Share This Article
We have often written about it on Herhealth.nl: stress. Anyone who has suffered from burnout knows how bad stress is for your health.
In recent years I have been looking for sources of stress and how I can reduce stress as much as possible. That turns out not to be easy! Like everyone else, I wanted guidance, but the conflicting advice frustrated me. You may recognize this conflicting advice that can cause confusion:
- To get out of your burnout you have to exercise
- Your body is exhausted, don’t exercise
- Drink a cup of coffee in the morning to stimulate cortisol production
- Avoid coffee, it causes stress
- Take enough time to recover, do not return to work too quickly
- Return to work as soon as possible, otherwise the threshold for reintegration will be too high.
The difficult thing is that all this advice contains a grain of truth, because guess what? The best way to deal with stress (preventively) depends on which stress type you are. This discovery was a real eye-opener for me and that is why I would like to share it with you today.
Doctors Stephanie McClellan and Beth Hamilton published an article in 2010 in which they introduced four different types of stress. I hear you thinking ‘Great, then I know what kind of stress type I am… what then??’ Good thing you asked. The ladies have come up with suitable advice for every stress type.
ALSO READ: Why Self-love Starts With Recognizing Your Limits
The 4 stress types in short
The Turbo type
You are always in ‘GO mode’. Relaxing and sitting still is difficult. This way you often move your fingers and feet. When you tense, you clench your jaw tightly or even grind your teeth. Getting to sleep is also difficult. You are direct in communication and can be very emotional. Under stress you run faster and try to control things more and more. This type often suffers from anxiety and panic.
The Crash type
You like to set tight deadlines and expect a lot from yourself. Stress can push you to your limits. This allows you to continue for a long time and deliver fantastic performance. Where others stop, you continue until you are done and the stress decreases. From one moment to the next you collapse. This type is also often ill during a holiday and this type is sensitive to burnout.
ALSO READ: My Journey to Recovery: How I Ultimately Overcame Burnout
The Observing Type
This is the least common stress type. This type is characterized by a special response to stress. The stress literally paralyzes you. You feel like you are watching as the world continues to turn.
From 0 to 100
In general, you are a calm type until stress takes over you. You react strongly (emotionally) to stress. Unfortunately, this type experiences stress quickly.
How do you deal with it?
Now that you know which stress type you are, we can move on to the action. You may find it difficult to determine which type you are, because you recognize yourself in several types. For now, focus on the type you identify with most.
The Turbo type
If you have too much energy and stress, you will feel nervous and rushed. It is good to get rid of this negative energy. When you are recovering from a burnout, it is a good idea for this type to exercise briefly and intensively, such as interval running. In addition, it is just as important that you learn to relax through, for example, yoga and meditation. Start a diary in which you write down all your thoughts every day. Literally clear your mind. Coffee is not a good idea for this type. This will only stimulate the agitated feeling and any panic complaints.
The crash type
You have pushed yourself to the limit and your body is exhausted. It is important that you give yourself time and rest to recover. Exercising is a bad idea for you. When you get energy again, you can move at a relaxed pace. Consider, for example, walking, cycling and swimming. In a crash phase you need extra vitamins. Taking a good multi helps your body to increase your resistance. Are you burnout? Then it is a prerequisite for this type to take a critical look at your mindset. I recommend that you ask for help from a professional. This way you can really change your lifestyle in a relatively short time. Don’t you do that? Then you run an extremely high risk of relapsing again and again.
ALSO READ: 4 Reasons To Indicate Your Limits
The observant type
As soon as you feel stress, you withdraw. You can, as it were, hide by showing hermit behavior. The world and all the tasks are too much and you really just want to pretend it’s not there. It is also beneficial for this type to work with a professional on how you deal with stress , because in practice it appears that this type finds it very difficult to do it independently. For this type, it is a good idea to exercise briefly several times a day at a relaxed pace. For example, by taking a ten-minute walk three times a day. It is important that you do not hide , but rather stay in touch with yourself. It can therefore help you to write down your physical and psychological signals. It can also help you stimulate your self-reflection skills. This way you can more easily take independent action to learn to deal with stress better. You can do this by writing down three things every day that went well and three things that you would like to do differently next time.
From 0 to 100
This type naturally produces less cortisol than is desirable. Cortisol affects how you sleep and how much energy you have. Too little of this hormone causes a hypersensitive nervous system. This can cause many discomforts, from physical pain to panic attacks. Exercise is a good idea for this type. Although intensive exercise is often not possible due to physical complaints, gentle exercise can provide relief. The best thing for this type would be to exercise at a medium-high intensity for a longer period of time and increase it when things go well. It is also good for this type to keep the muscles flexible. In practice, this type could, for example, cycle for an hour at a fast pace where you could easily talk to someone else, followed by ten minutes of stretching exercises. Scheduling a massage regularly can also help enormously for this type.
Which stress type are you? What do you recognize yourself in and what should you guard against?
Source: psychologytoday.com
P.S. Are you already following Gistinger.com on Facebook , Instagram and Twitter?