How to Deal with High Levels of Stress

But do you want to know about the most stressful time in my life?

(And yes, you wouldn’t be the first one to question my sanity. But it actually was a calculated risk I took — or what some people call a “ Yes Yes Hell No” decision.)

Instead of bringing home a big paycheck, during my time of intense transition I suddenly was utterly dependent on my ̶b̶o̶y̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d husband (whom I had never even lived on the same continent with previously) for health care and even for my green card.

Speaking of health care, instead of living in the country with the world’s oldest health insurance system (my native Germany), I suddenly found myself in the US.

(An American acquaintance once said that the US health care system is neither healthy, nor caring, nor a system — and who am I to argue with his assessment?)

While everything turned out fine and I would make the same choice again, both my husband and I are beyond glad that I am past that transitional period.

1. Avoid it ❌

Seriously, if you can, avoid  high levels of stress brought on by too many life changes. A number of stressful life events can be self-initiated ones, such as taking on a mortgage to buy a house or deciding to start a family. I’m not saying to avoid self-initiated life changes, I’m just saying that it might make sense to spread these out, if you can.

Of course, this is not always possible. But if you don’t have to change everything at the same time, don’t. When working with clients, I’d never advise them to do as I did and to change their whole life at once.

Huge change might seem like the fastest course of action but it really isn’t.

That is because you need time to integrate each change. If you proceed to change at a slower rate, you need less integration time. A huge life change, on the other hand, takes a long time to integrate.

2. If you can’t avoid it, have compassion for yourself 💚

If it’s not possible to avoid stress from life changes, it’s really important to be compassionate with yourself.

Your stress might come from positive changes (a new job in another city that you wanted) or from tragic ones (like the death of someone you care about). If it’s the latter, my heart goes out to you and I hope that you get the support you need.

If it’s the former, congratulations! Just remember that it’s okay to feel stressed out even if you wanted the change to happen. Self-compassion is always helpful.

3. Get support 💬

Get support and lots of it. You may or may not need physical help (such as help with cleaning, moving etc.) but you could likely benefit from emotional support.

As American athlete Terrell Owens put it:

“A lot of emotional stress that people go through, some people figure out a way to handle it. They have a strong enough support system to keep going and keep moving forward. And some people, they feel like they don’t have that outlet.”