Entering a high-stress profession can take a toll on your mental health. Preparing yourself with the right habits is essential. Proactive strategies can help you build resilience.
It’s your habits that help you develop an emotional baseline. What it feels like to be you at any given moment. During times of relatively low stress, you don’t always need to think about what tools you are giving your body to process its experiences.
In a high-pressure job, however, it’s your habits that will see you through hard times, and make sure that you have enough gas in the tank to do what is needed day in and day out.
In this article, we take a look at what habits you should develop before entering a high-stress profession.
Psychologists sometimes place mental health behaviors into two basic categories:
Hedonism has a negative connotation, but it is important to understand that Hedonic vs. Eudaimonic behaviors are not exactly a binary. It’s not that one is good and the other is bad. There is nuance.
Hedonic behaviors can be a fine way to relax or cope with stress as long as they are implemented in moderation. Eudaimonic behaviors, on the other hand, are the habits that will serve as the building blocks for dealing with stressful situations.
It is Eudaimonic traits that we will be describing in this article.
Mindfulness is a buzzphrase these days. It’s been extrapolated into product advertising to the point that it feels vague, or even unappealing to some people who could actually benefit considerably from it.
Mindfulness in its purest state is not yoga mats and scented candles. It’s being aware of what is happening in the present. How do you feel right now?
People often don’t have an answer to that question. During the hustle and bustle of a busy day, it’s very easy to lose sight of your body’s subtler cues. Maybe your heart is beating a little too fast. Maybe you feel tight and clenched.
These are stress indicators. However, without mindfulness habits, you won’t have the tools to identify them—let alone manage them.
Mindfulness practices can be very simple. Clear your head. Spend a few minutes each day focusing on sensory information. What can you see? What can you smell? What can you hear? These details will help ground you in the moment.
You can also work on your breathing. Inhale for five seconds. Hold for five seconds. Exhale for five seconds. This simple technique will help you clear your head and do away with some of your more acute symptoms of stress.
Mindfulness doesn’t cure everything but it is a great first step. You can’t manage stress if you aren’t aware of it, right?
A healthy body can experience stress, of course, but it is better equipped to deal with the symptoms. Eating right gives you more energy. It can help you digest your food better. It usually produces less internal inflammation and generally promotes better overall health.
Exercise is another key ingredient to the wellness equation. Not only does it help you stay in shape but it also has its own stress relief benefits.
Exercise produces a dopamine response in your brain—one of the chemicals in your brain that is responsible for pleasure. By making proper nutrition and regular exercise a consistent component of your routine, you:
There are also subjective benefits. People who exercise tend to feel more confident. You might also sleep better and feel more content throughout the day.
You don’t need to spend three hours at the gym to receive these benefits. Going on a thirty-minute jog after work a few days a week will be helpful for managing stress and maintaining your health.
Chronic exhaustion never helps anything. Adults should try to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Your body uses that time to recover and do key maintenance. If you’re not getting enough rest, you are basically carrying yesterday’s internal stress factors into today.
That’s not a good dynamic. You can help yourself get more sleep by setting a strict bedtime and avoiding stimulation for the hour or so preceding it. Scrolling on your phone before bed may feel relaxing but screen time is a mild stimulant that can contribute to insomnia.
Reading, on the other hand, is shown to help people relax, and can help improve your sleep when done before bed.
They might not be. Stress is a difficult thing to manage. Some jobs basically bake stress into the description of your responsibilities. A nurse works incredibly difficult hours even before you factor in the stress components that are natural to their responsibilities. Twelve-hour evening, weekend, and holiday shifts would stress anyone out, even without the high-pressure situations inherent to the work. If you are new to the profession, you may be taken aback simply by how gruelling the hours are.
Social workers make choices that influence the trajectory of people’s lives. They play a key component in sobriety journeys or family reunification. These are high-pressure situations that add up to a very stressful job.
Telling someone to “focus on their breathing,” isn’t always sufficient. If you feel like you are stressed out to the point that it is difficult to handle your professional or personal responsibilities, seek help. Good habits are very useful but they are no substitution for mental health services.
