Simple Strategies for Executive Stress

Learn simple strategies from Clinical Psychologists to manage Executive Stress you can use yourself or share with those who work for you to improve your overall health and wellbeing.

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In modern times, where economic business pressure, long work hours and uncertainty are a common thread, executives and middle managers find themselves burnt out and exhausted by the intense professional and personal life demands. As a result, your mental health wellbeing starts to deteriorate, and you may develop anxiety and depression, negatively impacting your professional and personal life and relationships.

Psychologists with experience working with executives, leaders, entrepreneurs and business owners find that they are often good at looking after those who work for them; however, more often than not, they do not treat themselves the same way. It is not unusual for a psychologist to see executives who are burnt out and have been self-medicating for a while, consuming unhealthy amounts of caffeine and alcohol as a coping mechanism.

An experienced psychologist can help you learn and develop strategies to manage chronic stress, anxiety and depression and improve your overall mental health wellbeing.

Simple Strategies to Manage Executive Stress

Talk to someone
Talk to a close friend, a family member, a GP or a Clinical Psychologist. Don’t bottle it up. Caring for others and feeling supported helps you release chemicals in the body that reverse some of the effects of chronic stress.
Spend time with people who care about you
Spending time with people you care about, and who care about you is an essential part of managing ongoing stress in your life.

Spend time with friends and family, especially those you find uplifting rather than people who place demands on you.
Establish routines
Having predictable rhythms and routines in your day, or over a week, can be very calming and reassuring and can help you to manage your stress. Routines can include:
- Regular times for exercise and relaxation
- Regular meal times, waking and bedtimes
- Planning ahead to do particular jobs on set days of the week.
Look after your health
Make sure you are eating healthy food and getting regular exercise.

Take time to do activities you find calming or uplifting, such as listening to music, walking or dancing.

Avoid using alcohol, tobacco or other substances to cope.
Identify triggers
There are often known triggers which raise our stress levels and make it more difficult for us to manage.

If you know what the likely triggers are, you can aim to anticipate them and practise calming yourself down beforehand, or even find ways of removing the trigger.

Triggers might include late nights, deadlines, seeing particular people, hunger, etc.
Identify warning signs
It is very helpful to be able to identify early warning signs in your body that tell you when you are getting stressed.

These vary from person to person but might include things like tensing your jaw, grinding your teeth, getting headaches, or feeling irritable and short-tempered.

CBT Therapy is an evidence-based method used by Psychologists that can help you learn and develop strategies to identify signs and manage symptoms of anxiety and stress.
Notice your ‘self-talk’
Our thoughts constantly interpret things in the past, present and future. These can be unrealistic, unhelpful, repetitive, or self-critical and create a lot of unnecessary stress.

If we learn to identify these thoughts and how to generate more helpful and realistic ones, we can reduce our stress.

Some common unhelpful thinking styles can occur in our thinking when we are stressed. Try to observe which ones are the most common for you from this list:

Start noticing when you are stressed, irritated, down or anxious during the day, and note down the thoughts you are having.

Then, check the list of unhelpful thinking styles and ask yourself if any of these are present in your thinking.

The final step is to start challenging these unhelpful stress-generating thoughts with some questions, such as:
- Is that really true? Do I have evidence for that?
- Is there a more realistic alternative explanation?
- Is this thought helpful or unhelpful to me?
- What would be a more valuable and helpful thought right now?
- What would I tell a friend who was going through this situation?
Try to problem solve your worries
Sometimes, we are faced with problems which cause us to worry. Worrying may not be the best approach when we can deal with the problem through problem-solving.
Practise mindfulness and relaxation
Make time to practise mindfulness and relaxation techniques. This will help your body and nervous system to settle and readjust. Consider trying some of the following things:
- Learn a formal technique such as progressive muscle relaxation, meditation or yoga.
- Make time to absorb yourself in a relaxing activity such as gardening or listening to music.
- Plan things to do each day that you look forward to and which give you a sense of pleasure, like reading a book.
Take a break
Take your annual leave each year and make sure you have a proper break from work.

Get out of the workplace during lunch – even if it’s just for a 10 minute walk. You’ll feel refreshed and more productive in the afternoon.

How a Psychologist Can Help You

Counselling with a Psychologist can be very beneficial for executives, leaders and entrepreneurs to learn about themselves and develop healthy coping mechanisms to deal with the pressures of modern life.

A Clinical Psychologist can help clients struggling with long-standing issues using evidence-based methods such as Schema therapy, CBT Therapy, EMDR Therapy and Mindfulness-based therapies, and ACT Therapy, among others.

Learn more about how Executive Stress Counselling with a Psychologist can help.