Managing Stress for Working Parents

Stress and subsequently anxiety are on the rise in America. It has been for more than a decade but is now increasing even further throughout the pandemic. Healthcare, money, and the economy have been the most common stressors for years. According to Med Alert Help the stress experienced from the pandemic, particularly by Millennials, eclipses the traditional concerns. This means, we need to find ways of managing stress in this ever-increasing environment.

How do you manage stress?

Many people look at stress management as getting rest, proper nutrition, and finding ways to unwind. All of that is great and very useful in an overall healthy lifestyle the problem is it doesn’t equip you to handle stress when it comes up. Working parents have household chores, children’s and partner’s needs, bills, and family pressures. Add to that the work pressures of deadlines, expectations out of your control, office politics, and having to act without complete information to name a few. What happens when a project or customer goes off the rails? Can you eat some kale and expect a resolution? No, you need to prepare and take action. When I teach or coach managing stress, I focus on the 6 steps to take you from stressed out to action.

The 6 steps of Stress Management

1. Stop – Sometimes we can feel the stress (quick breathing, sweaty palms, and shaking knees) and we don’t even know exactly what it is. Stop, and take a breath, or two or three. It does not matter where you are or what you’re doing, you can take a breath.
2. Identify – Objectively identify what is stressing you out. As best you’re able take the emotion out of it. What is the thing that is causing you stress? Get specific.
3. Decide – You get to make a choice on if you’re going to own this stress or not. Often times, we are stressed about things that have nothing to do with us. You can also choose to address or ignore any of those things. Neither decision is right or wrong, but just taking ownership of the choice you’re making reduces the stress.
4. Refocus – What about the stressor is something to be grateful for? Is there any way you can find gratitude in the circumstance or what you’re seeing?
5. Resources – What or who can aid you in solving the problem or navigating the situation? You don’t have to have all the answers, building connections and resources is key.
6. Action – Finally, do something. Even if that something is small, taking a step in any direction gives you back the power.

Stress Management in Action

I recently had a conversation with a coworker regarding a mutual friend. My coworker said, ‘he’s so stressed he can’t see anything else,’ and wow was she right. This coworker is working a project right now that just doesn’t feel like he can get anything right on. He just keeps bumping up against the same wall. On top of that he recently returned to the office and had a shift in his family life. (All things sleep and kale won’t fix.)

When I got on a call with him I could tell right off that he couldn’t see anything but the problem. I asked what he thought we should do, where he wanted to go from there, what our options were, etcetera. (All variations of the same question intentionally.) His response every single time was a variation on the problem itself. He couldn’t see anything else. I will admit at first I was frustrated. Afterall, this is a highly intelligent person who has plenty of knowledge and resources to make a move. I perhaps wasn’t overly helpful at first because of my frustration but once I followed my own advice and prompted the steps above, it made all the difference.

But could we turn it around?

I started by recentering myself with a deep breath (I’m telling myself he breathed right along with me.) Then I outlined the problem objectively, without attaching any emotion to it. I posed the decision that we would need to move in x direction; after all we’re grateful for the new flexibility that led to the problem in the first place. We discussed options for who could help in developing solutions, and we didn’t leave the call until he noted what his next step would be. At the end of the call was he thrilled and ready to hug me for guiding him through this? Not at all. He was however absolutely able to see past at least one primary stressor and was empowered to take improve it. My goal was to help him to manage his primary stressor, which we accomplished. By learning that skill, even if in another area of life, he’ll be better equipped to handle other stressors as well.

Implementing these steps is important but tricky when you’re stressed out already. Practice on the small things so that it’s an automatic for the bigger situations with higher stress and anxiety. If you’re looking for a simple format to help you practice, click here for your free one-page guide to help you walk through it.