How do you manage complete unrelenting stress?
December 14, 2023 7:59 AM Subscribe
I have extreme stress in my family situation that I am managing and getting support with but I am struggling to implement ways to release the stress from my body and I know it is hurting me, more inside.
I have extreme stress in my family situation. It will probably last for a long period of time while I make the steps I need to make. Professionals are involved and I am supported but I know that my body is not happy, I’ve lost a lot of hair and have folliculitis and fungal infections and cracking toenails and aches and pains etc. my jaw hurts. I have migraine. I struggle to do the basics like make chicken salad. Although I do manage to eat a healthy breakfast. I am in therapy to learn to handle the triggers that upset me and I am trying to do radical acceptance etc. can anyone who has gotten through extreme periods of ongoing mental stress talk me through how they did it.
I have extreme stress in my family situation. It will probably last for a long period of time while I make the steps I need to make. Professionals are involved and I am supported but I know that my body is not happy, I’ve lost a lot of hair and have folliculitis and fungal infections and cracking toenails and aches and pains etc. my jaw hurts. I have migraine. I struggle to do the basics like make chicken salad. Although I do manage to eat a healthy breakfast. I am in therapy to learn to handle the triggers that upset me and I am trying to do radical acceptance etc. can anyone who has gotten through extreme periods of ongoing mental stress talk me through how they did it.
I just bought The Stress Solution book after hearing the author on a couple podcasts. Two specific brief descriptions of mental techniques she described on the podcasts that seem mildly helpful to me:
"be the lion" not the prey which is a mental lens to say that both the lion and the prey are in stress situations but the lion is hoping to get dinner and the prey is hoping to live.
"let go of the boulder" the stress is still there but stop holding on to it with bloody hands, let go, it will still be there but don't need to hold on to it
I'm aware that there is not a simple "read a book" and "do a thing" solution here but I thought I'd pass on the idea in case it appeals to you. There's more in the book about breathing and letting nature do the work and so on.
posted by RoadScholar at 8:38 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
"be the lion" not the prey which is a mental lens to say that both the lion and the prey are in stress situations but the lion is hoping to get dinner and the prey is hoping to live.
"let go of the boulder" the stress is still there but stop holding on to it with bloody hands, let go, it will still be there but don't need to hold on to it
I'm aware that there is not a simple "read a book" and "do a thing" solution here but I thought I'd pass on the idea in case it appeals to you. There's more in the book about breathing and letting nature do the work and so on.
posted by RoadScholar at 8:38 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oof, I'm sorry, and yes, I have had a similar experience. In my case I pulled through on a combination of:
- Meds, both a regular daily med and a small prescription of a small dose of rescue meds (benzos) to be used on an as-needed basis on particularly terrible or stressful days.
- Giving myself permission to half-ass absolutely everything that could be half-assed during that period of time, at work and at home. "Keep everyone in my house including me alive, fed, and at least occasionally washed" was the baseline. If that meant I ate an apple or a few pieces of cheese instead of making an actual meal, okay! If the house was a mess, okay! If I ate off paper plates and ate too much takeout, okay! If I worked enough to not get fired but did not do a single thing beyond that for a while, okay!
- Once I could carve out a little time to do so, an intensive eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress
Reduction course taught through a local hospital system. I feel very "YMMV" about mindfulness as a tool, honestly. At an earlier time in my life it had done very little for me, and I have friends for whom it was actively harmful. But for me, at that specific point of stress in my life, it was a lifesaver. YMMV there, and I'd probably mess around a little with trying some guided meditation at home before investing time and money in a whole course, but it did help me a lot at the time.
- Picking up a hobby that required me to learn and/or exercise physical movements. Having to focus on learning to make my hands do the things required to knit, or even just spending some time with coloring books, was really helpful in breaking some of the stress loops my brain kept getting stuck in. A lot of my hobbies are like, reading! Typing! Watching and talking about media! And that's all great, but it turned out that picking up a physical object and manipulating it in precise, specific ways was perfect to force my brain to really change gears.
- I'm not great at asking for or accepting help, but I had people who wanted to help me, and as much as I could bring myself to, I let them.
posted by Stacey at 8:40 AM on December 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
- Meds, both a regular daily med and a small prescription of a small dose of rescue meds (benzos) to be used on an as-needed basis on particularly terrible or stressful days.
- Giving myself permission to half-ass absolutely everything that could be half-assed during that period of time, at work and at home. "Keep everyone in my house including me alive, fed, and at least occasionally washed" was the baseline. If that meant I ate an apple or a few pieces of cheese instead of making an actual meal, okay! If the house was a mess, okay! If I ate off paper plates and ate too much takeout, okay! If I worked enough to not get fired but did not do a single thing beyond that for a while, okay!
- Once I could carve out a little time to do so, an intensive eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress
Reduction course taught through a local hospital system. I feel very "YMMV" about mindfulness as a tool, honestly. At an earlier time in my life it had done very little for me, and I have friends for whom it was actively harmful. But for me, at that specific point of stress in my life, it was a lifesaver. YMMV there, and I'd probably mess around a little with trying some guided meditation at home before investing time and money in a whole course, but it did help me a lot at the time.
- Picking up a hobby that required me to learn and/or exercise physical movements. Having to focus on learning to make my hands do the things required to knit, or even just spending some time with coloring books, was really helpful in breaking some of the stress loops my brain kept getting stuck in. A lot of my hobbies are like, reading! Typing! Watching and talking about media! And that's all great, but it turned out that picking up a physical object and manipulating it in precise, specific ways was perfect to force my brain to really change gears.
- I'm not great at asking for or accepting help, but I had people who wanted to help me, and as much as I could bring myself to, I let them.
posted by Stacey at 8:40 AM on December 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
I’m so sorry to hear what you’re going through—glad to hear you have professional help and are also aware of what else you need to address for yourself.
Physical activity helps a lot; are you doing any of that? The thing I’d recommend would be daily walks or runs during daylight hours, preferably in some kind of nature-heavy setting like a park or forest. The exercise helps move things in your body (someone explained it to me as “burning off cortisol,” which might not be a totally accurate description, but might be a helpful way to think about it), the sunlight helps boost your levels of vitamin D and get your circadian rhythms regulated, and being out in nature will help you reset and relax in a way that the baseline car noises, concrete, people, etc in a more urban area will not (look up forest bathing!) And if I were you, I’d be prioritizing regularity of exercise over length or intensity of exercise.
Are you getting enough sleep?
Do you have financial resources to outsource some of the things like getting healthy food prepared for your later meals? Keeping my blood sugar regular helps my mental health—even though my tendency is to want to eat a lot of carb-heavy comfort foods or chocolate in stressful times, I know I feel better if I can at least get veggies and protein into my diet on a regular basis too.
During my times of greatest stress over the last couple of years, I was doing short cold showers and found it to help. But it’s kind of unpleasant, so I admit I stopped when I was feeling better!
Can you try mentally containing the stress to certain times? My therapist always tries to get me to do this, allow myself to come back to it, but box it up and put it away for the time being. I’ve found exercise classes like yoga to be good for this, I can allow myself to completely and only think about what I’m being instructed to do, and step out of my life for an hour. Same with physical hobbies like Stacey mentioned: the focus on something physical and detailed can be very helpful for kind of stepping out of your stress for a bit.
Sometimes I think of my body as a sort of finicky pet that needs to be cared for, and it helps me do the physical maintenance activities that ultimately help my mental health. I hope you can figure out a way to manage your stress effectively. Best wishes to you!
posted by music for skeletons at 8:43 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Physical activity helps a lot; are you doing any of that? The thing I’d recommend would be daily walks or runs during daylight hours, preferably in some kind of nature-heavy setting like a park or forest. The exercise helps move things in your body (someone explained it to me as “burning off cortisol,” which might not be a totally accurate description, but might be a helpful way to think about it), the sunlight helps boost your levels of vitamin D and get your circadian rhythms regulated, and being out in nature will help you reset and relax in a way that the baseline car noises, concrete, people, etc in a more urban area will not (look up forest bathing!) And if I were you, I’d be prioritizing regularity of exercise over length or intensity of exercise.
Are you getting enough sleep?
Do you have financial resources to outsource some of the things like getting healthy food prepared for your later meals? Keeping my blood sugar regular helps my mental health—even though my tendency is to want to eat a lot of carb-heavy comfort foods or chocolate in stressful times, I know I feel better if I can at least get veggies and protein into my diet on a regular basis too.
During my times of greatest stress over the last couple of years, I was doing short cold showers and found it to help. But it’s kind of unpleasant, so I admit I stopped when I was feeling better!
Can you try mentally containing the stress to certain times? My therapist always tries to get me to do this, allow myself to come back to it, but box it up and put it away for the time being. I’ve found exercise classes like yoga to be good for this, I can allow myself to completely and only think about what I’m being instructed to do, and step out of my life for an hour. Same with physical hobbies like Stacey mentioned: the focus on something physical and detailed can be very helpful for kind of stepping out of your stress for a bit.
Sometimes I think of my body as a sort of finicky pet that needs to be cared for, and it helps me do the physical maintenance activities that ultimately help my mental health. I hope you can figure out a way to manage your stress effectively. Best wishes to you!
posted by music for skeletons at 8:43 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I had a period of several years like this — not fever-pitch stress all the time, but fever-pitch for a few weeks at a time, happening at unpredictable intervals, which were themselves filled with dread of the next Thing. I don’t know that I managed well, but I sort of took a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs approach: if eating and sleeping are failing, focus on those, knowing that I won’t succeed all the time; if those are okay, try to get some exercise; if that’s been going okay, maybe look up from the cave for long enough to do something longer-term to tackle one of the stressors, like call a therapist.
I love that you’re trying to practice radical acceptance. That is not a skill I had in abundance, which meant that it’s what I had to try, too. I found it surprisingly relaxing to just name shit explicitly so I could practice it being true. I kind of mentally took “good” off the table: let’s assume it’s going to be bad; what is my best move, knowing that? How can I minimize the bad?
I’m sorry you’re hurting. I hope you have someone on Team You in person.
posted by eirias at 8:43 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
I love that you’re trying to practice radical acceptance. That is not a skill I had in abundance, which meant that it’s what I had to try, too. I found it surprisingly relaxing to just name shit explicitly so I could practice it being true. I kind of mentally took “good” off the table: let’s assume it’s going to be bad; what is my best move, knowing that? How can I minimize the bad?
I’m sorry you’re hurting. I hope you have someone on Team You in person.
posted by eirias at 8:43 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'd also like to recommend a book, which really helped me understand how to process stress better. It's called Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. One of their main points that I was able to incorporate into stressful situations is the idea that your body needs to physically release stress. This could look like anything – a walk in your neighborhood, a punching back, yoga, running in place – it really doesn't matter *what* it is as long as you allow your body to literally shake it off. I realized that this is why I always have an urgent need to stretch before having difficult or possibly anxious conversations. I hope maybe some of their ideas might help! Even doing shoulder releases while sitting can make a difference. I really hope you are able to find some relief soon.
posted by Molasses808 at 9:30 AM on December 14, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Molasses808 at 9:30 AM on December 14, 2023 [10 favorites]
First, it sounds like you are going through a lot and doing some really great things to help yourself, like going to therapy and eating a healthy breakfast! These are not trivial things in your situation, though I can see how it's still very hard.
To jump on the Burnout bandwagon a little bit, the authors also did a podcast where they discussed topics from the book, and your question made me think of this episode: Complete the Stress Response Cycle. They explain how our bodies get stressed and how certain actions help our bodies move through the stress and into a more relaxed state. Physical exercise, like Molasses808 mentions, is one good way to do that, but there are other ways as well, which they discuss in the podcast. At the link, there's also a transcript of the episode, if you are interested but don't have time for listening to it.
I find the thing that helps me deal with stress a bit better (besides completing the cycle) is cutting myself a large amount of slack. House is dirty? Oh well. I'm eating ramen instead of a healthy lunch? That's fine, I fed my body the best I could in that moment. The letting go is critical for me because it counteracts my negative self-talk, which takes what I'm dealing with and dials it up to 11, which stresses me out even more... You get the idea.
posted by tuesdayschild at 9:55 AM on December 14, 2023 [7 favorites]
To jump on the Burnout bandwagon a little bit, the authors also did a podcast where they discussed topics from the book, and your question made me think of this episode: Complete the Stress Response Cycle. They explain how our bodies get stressed and how certain actions help our bodies move through the stress and into a more relaxed state. Physical exercise, like Molasses808 mentions, is one good way to do that, but there are other ways as well, which they discuss in the podcast. At the link, there's also a transcript of the episode, if you are interested but don't have time for listening to it.
I find the thing that helps me deal with stress a bit better (besides completing the cycle) is cutting myself a large amount of slack. House is dirty? Oh well. I'm eating ramen instead of a healthy lunch? That's fine, I fed my body the best I could in that moment. The letting go is critical for me because it counteracts my negative self-talk, which takes what I'm dealing with and dials it up to 11, which stresses me out even more... You get the idea.
posted by tuesdayschild at 9:55 AM on December 14, 2023 [7 favorites]
It sounds silly but this Purrable item has been helpful to regulate heartbeat and breathing in the moment.
posted by ichimunki at 10:55 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by ichimunki at 10:55 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have recently started hydroxyzine, and it's just enough to let me hold the reins a bit. Benzos were a bad choice for me (made my anxiety much worse), though I know that's not true for everybody.
Breathing exercises and meditation and physical exercise on a daily schedule are the big ones for me. Reading through that transcript from the burnout author makes me think that she really gets it. Very practical advice!
posted by Acari at 12:49 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Breathing exercises and meditation and physical exercise on a daily schedule are the big ones for me. Reading through that transcript from the burnout author makes me think that she really gets it. Very practical advice!
posted by Acari at 12:49 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Celebrate tiny accomplishments. For example, the other day I put three unripe pears and three unripe avocados in a flat bowl on the counter. Two kinds of pears in one bowl! Both green but different greens! Both moving towards greater palatability in their own time as nature intended! (Full marching band, fireworks, cheering.)
posted by Don Pepino at 12:51 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Don Pepino at 12:51 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Sorry, friend. In quitting drinking, I stumbled into a few tactics that really helped me with the stress of that situation.
Mindful meditation. So simple yet so complex. Realizing that I actually control my brain and what it thinks was super important to my recovery. Mindful meditation allowed me to focus my thoughts on what I wanted/needed to. I learned a basic mantra: right now, this is how it is. Meaning, to realize that we feel is eternal and never ending, will be ending. It is finite. It offered me a glimmer of hope.
Exercise. One way or the other, I made time to do something. I viewed it as my medicine. Would I say "I don't feel like taking my medicine today?". I had to walk, bike or anything just to be active. Having something that was on the books also gave me a glimmer of hope.
Kindness. Being kind to myself was not in my nature. I learned to ask "if my friend was in this crisis, how would I attempt to help them?" and then do that for myself. That was hard for me but it allowed me to see things differently. I deserved the kindness. Provide yourself the comfort you need in this moment. For me, it was buying a selection of audio books (to listen to on walks) and in-game purchases from mobile phone games.
Placing my needs at the top of the list. I had to take care of my well being because I was the only person who could really do it. I don't think your circumstances are the same but I think that there are baseline needs that have to be met. You can function without them but over time their absence causes more issues.
Allow yourself to feel whatever you feel without guilt. How you feel matters. Give yourself the guiltfree space to feel.
Sleep. Any time I could sleep, I would. Not easy with a racing mind. I was clenching my jaw. Migranes. It took a while. I found that, in that moment, I needed sleep meds.
Talk to your doc. Honesty described what I was going through. Got some low grade anti-anxiety meds.
I really wish you all the best. Be well.
posted by zerobyproxy at 2:02 PM on December 14, 2023 [7 favorites]
Mindful meditation. So simple yet so complex. Realizing that I actually control my brain and what it thinks was super important to my recovery. Mindful meditation allowed me to focus my thoughts on what I wanted/needed to. I learned a basic mantra: right now, this is how it is. Meaning, to realize that we feel is eternal and never ending, will be ending. It is finite. It offered me a glimmer of hope.
Exercise. One way or the other, I made time to do something. I viewed it as my medicine. Would I say "I don't feel like taking my medicine today?". I had to walk, bike or anything just to be active. Having something that was on the books also gave me a glimmer of hope.
Kindness. Being kind to myself was not in my nature. I learned to ask "if my friend was in this crisis, how would I attempt to help them?" and then do that for myself. That was hard for me but it allowed me to see things differently. I deserved the kindness. Provide yourself the comfort you need in this moment. For me, it was buying a selection of audio books (to listen to on walks) and in-game purchases from mobile phone games.
Placing my needs at the top of the list. I had to take care of my well being because I was the only person who could really do it. I don't think your circumstances are the same but I think that there are baseline needs that have to be met. You can function without them but over time their absence causes more issues.
Allow yourself to feel whatever you feel without guilt. How you feel matters. Give yourself the guiltfree space to feel.
Sleep. Any time I could sleep, I would. Not easy with a racing mind. I was clenching my jaw. Migranes. It took a while. I found that, in that moment, I needed sleep meds.
Talk to your doc. Honesty described what I was going through. Got some low grade anti-anxiety meds.
I really wish you all the best. Be well.
posted by zerobyproxy at 2:02 PM on December 14, 2023 [7 favorites]
Aw man, this sounds really rough. I've been there multiple times and I'm so sorry you've been going through it, too. One thing I adopted during a time of profound stress at work were what I called "rage walks." Sometimes I'd go on one, sometimes I'd go on two. They weren't long unless I got on a roll and felt compelled to keep going. Essentially they were just brisk walks during which I allowed myself to be angry and sad about what was going on in a stream of consciousness, don't need to find a solution, just need to get it all out kind of way. This prevented me from having breakdowns at my desk which was very important. At the end of each walk I made a point of doing a big shake like a dog after a bath. When possible I'd find somewhere to scream. That was always a nice bonus. But it was the movement and my allowing myself to be authentically angry and unfiltered in my mind that made a difference. No guilt. Just giving myself and my stress space.
Hope you feel better soon. Sending you good thoughts.
posted by The Adventure Begins at 7:12 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Hope you feel better soon. Sending you good thoughts.
posted by The Adventure Begins at 7:12 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
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Something that happened in the last week was I started a very simple medication for anxiety (hydroxyzine). Unlike an antidepressant that needs time to build up, this specific medication kicks in for me within minutes. Last weekend I was able to take care of things that I'd be stuck with for months, and in many ways having this as an option has very much brightened my day.
You know how we can sit around and wonder why we can't take care of simple thing? Within a few minutes of taking this medication I all of a sudden realize that I can do those simple things. (it's not a magic button - I still have to choose to do the work, but now so many things seem possible.)
I was able to get my initial prescription via a same-day video call with a local healthcare provider, and when I later checked in with my primary he said this specific medication is OK for the long term and won't build dependency.
Best wishes here, this sounds like such a a difficult time for you. I hope you're able to get good answers to help you get through this.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:16 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]