What do you want to know about managing stress?

People do one of two things when I tell them I'm a psychologist: get really uncomfortable and say "oh no, you're analyzing me!" OR ask a question.

The questions cover everything from "Is it normal for me to ..." to "how do I cope with ..." to "what should I do about ...?"

For months I've been filing those questions away in my head so I can create the best course possible to help you manage stress, thrive at work and at home, and be as resilient as possible.

And that's where you come in.

As I'm finishing up the content for the my stress management course, I need to know what you need to know.

Please use the form below to tell me what you want to know about stress, resilience, and thriving in humanitarian work. What are the big (and not so big) concerns you have about stress? What do you want to learn? What are the hardest parts of your work and your life? How does stress impact you now? And for bonus points, tell me how you want to feel instead. I promise I won't analyze you!

For bonus bonus points, please share this post with other humanitarians.

Photo Credit: Amy McTigue via Compfight cc

What 4 nights in Kakuma taught me about work-life balance

Work-life balance is one of those elusive concepts that is easier on paper than in real life. It sounds good in principle – have an equilibrium between the time and energy you put into your work, and the time and energy you devote to other parts of your life. Putting it into practice is another story. There are so many factors that push for us to work longer than we should – heavy workloads, organizational culture, a sense of duty, and depending on your post, not a lot to pull you away from work.

I experienced that last one when I was in Kakuma a couple of weeks ago. Kakuma is a town in Northern Kenya that hosts a camp of 179,000 refugees. The staff compound is more than adequate in terms of comfort and safety. It doesn’t, however, have what you could call an active nightlife. Like most remote duty stations, it’s a make-your-own-fun kind of place. And that means it's all too easy to spend more and more time working, and less and less time on the rest of your life.

If your work-life seesaw weighs heavily in the favour of work, here are three tips for getting closer to a healthy balance.

1)  Set your computer to shut down at a certain time.

I had the best of intentions to stop work at a reasonable hour but most nights I stayed later than I planned, succumbing to the “just one more email” or “just another 15 minutes” thinking. Not surprisingly, one more email turned into 20, and 15 minutes into an hour.

When you’ve got a ton to do, it’s always going to be tempting to work longer, even when you’re becoming less productive by the second. So don’t rely on yourself, let technology do it for you.

Set your computer to shut down at a pre-determined time each evening. (Here are instructions for Mac and PC users on how to do just that). You can always override the automatic shutdown if you’re in a real crunch. But it will serve as a reminder of your commitment to work-life balance and help you resist that “just one more email” mentality.

2) Get a life!

Your computer has trained you to leave the office, now what?

When I finished grad school, I often stayed late at the office because I wasn’t used to having free time and didn’t know what to do with myself.

If you want work-life balance, you actually need a life outside of work, right?

And in places like Kakuma, that means finding things you can do in that kind of environment. Be creative – exercise, book club, meditation, taking an online course – there are tons of things you can do. One of the staff I met there had her own garden and used the fruits of her labour to make amazing meals. Pretty impressive in the middle of a desert.

Your choices for recreation may be more limited than at home but there is always something you can do to keep yourself busy and engaged in life.

3) Schedule your free time

If you’ve done the first two steps, you are well on your way to a better balance. If you really want to solidify it, start scheduling your free time.

Having hobbies and interests outside of work is a great step. But if it comes down to a vague plan to “do something later” versus a concrete pile of work to get through, which one do you think will win out?

Most of us schedule our work commitments and social engagements. Go a step further and schedule all your free time, yes, even the hour you want to spend watching the latest episode of your favourite TV show. You don’t have to be rigid about it, but having a concrete plan of what you’ll do when you leave the office makes it much more likely that you will leave the office.

Write it down. “Family time”, “skype call with Natalie”, “relaxing on my couch”, “reading”, “dinner with friends” – those things are as important as the meetings, emails, interviews, counselling sessions, and other tasks you do in your work life. They deserve to be scheduled and observed in the same way.

So that’s it. Three tips for bringing more balance into your life: Set your computer to automatically shut down so you’ll go home when you mean to, build hobbies and interests to keep you busy and engaged outside of work, and schedule your free time the same way you schedule your work hours.

I'd love to hear how you work towards better work-life balance in your life. In the comments below, let me know your best tips.

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What Climbing Kilimanjaro Taught Me About Resilience

So full disclosure - I did not make it to the top of Kilimanjaro. I succumbed to a flu just as we reached base camp and thought better of attempting the summit with a fever and chills.

Gipson, Eden and my dad taking a break

Flu notwithstanding, I have some incredible memories. Most of all, I was amazed by our guides Gipson, Eden, and James. These guys are the epitome of tough and disciplined. Week in and week out, they march (and sometimes carry) people up that mountain. They absolutely know what they're doing. More than that, they know how to get people who don't know what they're doing to the top.

Long days on the mountain gave me lots of time to think. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that their tips for getting us to the top apply as much off the mountain as they did on the mountain.

So here's what I learned from them that you can apply to get yourself through your own challenges, whether those are literal or figurative mountains.

1. Take it one step at a time

We learned pretty quickly that there was no point in asking Gipson how much longer or how much further we had to go. His answer was always the same: "one more second, one more step."

His philosophy is a sound one. When the final destination is a long way off (and it's going to be grueling to get there), better to focus on what's right in front of you. While it's tempting to concentrate on the end goal, it can also feel daunting. When the task in front of you is huge and stressful, thinking about the end can overwhelm you. You can quickly descend into a "how am I ever going to..." and "I don't think I can do this" tailspin and lose your confidence.

You see all the things you have to do before the finish line and it feels like too much. To avoid this kind of overwhelm, just look one step in front. Rather than think about everything you have to do, think about the next thing you have to do.

2. Mentally rehearse the process, not the result

Okay, so you're focused on your next steps, now what?

Picture yourself completing that step.

Notice I said completing, emphasis on the ing. Not completed, completing.

Every evening, we'd get a briefing about the next day's hike - what to wear, how far and how steep we'd be hiking, and what we needed in our day packs. And these briefings were well... brief. If we asked about the day after, Gipson would smile and say "I'll tell you tomorrow." Before starting out, we'd been given an overview of the whole hike but once we were up on the mountain, we got the information we needed when we needed it. And as preoccupied as we were with the summit, we didn't need that information until day 4.

Not easy for a day-dreamer like myself who loves to imagine being at the finish line more than getting to the finish line. But it turns out, that's exactly the right way to use mental rehearsal.

A couple of researchers (Pham & Taylor, 1999) compared whether it was more effective to mentally rehearse what it will feel like when you achieve your goal (e.g., finally getting a permanent contract with your organization after years of short-term ones) or what you need to do in order to achieve your goal (e.g., writing all those cover letters and sending in all those applications). What works better - imagining the process or the result?

While the result may be more fun to think about, mentally rehearsing the process is a better strategy. If you visualize yourself doing the work to get to your goal, you'll work harder and do a better job than if you visualize yourself having already achieved your goal.

3. Accept help

My last bit of mountain wisdom: let people help you. We were offered help over and over - help carrying our packs, help getting packed up, help of all sorts. And almost without thinking, we refused it. Any offer that would lighten our loads or make things easier, we turned down. After saying no to someone who had walked 15 minutes to come help me with my pack, I got to thinking - why am I refusing?

Part pride, part guilt. I didn't want to seem weak or incapable and I didn't want to impose on someone else.  I wanted to do it for myself.

Now I'm all for being self-sufficient under normal conditions. There is a value in feeling like you accomplished something on your own. But when things are really tough, you have to ask yourself, is your ego more important than the task at hand? 

Helping has other benefits too - for both the giver and the receiver (more about that in another blog post). It's ultimately a social behaviour so rather than being an imposition, it builds connection and strengthen bonds. And those connections help us persevere through difficult times.

So that's it. My hard-earned tips for getting up virtual and actual mountains. I'll be back to Kilimanjaro next year to make another attempt. In the meantime, let me know in the comments below what you do to scale your own mountains.

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