There’s general unease and growing chronic stress in America
Stress for Success
December 9,2008


The distress around America over our collective financial future is palpable. Even if you aren’t personally suffering from our economic ills you almost certainly know others who are.

Here are three ideas to help manage your anxiety while navigating these uncertain times.

First, with the ongoing nature of this fiscal unraveling those who are most affected are experiencing chronic stress (elevated stress that lasts for months), which places significantly more physical and emotional strain on them. If this goes on too long they can expect more illness and even possibly disease development, which they’d largely be unaware of. So it's vital to take better care of yourself to mitigate the damages of stress.

For example, if you've lost income and find yourself with extra time it's far wiser to invest your energy into not only looking for new income but also into health-enhancing activities like exercising, spending more time with your family and volunteering vs. channel surfing with depressed thoughts rumbling around your brain. (The latter is almost impossible to eliminate but can be controlled by spending far more time on healthy pursuits; more on other ways to limit your worrying next week.) See this as an opportunity to accomplish things you’ve been meaning to.

Secondly, much of stress reduction, regardless of the source of your stress, is to focus on what's within your control and to cope with what's beyond, a subject I’ve addressed many times in the five years of this column.

Regarding the state of the world economy and your place in it, make your first stress reduction step to identify what’s within and beyond your control.

What’s beyond your control includes:
* the direction and the duration of the financial pain, including what happens with the stock market
* the government's, your employer’s and anyone else’s response to it
* job losses
* etc.

Divert your focus away from the above and onto what’s within your control including your:
* reaction to all of the above, which includes your spending and saving habits, how aggressively or not you look for new work, how you spend newly found time
* worrying and possible resulting illness or stress symptoms like insomnia
* reaction to a probable increased workload if you still have your job
* etc.

Problem-solve on what’s within your control by identifying your options and choosing a strategy to address your issues.

Lastly, what can you learn to avoid such monetary stress in the future? If you had too big a mortgage you’ve learned (hopefully) that you need to live below not above your means, to save more money, and/or to cut your credit card use. What will you do differently to avoid being in this position again?

Who knows, we may look back on this meltdown as ultimately good for us. It may get us back to basics – like spending less that we make! In the meantime, protect yourself from the ravages of chronic stress by taking better care of yourself than you normally do.


Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of Inter Action Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com with your questions or for information about her workshops on this and other topics and to invite her to speak to your organization