We’ve tackled what’s at the root of your stress and what has led to it. In this chapter, we’ll help you look at where you are right now in more detail so that you can decide whether you need extra support. This is necessary because when there has been an accumulation of pressurized periods, what can happen is that stress becomes the norm. Everybody complains about stress, so it becomes hard to know whether what you are going through is normal or not.

Establishing the extent and the effect of stress isn’t straightforward. You need to be patient with yourself to identify the sources of stress and to separate these from the effects of stress on your body and mind. This can take a little time as you observe yourself. This means stepping back to monitor your moods, your reactions and responses, and how you feel physically in relation to what’s happening at any given moment through the day and throughout the night (since disturbed sleep can indicate stress).

As you begin to do this you will notice patterns, which will help to indicate whether experiencing stress is connected to certain circumstances or whether you are experiencing a condition that has gone beyond stress. For example, do you wake up tired and anxious, get through the day with lots of caffeine but perk up when someone acknowledges you are a valuable part of the team? Then perhaps you thrive on a certain type of challenge and need to find a way to change your lifestyle to support you.

On the other hand, if you are constantly on a roller-coaster of defensive explosions and weepy outbursts, lifestyle changes like giving up coffee and going to yoga may not be enough to help you recover. This chapter will give you a sense of where you are.

ASSESS YOURSELF

It’s not unusual for people to be unaware of how stressed they are until they visit their doctor about a health issue that seems unrelated to stress. So how do you know what’s normal? When should you worry? This is where you need to learn to monitor yourself. The chemistry of stress stops the brain from being objective, so if you are experiencing chronic stress your mind might be on autopilot. Assessing yourself isn’t as clinical as it sounds. Think in terms of being curious about you and how you live your life. Then this becomes a rewarding process that is bound to lead to taking action.

There are various ways to assess yourself. The NHS has a free online Mood Self-Assessment questionnaire.¹ Depending on the results, your GP can go through a more detailed version to help you identify whether the problem is veering towards depression, anxiety or a mixture. Tracking your mind is a big part of cognitive behavioural therapy, which is based on changing your mood through changing your thoughts and behaviour. When you’re stressed, the very idea of tracking your mind can seem overwhelming and unattractive. A very simple modified version is to score yourself daily for positive moods on a scale of 1–10 and include a minus 1–10 scale too. Depending on where your daily score is on the positive 1–10 scale you can assess the level of action you need to take on your own. But if you start to see a pattern of minus scores, or consistent 1–3s, then this is a definite sign to seek help.

Another (or additional) way is to take a more creative approach. Jungian psychotherapist Sandra Elsdon Vigon encourages describing your emotional state with imagery. ‘Ask yourself what does this feeling look like? Is it pecking at you like a bird? Is it biting you? If it was an animal what would it look like?’ etc. Engaging your feelings in a visual way can help you gain a deeper understanding of the nature of your stress. Vigon often asks clients to draw how they feel or create collages.

“Many people get stuck on labels about what ails them, but what’s important is to explore what’s at the core of your unique experience.”

Sandra Elsdon Vigon, Jungian psychotherapist

Remember that stress interferes with the brain’s ability to be objective and rational, so what happens is that you get into the pattern of believing you’re stressed because of your job or because of a relationship. It’s normal to be upset about a boss who doesn’t value you, or a relationship that’s ending. That is part of life. As you become curious about your life and investigate, what will become apparent is why you are constantly upset, worn out and unable to enjoy life. The important thing, as Vigon stresses, ‘is heeding the messages’ that your body and unconscious are sending. Feeling low should not be the norm.

SEPARATE NORMAL FROM EXCESSIVE

One of the problems in the current economic and political climate is knowing what’s normal and what’s excessive in terms of any negative emotion about the future. Creating a successful life on all levels involves navigating realistic concerns. However, when does realistic become pessimistic?

There will be times when uncertainty in the world ignites a tendency for anxiety. This is human. Jungian psychotherapist Sandra Elsdon Vigon admits she wasn’t immune to massive anxiety in 2008 when the recession hit the USA and she and her artist husband lost their retirement income in California. As a result they had to move to the uncertainty of creating a new life in London. Learning to separate normal concerns from excessive worry and anxiety is a valuable modern skill. A key question to ask yourself is whether there is evidence for what you feel so that you can identify whether it’s your circumstances causing you stress (e.g. a critical boss or partner) or your belief systems (e.g. lack of self-worth and confidence). This simple question can help you identify what course of action to take next (e.g. to deal with source of stress and how you respond to this or tackle reformulating your belief system).

It’s normal to worry about specific issues, but when this turns into consuming fear about life at large then this has become a serious anxiety condition. As you now know, stress over something you perceive as a threat triggers a chemical reaction in your brain. With anxiety you are suffering from the onslaught of constant chemical warfare in your brain. Anxiety can develop as a result of stress or worries piling up – or both. Worry has a nasty habit of distracting you so that you don’t even realize the extent of mounting stress. This is why you need to actively step out of whatever mode you are in to observe the degree to which it’s affecting your ability to be fulfilled in life. Remember, real calm is a life that satisfies you.

WHAT’S YOUR LIMIT?

Real calm varies from person to person. We’re all different compositions in terms of hormones and psychological make-up. You might marvel at the friend who gets up and makes speeches at weddings and has everybody laughing, because you break out in a sweat at the thought of any public speaking. But that friend might be in awe of you for being brave enough to try new evening classes on your own. Stress lies in the eyes of the beholder.

As part of being curious about yourself, explore when you come to your limits – and why. It’s all too easy to keep lumping stress in one same basket, as if stress is stress. There are many variations. If your psychological make-up is high on the introvert scale, then a job in which you are constantly interacting with big groups of people is going to be more stressful and leave you feeling drained and exhausted. Becoming aware of this can help you find work where you thrive and feel energized. If you observe that you’re over-reacting to everyday situations, there might be a hormonal issue, which is something you need to discuss with your doctor. There could be a physiological explanation to your moods that can be remedied with help.

Knowing yourself on every level, from psychological to physiological, can help you create a stress-ability profile. Know what you can handle, under which circumstances, for how much time, and you are prepared. An awareness of how you react under certain circumstances can at least prepare you. Jungian psychotherapist Sandra Vigon says that knowing she has a tendency to be hysterical under immense stress helps her handle the hysteria because it doesn’t take her by surprise.

Most importantly in the context of this chapter, being clear about what you can handle, your limits and how you react gives you a map that tells you when you need nurturing and nourishing.

WHEN YOU HIT ROCK BOTTOM – THE ONLY WAY IS UP

Much of the advice in this book is about learning to be in the present. But what if you’re feeling that there’s absolutely no power to your now because now doesn’t feel good? What if you’re fed up with a cycle of bad experiences and a never ending awful present? If you’re at the point of simply functioning in life on autopilot in order to get by from day to day, this isn’t a good place to say the least. To restore yourself you need to be kind to yourself so that you can then experience life in a kind way. When you feel like this it’s virtually impossible to climb out of this pit on your own. Unless you take action you find yourself moving further along the continuum of stress. The end station to that continuum can be depression, burnout, or a breakdown of some sort

“We live in a culture where people wear their stress as 
a badge of honour.”

Miriam Akhtar, positive psychologist

A significant report last year³ (2016) warned that chronic stress and anxiety lead to a higher risk of developing depression and dementia because of the effect on the way the brain operates. The Rotman Research Institute’s review looked at studies that had investigated the impact of chronic anxiety, fear and stress in animals and humans. Though stress is natural before and during certain events, like exams or public speaking, when it becomes a ‘pathological state’ the body’s immune, metabolic and cardiovascular systems suffer, the brain’s hippocampus degenerates, and this can lead to neuropsychiatric disorders. Thankfully the good news is that stress-induced damage to the brain is not irreversible. If you are reading this having hit rock bottom, there certainly is a way up.

When you are at this level it’s important to be compassionate towards yourself and recognize that you are paralysed. Would you expect yourself to recover from a major injury without help from surgery, rehabilitations, friends and family rallying round to give you practical and emotional support? Emotional paralysis can be healed, but also requires specialist help. This could be counselling, psychotherapy, CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), life coaching, healing – thankfully there are many options for you to choose from to suit you. A prolonged period of minus satisfaction in your life leaves you not knowing what to do – and that alone is a reason to seek structured help.

Recovering from a crisis can become a pivotal time in your life for making major changes so that you come out of this terrible period wiser, stronger and resolved to live the life that you deserve.

“Depression is like a negative form of calm: people have gone past anxiety, the world is overwhelming and they are exhausted, so they shut down in an unhealthy way.”

Miriam Akhtar, positive psychologist

Putting the pause button on your racing mind to work out why it’s racing and where it’s racing to is a crucial step to finding real calm. When you’re used to having to keep moving, your motor is constantly running and you have to keep going. But just as every car needs and is required to have an MOT, our internal Ministry Of emotional Transport needs to get checked out too. And it’s only when we stop to examine what’s going on that this is possible. You might be so frazzled you’re not even aware until you stop to observe your thoughts what it is exactly you feel. And what you feel is not you – it’s a temporary state that can change. Whether you’re worrying about every detail in your life or anxious about your future, whether you’re mentally and physically exhausted with stress or stress has beaten you into depression, taking the mental steps to observe, acknowledge and process is a move towards the road sign that says real calm.

Stepping back to assess yourself is the first step to affirming that you are taking action to solve the problem of stress. Observing your moods from day to day and even within the day can give you valuable clues. As you unravel your thoughts and emotions a pattern will emerge that will enable you to decide how much stress is running your life. If you are past your limits and stress is ruining your health and ability to enjoy life then it’s time to seek help. Depending on the effect stress has had on your mind, there are different approaches to healing yourself. Recovering from a crisis following a long period of an accumulation of stress certainly isn’t easy – but it can be a time for developing a regenerated you.