Stress management and emotion regulation summary

The essence of stress management is never to eliminate stress, nor does emotional regulation mean suppressing negative feelings. The core is to first establish a precise awareness of your own "stress trigger-emotional response" pattern, and then find adjustment tools that suit your own physiological and cognitive habits. There is no universal solution for everyone, and the effective method is to make you feel comfortable.

Speaking of it, I have been through a lot of pitfalls in the past two years. In 2019, I worked as a project coordinator on the Internet, rushing for the Q4 payment system iteration. I arrived home after 12 o'clock every day for three consecutive weeks. At that time, I was brainwashed by the Internet's "emotional stability is standard for adults."

After reading a lot of information and talking to friends who are doing psychological counseling, I discovered that the current mainstream adjustment ideas are actually divided into several directions. No one is right or wrong, and the adaptation scenarios are completely different. The first thing that saved me was a physiological approach. Those researchers said that the "anxiety" you feel "from above" is essentially the body reacting first: the heart rate rises and the muscles tighten. At this time, it is useless for you to tell yourself "calm down" because the prefrontal lobe, which is responsible for reason, is directly offline at this moment, and the amygdala, which is responsible for instinct, takes over, and everything you say is in vain. The tricks I figured out at that time were very stupid. When I felt like I was about to explode, I would run to the fire escape, squat on the steps and feel my pulse on my wrist. After counting 10 beats, I would slow down. It worked better than any other principle. Later I found out that this was a simple method to adjust HRV (Heart Rate Variability). You don’t need to learn any complicated 478 breathing, anything that can draw your attention back to the body and feel it works.

But this method is not a panacea. When I was unemployed and submitting resumes at home last year, I felt panicked every day. I squatted in the corridor and counted my pulse to 100 times, but I still couldn't sit still. Later, I talked with a CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) counselor and found out that my stress at that time was not physical stress at all, but a cognitive dead end: I defaulted to "if I can't find a suitable job, it means I am not capable" and "if the window is vacant for more than three months, I will never find a job again." Later, as the consultant said, I took a note and wrote down the worst-case scenario: The first one might be that I can't find a job on the Internet, and I can support myself by opening a milk tea shop; the second one is that I will be vacant for half a year, and at most I can explain a few more sentences during the interview; the third worst-case scenario is that I run out of money, and there is no shame in living back in my hometown for two months. After I finished writing, I stared at those three lines for three minutes, and suddenly I relaxed. I also had braised chicken with two chicken drumsticks for lunch that day.

If you think that cognitive adjustment is the master key, you are wrong. I have a friend who works in rural education charity. Some time ago, she told me that she was so tired that she wanted to cry every day. She used breathing techniques and wrote down the worst results, but she still couldn't get motivated. Later, the two of them sat down and chatted for half an hour before they discovered that she had been doing accounting, filling out reports, and dealing with inspections from superiors for four consecutive months, and had no time to do the rural visits that she cared about most. The stress at that time was not an emotional problem at all, but a lack of meaning. This corresponds to another school of thought, which is the viewpoint of existential psychology: the root cause of many chronic stress is that what you are doing is completely disconnected from the value you identify with. At this time, no adjustment method is useful. You must first take some time to filter out those things that consume your energy and are meaningless. Even if you only squeeze 2 hours a week to do one thing that you think is "useful", your emotional state will be much better. My friend later applied to her boss to skip work every Wednesday afternoon to visit her. After only half a month, she told me that she finally no longer had to cry for half an hour before going to bed every day.

I have gone through many detours before. For example, I bought a lot of mindfulness meditation classes and followed them for half a month. Every time I sat down for ten minutes, my mind was filled with to-do lists. The more I sat, the more anxious I became. Later I realized that it was not that mindfulness was useless, but that I, a naturally highly task-driven person, was not suitable for long-term meditation at the beginning. Later, I changed my "mindfulness" to the "touch key anchoring method" - I always keep an old key I used in college in my pocket. If my attention wanders or anxiety arises, I touch it and feel the coolness of the metal and the scratches on it. I can bring myself back to the present moment in 10 seconds. It is more suitable for me than 20 minutes of meditation.

In fact, after trying them for so many years, my biggest feeling is, don’t believe those “7 days to manage your emotions” and “stress relief methods that everyone can use” on the Internet. This matter is similar to choosing skin care products and finding a partner. If others use them, your face may be ruined, but if you are here, you may be in trouble. You don’t have to force yourself to be an emotionally stable adult. Last week, I rushed to work at 3 a.m. and threw a cup and scolded Party A for ten minutes. After I finished scolding, I wiped the pieces and continued writing without any delay. After all, stress is something. The more you treat it as an enemy, the more it will fight against you. If you treat it as a friend to remind you that "you shouldn't adjust your recent state," it will become less scary.