Too much psychological pressure

The essence of too much psychological pressure is that the coping resources you can call upon at the moment do not match the requirements of the outside world. It is neither "too fragile" nor "thinking too much", and there is no one-size-fits-all solution formula. The premise of all coping methods is to first see your own tolerance limit.

Last week, I met the product manager on the same floor at the 24-hour convenience store downstairs. He was squatting on the steps at around one o'clock in the morning, eating cold buns. His eyes were as red as rabbits. He said that the bugs that could not be fixed before the new version was launched were piled up on half the screen. His wife was still arguing with him about the down payment gap for a house in a school district. When I took out the keys just now, I suddenly became out of breath. I squatted for ten minutes before I dared to go upstairs. In the past, some people might have said, "Isn't that the case?", is it really not the case? With work demands and family expectations piling up, he only has so much time and energy on his hands, and it's normal for him to be unable to hold them all.

I have talked with consultants from different orientations about stress in the center before. Consultants from the cognitive behavioral (CBT) school always said that many people’s stress is amplified by their own over-interpretation - take this product manager as an example, the logical chain in his mind at the time It's "I can't fix the bug → I'm going to be fired → I can't afford the down payment → My whole family follows me to drink the northwest wind". Taking an incident of "I didn't finish my work today" and directly extrapolating it into "a complete failure in life" is equivalent to adding dozens of kilograms of weight to myself. But from the perspective of a psychodynamic counselor, his instinctive reaction of "if he doesn't do something good, he will destroy the whole family" is most likely an imprint of his childhood education that "you are the hope of the whole family". The current pressure has just brought out the insecurities that have been buried for decades. Teachers who study positive psychology always talk about the Yerkes-Dodson law, saying that stress is not a scourge. If there is really no stress at all, many people may not even have the motivation to get up and go to work. Only when the stress exceeds the threshold that you can bear, will it become a negative burden.

Nowadays, mindfulness meditation is always praised on the Internet as a magic medicine to relieve stress. To be honest, I have seen too many people who have tried it and become more anxious. A young girl who works in user operations came to me before and said that she had done mindfulness with the APP for a week. Every time she sat down for two minutes, she remembered that there were still three customer groups that had not responded to messages. She couldn't sit still for five minutes. In the end, she felt, "I can't even do mindfulness well. I'm really useless." The stress doubled. Later, she simply deleted the mindfulness app and walked around the community three times every day after get off work. While walking, she complained to her mother about which client asked for "colorful black" today. After walking for half a month, the insomnia she had endured for more than half a year was mostly cured.

Don’t believe the nonsense about “cutting off the source of stress as soon as you’re under great pressure”. You can’t just quit when you’re under great pressure, right? I know a back-end programmer who stayed up for two weeks before Double 11 last year, sleeping only three hours a day. One day when he was changing code, his hands suddenly went numb and he couldn't hold the mouse. He went to the hospital to find out whether there was any organic problem. The doctor said it was a physical reaction due to too much stress. When he came back, he didn't directly mention his resignation, but applied to the leader to transfer three unimportant marginal needs to the new person, even if he got 2,000 yuan less in performance. He said, "I used to think that the project would not be able to move forward after I left. But later I found that the project was still pushed forward according to the nodes during the two days I took leave. Why would I risk my life in exchange for that little performance?" ”

To be honest, many people's stress is not a personal problem at all. Last year, a survey in an Internet industry showed that employees worked overtime for more than 18 hours a week on average, and nearly 70% of people had physical reactions to stress in varying degrees. It is unrealistic to hold yourself to the standard of "hard work will be rewarded" ten years ago. Don't always blame yourself for "not working hard enough."

I have been working as a psychological counseling assistant for two years, and I have seen too many people ask me as soon as they come in, "I've been under too much stress recently, am I suffering from depression?" ”In fact, it’s not true. Most of the time, you just carry too much stuff. Just like you can only carry 20 kilograms of rice, and someone forces you to carry 50 kilograms. It’s normal for you to be unable to walk. Don’t label yourself as “sick”.

Not long ago, I met the product manager of a convenience store. Recently, when he got off work early, he would go to the park to play basketball for half an hour, and he didn't see any outstanding projects. He also discussed with his wife about the school district housing before changing it two years later. He said that he used to feel that he had to achieve 100 points in everything, but now he found that the words "almost achieved" are more useful than any decompression manual. Oh yes, and the little operations girl who used to like to complain has recently developed a new hobby. She goes to the pottery studio after get off work to knead mud. It doesn’t matter if the cup she kneads is crooked, but if it looks ugly, she can just crush it and start over again. She said, “I don’t need to sell it anyway. The most important thing is that I enjoy it.”

You see, there is no standard answer to decompressing. Whatever can help you breathe more is a good method that suits you.