Tag: Stress

What are boundaries?

Healthy boundaries are an important part of forming one’s identity and are a vital part of maintaining positive mental health and well-being. Common misconceptions, when it comes to setting healthy boundaries, revolve around the idea of being rude, disrespectful, and stubborn. In reality, setting boundaries are an important communicative instrument that outlines what an individual is willing to accept and what they are not. Boundaries can be physical, emotional, and material, and can range from those that are negotiable to those that may be more rigid. A complete lack of boundaries may indicate that someone lacks a strong sense of identity, is easily influenced by other people, or is even commonly taken advantage of.

Physical

Physical boundaries involve personal space, comfort with touch, and physical needs such as needing to eat, rest, and sleep. It’s certainly okay to tell others that you don’t like to be touched or that you would like some more space. It is also okay to tell others that you are hungry and would like to get something to eat. These can sound like “I’m not too keen on hugging, how about a handshake?”

Physical boundary violations include receiving unwanted or inappropriate touch, standing too close. It can also involve having someone come into your personal space in an uncomfortable way eg. A friend that walks into your house unannounced without knocking or ringing the bell.

Emotional

Emotional boundaries involve feelings, energy, and values. Setting emotional boundaries includes identifying how much emotional energy you are taking in, knowing when to share, and limiting emotional sharing with those who respond in an invalidating manner. This kind of boundary can sound like “I hear that this conversation is important to you. Right now is not a good time for me to take all of this in. Do you think we can get back to this at a later time?”

Emotional boundary violations can include assuming how other people feel, dismissing and/or criticizing feelings.

Material

Material boundaries refer to items and possessions such as your home, car, clothes, money, etc. It is important to understand and be clear on what you are willing and not willing to share, and how you expect your materials to be treated by the people you share them with. This kind of boundary may sound like “Sure, I would be happy to lend you my jacket. However, I need it back by Friday.”

Violations of material boundaries occur when things you have shared are destroyed, stolen, or ‘borrowed’ too frequently.

Verbalizing our feelings and expressing our needs begins in early childhood with our families, and then in our friend circles. These early boundaries are internalized and determine how comfortable we are standing up for ourselves. The inability to set boundaries usually stems from fears such as abandonment, losing the relationship, hurting other people’s feelings, being judged, being disliked, made fun of, etc.

Initially setting boundaries can come with a sense of guilt which can make it feel like it’s the wrong thing to do. Other people may not always be understanding of the reasons for our boundaries. Some may show resistance and even respond aggressively – this may be due to the possibility that, to them, your boundary means that they will not get what they want. Boundaries can be thought of as the terms under which a relationship can progress further. In contrast to common stereotypical misconceptions, people place boundaries in their relationships because they want to continue to carry them further in their life, and in a healthier manner.

Boundaries are an important aspect of self-care and are important in all aspects of our lives. They allow us to be our true selves, set realistic expectations, and create safety. As essential as it is to prioritize our needs, it is also equally critical that we respect the boundaries that other people have set for themselves.

Trauma Response (The 4 F’s – Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn)

How does your body respond when you perceive danger or a threat? Often known as a trauma response, it is an initial reaction that is triggered when there is a perception of or an actual threat, like an oncoming car or a growling dog. Research has compiled evidence for different trauma responses that we tend to display in order to protect ourselves from the threat or perceived threat. The responses are usually referred to as the 4Fs – Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn and have evolved as a survival mechanism to help us react quickly to life-threatening situations. When our brain perceives a threat, we automatically react with one of these 4 trauma responses, depending on factors such as individual differences and past experiences of trauma.

In saying so, it is possible for some individuals to have an overactivation of their trauma responses. What this means is that even in non-threatening situations, their trauma responses could be activated. Research suggests that an overactivation of our trauma responses is associated with a decline in our physical and psychological health. That is, chronic stress may contribute to high blood pressure, burnout, decreased immunity, and an increase in anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and substance use problems.

In this blog, we’ll further explore what each response entails, along with the associated thoughts and behaviors, followed by some helpful ways to cope with overactive trauma responses.

Fight Response

Fight types protect themselves from threat through conflict.

Those that tend towards the fight response believe that if they establish power over the threat, it will result in security and control. This response may feel like an adrenaline rush, accompanied with a desire to defend oneself through fighting, yelling at, or controlling others. The thought behind this response is “I need to eliminate the threat before it eliminates me.” Behaviors that might indicate this trauma response are:

  • Crying
  • Hands in fists, desire to punch
  • Flexed/tight jaw, grinding teeth
  • Fight in eyes, glaring, fight in voice
  • Desire to stomp, kick, smash with legs, feet
  • Feelings of anger/rage
  • Knotted stomach/nausea, burning stomach 

Flight Response

Flight types protect themselves from threat through escape.

Those that engage in this trauma response, cope with a threat by running from or fleeing the situation. People engaging in a flight response often report difficulties with relaxation and sitting still as they are constantly worrying, rushing, hiding, or panicking when they feel threatened. The thought behind the response is “I need to run from the situation before it can hurt me.” Behaviors that might indicate this trauma response are:

  • Restless legs, feet /numbness in legs
  • Anxiety/shallow breathing
  • Big/darting eyes
  • Leg/foot movement
  • Reported or observed fidgety-ness, restlessness, feeling trapped

Freeze Response

Freeze types protect themselves from threat through dissociation.

When faced with a threatening situation, those that tend towards this trauma response unconsciously detach from the situation by “freezing”, or spacing out. The body can feel rigid and become immobilized by the stress. This way of dealing with perceived danger may result in difficulty making decisions or getting motivated. The thought behind this response is “If I don’t do anything, the threat cannot hurt me.” Behaviors that might indicate this trauma response are:

  • Feeling stuck in some part of the body
  • Feeling cold/frozen, numb, pale skin
  • Sense of stiffness, heaviness
  • Holding breath/restricted breathing
  • Sense of dread, heart pounding
  • Decreased heart rate (can sometimes increase)

 Fawn Response (newer to the field and not as researched)

Fawn types protect themselves from threat through placation.

Those that tend to the fawn response avoid or deal with conflict through “people-pleasing.” They also experience difficulties in saying no and are afraid to share what they really think or feel in fear of how others might perceive them. They also are so accommodating of other’s needs, that they tend to ignore their own. The thought behind this response is, “If I can appease this person, I can be safe from conflict or pain.” Behaviors that might indicate this trauma response are:

  • Over apologizing to others
  • Difficulty saying no
  • Excessive flattering the other person
  • Going out of the way to please others
  • Neglecting one’s own needs
  • Pretending to agree with others

As mentioned, when our trauma responses are overactive, we are more likely to feel threatened by non-threatening stressors. Fortunately, there are some ways to cope when trauma responses are overactive:

  • Learn relaxation techniques: Techniques such as meditation, yoga, or deep abdominal breathing can help in counteracting the stress responses and allow the body to enter into a calmer state.
  • Engage in physical exercises: Engaging in physical activity is another way to promote calmness in the body. The benefits of regularly exercising have been long mentioned in the research such as increasing endorphins and decreasing stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol.
  • Seek social support: Finding support from the people around you can help reduce psychological and physiological reactions to perceived threats. Research has found evidence for support by listing benefits such as providing a sense of safety and protection, which in turn helps you feel less stressed and fearful.
  • Gain awareness of triggers: When we are able to understand what triggers our trauma responses, it leaves us in a better position to understand our responses and create new, healthier coping strategies to deal with the threat or trigger.
  • Practice self-compassion: It is also important to not judge your trauma responses or feel ashamed of them. Recognize that these responses, at one point, served as your understanding of the best way to cope with a threat. With an open mind, gain an understanding that our trauma responses may not seem to always be useful in protecting us, the way they did in the past, in current non-threatening situations.

Do you recognize yourself in any of these trauma responses?

 

How to Relax at Work – Simple Techniques

While it may be well known that aspects of work can cause stress, less is known about ways to effectively relieve it. Whether it’s a new job, a promotion, tight deadlines, or uncooperative colleagues, everyone has aspects of their worklife that stress them out. In such times, it is important to manage thoughts and feelings in a way that helps rejuvenate, rather than compound what we are already experiencing. Some people may find that their work stressors not only affect their professional life, but aspects of their personal life as well, such as health, family, and relationships. Practicing techniques how to relax at work is one of the easiest ways to lower stress levels, manage symptoms of anxiety and depression, reduce absenteeism and increase productivity.
Although avoiding stressful situations altogether sounds like an appealing idea, this may not always be possible. Relaxation techniques involve refocusing attention towards something calming and increasing awareness of bodily sensations. Contrary to popular belief, relaxation is not only relevant to enjoying a hobby or achieving peace of mind. It is a process that decreases the effects of stress on the mind as well as the body.
Individuals who are more relaxed at work report being more motivated, take fewer sick leaves, and engage in less procrastination. Effectively organizing the physical workspace has also shown to declutter and calm the mind and boost productivity. Some relaxing elements of work environments include elements of nature such as plants and aquariums. While direct contact with nature has several health benefits, research shows that even glimpses of nature through a window or photographs can improve mental health and satisfaction and reduce stress levels.
Taking breaks from long periods of work is also an important part of maintaining health, efficiency, and productivity.
Some health benefits of relaxation include:
  • Improved digestion
  • Higher energy levels
  • Increased confidence
  • Lower blood pressure
  • Improved concentration
  • Improved quality of sleep
  • Reduced activity of stress hormones
  • Increased blood flow to major muscles
Some types of relaxation include:

Autogenic Relaxation

Autogenic relaxation is a technique that focuses on teaching the body to respond to verbal commands. This can include using visual imagery and bodily awareness to reduce stress. For some, it can look like repeating words and/or phrases either mentally or verbally, encouraging relaxation and reducing muscle tension. For example, individuals may imagine a peaceful environment, then focus on controlled and relaxed breathing which slows down their heart rate. Attention can then be diverted to feeling other physiological sensations such as relaxing each part of the body.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

This technique focuses on slowly tensing and relaxing each muscle group, directing individuals’ focus to the difference between muscle tension and relaxation and simultaneously increasing awareness of physical sensations. One way of doing this is starting by tensing and relaxing the toe muscles, progressively working up to the muscles of the head and neck, and then back down to the toes. Some practice tensing for five seconds, relaxing for thirty seconds, and then repeating.

Visualization

This relaxation technique involves forming mental conceptions to take a visual journey to a peaceful and calming place or situation. Relaxing using this technique is most effective when the sensations associated with all the senses are incorporated into the visualized scenario. An example of visualizing relaxing on the beach may include thinking about the warmth of the sun on one’s body, the smell of saltwater, the sound of crashing waves, and the texture of sand. A quiet spot void of distractions where individuals can close their eyes, loosen any tight clothing and focus on their breathing helps to make the visualization more vivid.
It is important to remember that instinctually implementing these techniques is a skill that will improve gradually with time and practice. Different techniques may be more suited to different types of people. With this in mind, it may be beneficial to consider professional mental health services if feelings of stress and discomfort are persistent and seem overwhelming.

Respect in the Workplace

Similar to one’s personal life, an individual’s work-life exposes them to people with different personalities, dispositions, and temperaments. However, in a work setting, the option to disengage with someone with opposing values and/or opinions may not be available. If it is though, it may have consequences, impacting factors such as job performance, group dynamics, and organizational health as a whole. To ensure that organizations perform to their full potential and grow, navigating interpersonal relationships respectfully and productively is crucial.

Previously, organizations followed a conforming mindset in which they stayed within familiar operating methods. As a result, differences, in general, were largely viewed and reduced to potential sources of conflict and difficulty. However, recently, management has increasingly been coming to realize that when individual differences are encountered in an effective and considerate manner, they can be a source of significant innovation, collaboration, and long-term success. On an internal level, differences collide in daily interactions between people within organizations. Some apparent distinctions between people include age, gender, education, and ethnicity, while the more subtle differences may involve values, attitudes, behaviors, and personality types.

Characteristics of people that are difficult to manage when considered in a work setting include anger, indecisiveness, negativity, complaining, and competitiveness. If not managed sensitively and appropriately, these characteristics lead people to find themselves in tension-filled situations which often lead to conflict. In avoiding conflict, it is important to realize that these behaviors are not personal. In viewing people from this perspective, the chances of retaliation are minimized, allowing for constructive interventions to take place. For example, indecisive individuals tend to procrastinate, avoid making decisions and doubt themselves. Responding from a place of empathy and respect to someone like this would involve clarifying their options to help them make better decisions.

A disrespectful workplace often leads to unnecessary stress, anxiety, depression, lack of motivation, and low self-esteem. While removing conflict-inducing factors may seem like the obvious solution, research shows that this change is short-lived. Focusing on cultivating a more respectful culture, on the other hand, proves to be a more sustainable solution as it enhances how conflicts are handled when they arise. Companies that have medium to high levels of conflict while simultaneously maintaining a high level of interpersonal respect thrive more than those with different respect-conflict combinations. When people are very similar to each other there is room for long-term stagnation. In settings where people feel free to disagree and differ from the majority while knowing that they are still valued and respected, they tend to learn from each other’s differences, thus stimulating a thriving environment.

What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is defined as feelings of discomfort, such as worry or fear, that range from mild to severe. Some examples of anxiety symptoms include:
  • feeling nervous or on edge
  • increased heart rate
  • shortness of breath
  • trembling
  • sweating
  • thinking that something bad is going to happen

Difference between Anxiety and Stress

Although it may seem similar to stress, there is an acute difference between the two. Both anxiety and stress are emotional responses, but stress is usually coupled with an external trigger, which means that the feelings are relieved as the stressor is dismissed. Anxiety, on the other hand, refers more to the persistence of a worry or fear even when there may be no apparent external trigger.
Having to give a presentation or attending an important meeting, for example, may induce these feelings. In situations like these, experiencing anxiety and stress is natural and everyone encounters them in a variety of different settings. While a stressful response would include nervousness building up to the event, anxiety may involve worrying about what people may say, think, or do, the negative ways that one may be perceived, what might go wrong, etc.
Some people find it more difficult than others to relieve their anxiety, as it may be more invasive, thus hindering their daily functioning. Some common anxiety disorders include Phobic disorder, Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and Social anxiety disorder. Contrary to widespread inaccurate and stigmatized views, symptoms of such disorders are not as simplistic as being shy at a social event or color-coding your belongings. These disorders present symptoms that make undertaking and maintaining roles and responsibilities related to work, school, and personal relationships very difficult.

Anxiety at Work

In the workplace, anxiety can create limitations to one’s own professional progress. Perfectionism and procrastination are two of the main ways in which anxiety manifests. Perfectionism involves the need to be or appear perfect and procrastination is the act of delaying a task, often due to a fear of failure. In the organizational context, these may present themselves in several aspects of work. Fear of failure along with constant feelings of dissatisfaction may lead people to treat themselves harshly when they perform below a certain expectation or make small mistakes. Some people may avoid collaborating with colleagues, office parties, staff lunches, and work events due to a fear of being in social situations or public speaking. Anxiety can also directly impact an individual’s ability to meet their deadlines and complete tasks. People may even turn down promotions and refuse assignments if it involves an activity related to their fear such as flying or traveling.
With managing anxiety, it is important to manage it when it is experienced. Identifying the thoughts that come up when feeling anxious is the first step to this. Initially, anxiety may only be apparent when it is felt. Separating thoughts from feelings can prove difficult at first because they may be very quick and automatic. With practice, however, thinking patterns can become clearer. Thoughts may present themselves as words or statements like “what if..” or “I can’t cope” or even as vivid images in one’s mind, both of which can cause high levels of anxiety.

Helpful Hints to Relieve Anxiety

Some questions that help identify thoughts are:
  • What does this say about me if this is true?
  • What would it mean if ‘x’ were to happen?
  • What does this mean about what other people think/feel about me?
  • What was going through my mind before I started to feel this way?

After having identified the anxious thoughts, the next step is to attempt to evaluate whether the thought is realistic and in proportion. This is useful because anxious thoughts are usually based on exaggerations and assumptions. Learning to develop alternative ways of thinking about the same situation helps break out of cycles of anxiety.

Some questions that help identify thoughts are:
  • What does this say about me if this is true?
  • What would it mean if ‘x’ were to happen?
  • What does this mean about what other people think/feel about me?
  • What was going through my mind before I started to feel this way?

If you are looking for anxiety disorder treatment in Dubai to help you overcome any symptoms of anxiety, the mental health counseling services offered by HRIC Dubai might be helpful to you. Human Relations Institute and Clinics is a psychology-based practice based in Dubai, UAE, providing mental health and psychological services to individuals and businesses around the globe.

Stress: What is it and how to manage it? – January 19, 2021

With understanding stress, a good place to start is to ask what purpose it serves. Stress is our body’s natural protective instinct in response to a perceived threat. It activates our fight, flight, freeze or fawn system, getting us ready to either evade or encounter danger. Stress can be defined as the degree to which we feel overwhelmed or unable to cope as a result of pressures that are unmanageable. Common characteristics of things that can cause us stress include experiencing something new or unexpected, something that threatens our sense of self, or feeling a lack of control over a situation.

Stress can have a wide variety of effects in several areas of our lives. Some of the top stressors reported globally include excessive workload, financial uncertainty, concern for health and safety, and responsibilities tied to relationships and family.

Stress, in small quantities, can also be helpful to stay energetic, focused, and motivated – known as eustress. However, in larger quantities, stress can impact our body, thoughts, feelings and behavior – known as distress. Headaches, heartburn, muscle tension, chest pain, fatigue and sleep disturbances are all physical manifestations (psychosomatic) of stress.

Experiencing feelings like anxiety, anger, fear, sadness and frustration can also be linked to stress. These feelings can, in turn, influence our thought patterns and commonly result in unhelpful thinking styles such as catastrophizing, where something may be inaccurately blown out of proportion, and jumping to conclusions, where we assume that we know what is going to happen in the future.

In the work environment, this can cause problems which can impact the quality of our work, our productivity, our ability to focus on tasks, and our relationships with our colleagues. It’s natural for any job to have a stressful element to it, even if you love what you do. The trick is to develop healthy and effective responses to the stress you encounter and minimize negative outcomes as much as possible.

Although it may sound unconnected at first mention, eating healthy, staying hydrated, reducing caffeine intake and getting a good amount of sleep helps your body cope better with stress on a chemical level. Dealing with stress in unhealthy ways such as engaging in behaviours like overeating, smoking and abusing drugs and alcohol gives us a temporary sense of ‘relief’, but in reality, these coping mechanisms only help us avoid the root cause of our problems.

Some factors that can help successfully manage stress in the workplace include:

Setting clear boundaries between work and home (work-life balance)

In today’s digital world, a common pressure people experience is that they feel the need to be available 24/7. Drawing a line between the professional and personal aspects of our lives are crucial to our mental wellbeing. In action, this could look like a commitment to not checking work emails or taking work calls at home or after a specific time of day.

A strong support system

Having people around you that you can trust and depend on, has shown to significantly increase both mental and physical health. Research shows that having a strong support system results in higher levels of well-being, better coping skills, and a longer and healthier life. This may be in the form of friends, family, co-workers, children, mental health professionals, and/or pets.