Tips for handling chronic stess?

Leftfield, but I recommend a book “the rock warrior’s way”. It is about mental training for climbers... which is all about facing uncontrollably hard, unpredictable and potentially dangerous situations, and thriving in them.

As well as other suggestions in this thread, some that the book might suggest would include:

- embrace what you cannot control. You cannot control it any more for mentally grappling with it. Instead, build a mindset of being OK living with adversity.

- think of your life as choices, not responses to unavoidable. Sure, life forces us to do things. But really we do have choices, just we don’t like them. You could quit your job and do nothing, and run out of money. It’s not life forcing you to work, it’s you choosing to be employed. You’re choosing the best option for you, not the only one.

- learn to recognise the fight or flight instinct. It is rarely a good advisor, and with training, you can see through it. Quite often things are not as bleak as our mind paints it.

- build goals that you achievable in your current adversity. Make it about something you learn, about yourself or the world or your area of expertise etc. It makes the problem be on your terms, with achievable success, and not indentured slavery.

I know it sounds a bit like magical thinking, but I confirm it works, for both life and climbing.

> Should I just play through the pain?

If your body gives you signals it is at or over capacity it is generally a good idea to listen.

I was in a similar situation in April 2020, I first thought I could get by by reducing client projects to just one so I could "power through" the summer. Using weed after hard days to stop my head from spinning so I could sleep. The result was that by September I was in a way worse situation than April. I took a break for 6 months, just started working part-time again a few weeks ago and I'm still struggling to adapt.

Playing through the pain is fine for short bursts. But a human body and mind has limits and can only be pushed so far. I'm always happy to talk for 30-60 minutes in a video call about these kinds of issues if you want to. (I know being able to talk to others with similar issues was really helpful to me)

Three most important things for reducing stress: 1. Sleep 2. Diet 3. Resilience

You can improve them with the below:

* Start monitoring your heart rate variability (HRV). You can use HRV to help you understand the triggers for your stress. There’s loads of articles on the web about it. I monitor HRV through the night with Oura ring. Low usually means you are stressed or not recovered.

* Try to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every day. This is incredibly important and really works.

* If you struggle sleeping, use blue light blocking glasses and try to not use screens which emit blue light after sundown. Also try to get exposure to morning light everyday.

* Don’t eat at least 3 hours before bed!!

* Have your last alcoholic drink 3-4 hours before bed. Don’t drink a lot or cut it out entirely.

* Ensure you remain hydrated throughout the day

* If you can, take cold showers

* Try to meditate for 10-15 mins a day

* Make sure you start relaxing a few hours before bed

* Very important: Try to only eat whole foods. No sugar. No refined carbs. Lots of vegetables. Food has a massive impact on stress levels.

* Eating food you are intolerant to will increase your stress levels. Keep a rough diary of what you eat. If something makes you feel a bit off then make a note and try to narrow down what good it was. Once you know what it is... stop eating that food. You can gradually reintroduce with experiments.

* Exercise is good for stress reduction and resilience. Go running or cycling but.... This is very important: you NEED to monitor your heart rate. If you are not fit or new to exercise then you don’t want to go over 140 bpm. Eg I’ve been running since I was 10 and 80% of my runs are done at 145bpm. I rarely go over 170 bpm because it stresses the body a lot. If you are out of breath then you need to stop or walk. If you keep doing this you will get faster as the same HR (if you care!).

* Don’t read or watch the news.

* Go and sit in a park. Green spaces like parks help to reduce stress. Good luck dude!

I'd recommend cardio workouts with stretching/cooldown routine, for example, Fitness Blender on youtube. Also, for me it helped to understand that relaxation in some circumstances can be an active engagement action where you have to "remind your muscles to relax". marban's comment seems on point to me, too.

You might look into talking walks in a local forest preserve if you have one nearby. There's a name for this as it applies to relieving stress, "Forest Bathing" which is based on the Japanese practice of "shinrin-yoku".

I started doing this back in the mid `80s in Los Angeles because I was stressed something awful. I can say it does work for me and I noticed it right away. That was long before I heard about shinrin-yoku.

When I started doing this I would look for a good place with lots of trees and fresh air, a creek or stream was always good, and I'd pack a small day bag with water and some snacks, a beer and a bud, and go meander around. I'd find a secluded spot to sit and relax for a spell and maybe explore some more or just stay put and soak it in. If you sit still for awhile the forest critters start coming out and doing what they do and it can be a pretty relaxing thing to just sit there and do nothing but observe that.

Here's a link to an article about shinrin-yoku. I'm sure there are quite a few articles about it to be found and I just picked one that seemed to fit the bill. Some of them I've read include some reasoning for how and why this works. All I can say is it worked for me and still does: https://www.rei.com/blog/hike/theres-no-running-in-forest-ba...

Have you ever had a couple of sleepless nights in a row? Do you remember how tired, unproductive you were? In that state, would you rather exercise/sunbath/eat healthier/...? No, you would go sleep. The next day, you'll feel much better and then you would apply all those good advice.

It is neither good nor bad that you need to rest (mentally or physically), it's just how your body and mind function. Blaming yourself, adding judgement in this won't help, quite the contrary. Sometimes we have energy and we go forward, sometimes we're all stressed out, not feeling well, tired, you name it, and we need to rest. We all have theses cycles, only their duration and intensity varies for each person and it's totally okay. You are legitimate in needing some time off to feel better, the sooner you take some the sooner you'll be able to function again.

Don't put rigor and severity in this but rather self love. Have empathy for yourself in the same way you would if you saw a child in this condition. That's for the immediate term, but in the long run there's no better advice than to see a mental health professional. No book, no youtube video, no HN comment will equal the benefits of professional accompaniment.

Edit: resting can take many shapes. Sleeping, temporarily isolating yourself from your family, practicing an activity you enjoy, traveling, etc. Authorize yourself to do what you want to do without any "I should" / "I shouldn't" judgement.

It gets better with age, because, over time, things you worry about actually happen (and other disasters you couldn't imagine too ;) ) and the world doesn't end. "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". e:g losing your job , this sometimes can be in the long-term a great thing to happen. To fight daily stress consider daily (moderate, nothing crazy) exercise such as walking or swimming, as essential. Treat missing that as seriously as missing your main meal. Exercise helps you sleep better. Your friends are probably right you need a vacation. Perhaps without your phone! I think far too many people worry about being productive. What is the definition of being "productive"? To me that doesn't only include paid work, it might include being a good friend to someone and helping them through their own challenges. Who cares how much code you cranked out this month? There's years of life to spend doing that...

- Early to bed, at least 7h of sleep

- Daily 60-90min workout first thing in the morning

- One day every ~14 days without Internet

- Turn off inbound info streams as much as possible

- Write down the three most important things of the day on a piece of paper

- Get rid off any to-do list if possible

- Get a hobby that involves working with your hands

- 15min walk after lunch

- Make room for an hour of fun, low mental-load every day

- Check your diet; Get enough fat in the morning, protein for lunch, carbs in the evening

- Supps to try: Tyrosine, KSM-66, Tryptophane, Phosphatidylserine

Antidepressants. Venlafaxine is quite good - there are no initial side effects. You might try a herb - St. John’s Wort but for me, it wasn't strong enough. Lifestyle changes can help but sometimes they aren't enough.

I have had to deal with this. Resetting expectations with health issues, family and personal challenges and growth, finance, unemployment, etc. Huge keys are honesty with self and others, kindness (the whole true Golden Rule), prioritizing and solving problems one at a time, not giving up, etc. (Edit: others here also have some ideas that can be helpful -- like maintaining good health practices, etc.)

Still, for me, and I think after a certain point for anyone, there are big some prerequisites, or the good conventional wisdom can break down and be insufficient. Prerequisites including things like like having balance and purpose in life, and a perspective and way of knowing that things will be OK in the long run, that hard things are OK for now, where to find help and solutions, and endure well through the unsolved (for now) things, how & why. I've written much more elsewhere (see profile; nothing for sale but can try answering qs). It is hard, possible for anyone one step at a time, and worth it.

I recently had a stressful job last year in an environment where I had no control: COVID plus military deployment. My blood pressure dropped 40 points once I left that job. Here are things that helped me and my staff:

* See a mental health professional

* Exercise

* Eat healthy (I was failing here and stress eating thereby making things worse)

* Social reinforcement. Have friends offline to talk things through

* Spend time on things of interest and be productive

Replace coffee with black tea. Replace black tea with green, oolong or white tea. Teas with l-theanine in them, such as longjing, are my new superfood that I share with people. Longjing green tea isn't cheap, but it's worth the cost. It's calming and energizing. Silk road tea is one of my trusted sources.

Zero alcohol consumption. Alcohol dehydrates and depresses.

There’s some good advice here on sleep, exercise etc. which is likely to start being helpful straight away. The impact of exercise can be especially quick.

But for me starting therapy provided a way to address the reasons behind the chronic stress in the first place. For example, it might be worth asking yourself why you feel guilt when you take time to rest.

Lookup "Emotional Freedom Therapy", or EFT for short. Also, alternative "FasterEFT". Its a gamechanger. At 1st it may not make any sense at all, but just give it a wholehearted try. Energy-medicine for the win.

Muscle relaxation exercises can be very helpful. Doesn't need to take long (after doing it for a while). Can be customized to the situation and target your 'problem areas'.

"Learning to systematically relax the muscles in your body will keep you better equipped to deal with your day to day challenges."

https://www.verywellhealth.com/how-to-do-muscle-relaxation-e...

I shake my feet and repeat the same sentence over and over in my head until I fall asleep. It’s the only form of meditation that overwhelms my bullshit thoughts.

if you are eating any hard stuff such as coffee, sugar, nicotine, social networks, news - stop. than, when mind will be more clear, do no do work you are not payed. if you do not know if you will be payed, ask responsible person if you should do some part of work or not, or assume it was not explicitly asked means not needed. in free time you have do yoga, training, walks, meditations, talk to people(relatives, friends).

Therapy, especially CBT