Me First

"Sit tight, here comes the story"

Lila is a working mom of 2 kids under the age of 6. She juggles multiple responsibilities without support ad many resources. Her full time sales job is demanding and stressful. In addition to her work, she takes care of her children, manages the household chores and cares for her elderly parents, who live about 40 minutes from her house. 

Lila has been feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by the constant demands on her time and energy. Despite her effort to keep up with her work and family responsibilities, she finds herself struggling to meet expectations at work and at home, experiencing chronic stress, fatigue and feeling of incompetence. 

“Mom, I have to take gifts to my teacher for teacher appreciation day tomorrow”. It is 9pm when her son reminds her of what is needed for tomorrow. 

Lila starts to cry inconsolably. Her son hugs her and that gesture makes her cry even harder. It is too much. She can’t take it anymore. She is not living happily. She is surviving each day and this needs to change. The relentless pressure and lack of downtime is taking a toll on her physical and mental well being, leading to burnout.

Let's talk about this:

Have you ever felt like Lila? Why do we wait until we can’t take it anymore to make a change? How can we manage our stress better so we don’t burn out?

Let’s start by stating the difference between Stressors and Stress: 

Stressors are what activate the stress response in our body. They can be anything we see, hear, smell, touch, taste or imagine could do us harm. They can be external such as: work, money, family, time, cultural expectations, experiences of discrimination, etc. Or internal stressors such as: self-criticism, body image, identity, memories, etc. In different ways to different degrees they can be interpreted by our body as potential threats. 

Stress is the neurological and physiological shift that happens in our body when we encounter one of these threats. 

Let’s imagine the following scene:

You are walking in the street and suddenly a lion shows up in front of you. When your brain notices the lion, it activates a generic “stress response”, a bunch of neurological and hormonal activities initiates the physiological changes to help you survive: muscles get ready to run, blood pressure increases, sensitivity to pain diminishes, attention is alert, and on and on. Your entire body and mind change in response to the threat (lion). 

Here comes the lion… what do you do? Your body is flooded with the stress response… you run. There are only two outcomes: the lion catches you or you run very fast and get to your house, where your family is ready to take down the lion and you survive! Let’s be more positive and choose the latter. You survived! You feel safe at your house surrounded by family. You are embraced by your loved ones and together you take a deep breath and celebrate winning the race and getting rid of the lion. 

The stress response cycle is completed (your body feels safe close to your loving family). 

Let’s say that in another scenario, when you are running away from the lion, a ranger appears and shoots the lion who drops dead. You stop and look at the dead lion. Do you feel safe? No, because your body is still trying to figure it out that the stressor (lion) is no longer there. Let’s say you finally make it to your house and tell your family what happened. They cook a nice dinner for you, you are comfy on your couch while your mom is caressing your hair. Now, the body feels safe. 

The stress response cycle is completed. 

Now, let’s suppose the “lion” is a colleague you have at work, or an unpleasant family member. He is there making inappropriate and insulting comments at meetings or family gatherings. You sit there seeming calm, but your body is responding to a stressor. Physiologically speaking, you want to grab his neck and crack it. But you just sit there, looking and being “nice”, because this is what is socially accepted. You finally get the courage and ask his supervisor to address the “jerk’s comments”. Congratulations, you are close to eliminating the stressor! But, your body is still looking for the confirmation that you are safe from the potential threat and ready to relax. In this case, the stress response cycle was not completed. 

Now, let’s bring it even closer to home: let’s say the “lion” is an abusive client. He talks down on you, he tells you “even when you do your best, you suck!”. He is aggressive and abusive. Every meeting is a nightmare for you. Your body is constantly ready to run from that lion. On the days of the week you have meetings with him, you get home physically and emotionally exhausted. What do you do? 1: you jump into your night routine (cooking, kids’ homework, laundry, etc); 2. Take 15 minutes to yourself to do what you like so you can decompress (go for a quick walk, listen to music, lay down, take a long shower, etc). #1 is probably your default. It will be easier to keep going, then you can relax "when everything is done". But long term, you won’t be able to keep going anymore. Route #2 seems impossible at the moment? I know, it did to me (and it does some days still),  but little by little you will start noticing the benefits that those 15 minutes for yourself will give you and the ones around you.

Why is it important to complete the cycle?

The cycle is completed when our body feels safe. The prolonged and continuous stress is degenerative to our body, because our body needs to stay constantly in alert mode. The hormonal and neurological things that happen in our body during stressful situations, if not dealt with, can cause irritability, depression, insomnia, anxiety, elevated blood pressure and even make you look older. Did I get your attention now??

We have a tendency not to stop until we’ve pushed ourselves to the edge of exhaustion. We usually see relaxing as a waste of time. But the good news is, resting (which can be anything that helps you close the stress response cycle) is not a waste of time, it is an investment on our well-being.

I’m guilty of pushing myself to exhaustion and not really believing in “putting myself first”. I even judged some friends that have done that in the past (I know, shame on me). It was hard for me to put the foot off the pedal and focus on me first. Really hard. But, once my body gave up on me (I discovered I have an auto-imune disease that manifested after a really stressful phase in my life), I was “forced” to stop and take care of myself. I did put myself first and I learned that there are double benefits in doing so: I am happier and the ones around me are happier. Why is that? Because once I fill my energy tank with activities that make me happy (walking in nature, reading, exercising, connecting with people, hugging my kids, spending time with my husband, talking to my parents), I fill my “bubble of love”. Then, when I can start blowing bubbles of love to the ones around me, and that’s when I distribute more kindness, patience, and attention to the world outside of myself. 

How do we complete the stress response cycle?

Physical activity is what tells your brain you have successfully survived the threat and how your body is a safe place to live. Physical activity is the most efficient strategy for completing the stress response cycle. "Lu, but I hate exercising!!!" you might be thinking. Physical activity is not only going to the gym, it is anything that moves your body. Do you like dancing? Playing hide and seek with your kids? Walk to the mailbox? Perform your favorite karaoke song? Bingo.. you are exercising.

Also, there are other ways to complete the cycle, like breathing deeply, meditation, positive social interactions, affections and one that I love most, laughter.

A friend of mine asked me when I would write a post about stress management, and I believe this is it. You manage your stress by taking care of yourself, by doing the things that make you happy. Trust me, it is hard to start. Very hard. Because we were raised to be “Givers”. There is this assumption that women should give everything, every moment of our lives, every drop of energy, to the care of others. 

Emily and Amelia Nagoski, the sisters that wrote the top seller book called “Burnout”, say that “self-care” is, indeed, selfish, because it uses personal resources to promote a giver’s well-being, rather than someone else’s. This really touched my heart, because in this context. I do want to be selfish. I want to promote my own well-being, so I can be healthy and happy to be around the ones I love and the work I do. What about you? 

How excellence looks like:

• When the Stress Response Cycle is completed more often in your day to day

• When we smile (and laugh) more frequently and cry when needed (to release the stress)

• When you recognize when is time to stop before your body tells you

• When you feel like dancing and singing your favorite song, do it!

• When you move your body, it can be heavy exercise for those that like it, but a walk around the block will give us fresh air and fresh thoughts 

Food for Thought:

• Reflect on Toni Morrison’s quote - ”You are your best thing”. There are no stressors in our lives worth sacrificing our health and happiness for.

Call for action:

• Find time in your day to do at least one thing for YOU.

• Put limits and boundaries. You may not be able to change the environment you are in, but speak up on what works for you and what it doesn’t .

• Find ways to disconnect from work (or whatever are your stressors at the moment) - increase the frequency of the things you love to do (i.e: sport, cook, hobbies, reading)

• If you don’t have time to call a good friend, send an audio message. This is the best tool I found to keep in touch with my busy friends. We call our audio messages, “podcasts”, because they are looooong. But that way, we can listen and respond when we have time. And we don’t put pressure on each other whether you answer right away or 5 days later (which happens quite often).

Resources:

• Psicologia al desnudo - this podcast is about Burnout - The psychologist Marina Mammolit 

• Burnout - Emily and Amelia Nagoski - this book gives great tools for us to understand stress and manage it better, so we don’t burnout

• Atlas of the Heart - Brene Brown does an amazing job mapping out all different types of emotions, which helps us create language about what we are feeling, and that makes it easier to work on those feelings and emotions. 

• The Mind Explained - How to focus - Netflix Series - it shows the difficulty we face to concentrate (on ourselves and on things we like to do or need to do) when the world around us is full of distractions.