction is most likely triggered by unprocessed childhood trauma: for example, if a child fails to do well in a test, he will be rejected by his parents. When he grows up and encounters a situation where KPIs are not completed, the first reaction will always be "I am so useless" rather than "Is this goal setting itself unreasonable?"” ； Researchers from the cognitive-behavioral school believe that stress is often amplified by your irrational cognition. The same PPT is rejected by the leader. Some people feel that "the leader is targeting me", while others feel that "I just changed it and it will be easier next time." The difference in stress between the two is more than three times. ； The perspective of positive psychology is more out-of-the-box. They believe that moderate pressure itself is the fuel for improving abilities. The essence of your feeling that you cannot handle it is that your current abilities do not match the task requirements. You can just supplement your abilities without competing with your emotions. No school of thought is absolutely correct. When you really encounter a problem, whichever explanation makes you feel more comfortable and helps you solve the problem is the one you use.

When I do consultations, I rarely make a "must-do list" for clients to reduce stress. Instead, I have a bunch of weird little methods that others may find incomprehensible, all of which have been tried by clients in the past and are really useful. For example, the little operations girl I just mentioned, I didn’t tell her any big truth at the time, I just asked her to touch the cool metal shell of the fire hydrant next to her, inhale for 4 seconds, feel the coolness from her palms to her elbows, exhale for 6 seconds, and exhale the thought “I’m going to die” in her mind along with the breath. She did it twice, calmed down and went back to change the plan, and she passed it in one go. There was a visitor who was a back-end developer who complained that exercise, meditation, and writing diaries were not useful. Later, he came up with a ritual: Before turning off the computer after get off work every day, he would unplug the ESC and Enter keys from the mechanical keyboard, blow them off and press them back. This ten-second action was equivalent to sending a signal to the brain that "it's time to get off work, stop thinking about bugs." After three months of using it, I never had the problem of my mind still running code automatically while lying in bed. You see, effective methods never need to be complicated or meet any "scientific standards."

Speaking of which, I have to mention a topic that has been a hot topic on the Internet recently: Should I "lie down" or "carry it on" to reduce stress? In fact, both sides are reasonable and have counterexamples. There was a client who resigned from a major factory before and wanted to lay down for half a year to adjust. The first two months were really good. He slept until noon every day and got up to catch up on dramas and order takeout. But in the third month, things started to go wrong. He had insomnia all night long. When he visited the friend circle of his former colleagues, he became panicked and felt that he was left behind. When he came for consultation, he asked, "Is this a problem with my free time?" ”There is also a girl who works in teaching and training. During the industry adjustment last year, she refused to resign and worked overtime until 12 o'clock every day. After half a year, she was diagnosed with moderate anxiety, and the doctor asked her to rest immediately. You see, there is no "correct posture" for stress relief. If you don't feel flustered when lying down, then lying down is the right thing to do. If you feel more uncomfortable lying down than at work, then you might as well get up and find something to do, which is worse than burning yourself out in internal exhaustion.

Speaking of which, when I was working on an industry project two years ago, I only slept 5 hours a day for three consecutive months. How stressful was it? My mind wanders even when I'm eating with chopsticks. I tried all the "scientific stress reduction methods" mentioned on the Internet, but they didn't work. I didn't even have the energy to change clothes and go for a run after work. Then I found the least technical method: passing by the convenience store in my neighborhood after get off work every day. , randomly picked up an uneaten popsicle, stood at the bottom of the unit, ate it, and then went up. For those 5 minutes, I didn’t think about any subject or data. I just concentrated on tasting whether the popsicle was salted egg yolk or bayberry. I finished the subject so smoothly. Do you think this method is scientific? It doesn't seem to be the case at all, but for me at that time, it was the most useful.

Finally, I would like to remind everyone: occasional low mood and irritability are normal stress reactions, and there is no need to be too nervous. However, if this state lasts for more than two weeks and has affected your sleep, appetite, normal work and social interaction, don't bear it, and don't casually label yourself as "hypocritical" or "poor stress-resistant". See a professional psychological counselor, or go to the psychiatry department of a regular hospital. Just like taking medicine for a cold, it is normal to seek professional help when you have a psychological problem.