What to do if the psychological pressure is too great

The core solution to excessive psychological stress is never to copy the general stress-relieving techniques on the Internet, but to first spend 10 minutes to figure out where your stress comes from, and then make targeted adjustments. From then on, just do mindfulness, run 5 kilometers, and shout positive slogans, which will most likely be useless.

I have met a girl who works in Internet operations. Last month, three major projects were scheduled to be scheduled. She stayed up late for two weeks in a row. She sat at the door and cried for an hour every day when she got home. At first, she followed the stress relief guide on Xiaohongshu. She ran 3 kilometers before get off work and did 15 minutes of mindfulness before going to bed. As a result, she became more and more annoyed. Her mind was full of unfinished plans, and she couldn't fall asleep until two or three o'clock. Later, when she sat down and thought about it, she discovered that her stress was not at all about "having no outlet for her emotions". It was because 20% of the work she was doing was completely beyond her ability. She was afraid that her boss would think her useless, so she kept holding on and did not dare to speak out, which pushed herself to collapse.

The opinions on high-pressure adjustment on the Internet are actually quite polarized. One group always says that high pressure means you are too fragile and think too much. Just grit your teeth and get through it. If you can't endure it, it means you don't have enough willpower.； The other group advises everyone to "just run away", resigns when stressed, and drops out of school when things don't go their way, as if staying away from the environment is the only solution. I have seen many people fall into the trap of these two statements. The former persisted until he developed somatization symptoms, suffering from insomnia and chest tightness for a month or two. The latter impulsively resigned from his job and lost his income. The pressure of survival was even greater than before, and both sides suffered.

I have talked with a friend who is a clinical psychologist before. To put it bluntly, the stress encountered by ordinary people is nothing more than two situations, either objective overload or subjective cognitive bias. If it belongs to the former, for example, recently you have to meet a deadline and take care of a sick family member, and you have been working around the clock for more than half a month without even a full night's sleep. Don't force yourself to "adjust your mentality." It is most useful to find ways to offload the burden first. If you can, just push non-essential entertainment. Don’t be embarrassed to ask for help from family and friends. I was busy with a project at the end of last year and also had to take the vocational qualification certificate exam. I was really busy and I mentioned it to my mother. She came over to cook me a meal every day. I was able to save an extra hour a day to catch up on sleep, which is 10 times more effective than me squeezing in time to meditate.

If you fall into the latter category, you actually don’t have much to do, and it’s all the pressure you have made up in your own mind. For example, the leader only asks you to submit a preliminary plan, and you have already played out 10 scenarios in your mind of being scolded until you lose your job. You still dare not submit it after revising it for seven or eight times, and the longer you delay, the more panic you get. At this time, don’t worry about “Why am I so useless?” Just do the minimum action. Send the 60-point rough version first. Most of the time, the bad situation you are worried about will not happen at all. If there is a real problem, just correct it.

Speaking of which, this is actually the same as when your phone becomes stuck. First, check whether there are too many APPs running in the background and filling up the memory, or whether a certain APP has a bug and is being secretly stored. For the former, clear the background and uninstall the software, and for the latter, fix the bug. Don't just flash the phone and throw it away, and don't wait for it to burn the motherboard. If I really suffer from a collapse, I don’t need to engage in any fancy decompression rituals. I am used to standing by the window for 5 minutes with a can of Coke just taken out of the refrigerator. The moment my fingertips are numb from the ice, those messy and tangled anxieties will dissipate a little. It is much more useful than sitting there thinking about "why am I so miserable?"

If you have been unable to eat or sleep well for a week or two in a row, and you are unable to do anything you are interested in doing, or even struggle to go to work and go to school, don't hold on to yourself to save face. Go to a professional psychological counselor for a chat, or go to a psychiatrist to check your condition. It is really not a shameful thing. It is the same as going to the hospital to prescribe medicine when you have a cold or fever.