Four Steps for Stress
When I work with clients on challenging that internal dialog, I describe it as rewiring your brain. You are changing the way you respond to future situations. However, it’s difficult to make the change in the moment. With this in mind, I want to share a four-step process for dealing with stress in the moment. This process includes a grounding techniques with a couple of methods from TEAM CBT, developed by Dr David Burns.
1) Ground yourself with BOX BREATHING:
· Take a deep breath for 4 seconds (imagine breathing in clean, fresh oxygen)
· Hold it for 4 seconds
· Exhale for 4 seconds (imagine breathing out stress and used oxygen)
· Wait 4 seconds, repeat. Try to focus on your breathing.
2) GET SPECIFIC: Ask yourself, ““what is happening that is leading to my stress right now? What worries me about this situation?”
Don’t simply describe the situation, what about it worries you? It’s your perspective (your internal dialog) creating your emotion. Answer this question with a statement, not a question.
Example: “I don’t know what I’m doing at this new job. Others won’t want to work with me. They won’t like me, and they’ll judge me when I make mistakes.”
3) Understand meaning behind stress with DOWNWARD ARROW TECHNIQUE*:
Often, we must dig a little to understand our personal meaning behind what stresses us. Ask yourself “what does this worry mean to me, and what makes it bad?” Repeat this question a few times until you get the deep fear.
Example: “Others won’t want to work with me. They won’t like me and they’ll judge me.”
↓
- What does this mean to me and what makes it bad?
“I’ll probably get fired.”
↓
- What does this mean to me and what makes it bad?
“Everyone will think I’m worthless”
- What does this mean to me and what makes it bad?
“It means I am worthless”
In this example, I am connecting making mistakes in a new job to feeling worthless.
4) PROCESS: Accept what you must, challenge what you can:
Is some stress appropriate because you care? Does the situation really equal your deep fear identified in the downward arrow?
Can you challenge any distortions in your thinking and reframe the thought?
Cognitive Distortions*
1. All-or-Nothing Thinking: Looking at things in absolutes
2. Overgeneralization: Viewing an event as a pattern of defeat
3. Mental Filter: Dwelling on the negatives
4. Discounting Positives: Insisting positives don't count
5. Jumping to Conclusions: Conclude without facts
Mind-Reading: Assume people are reacting negatively
Fortune-Telling: Predict that things will turn out badly
6. Magnification: Blowing things way out of proportion.
7. Emotional Reasoning: Reason from feelings
8. Should Statements: Criticize/judge with “shoulds,”
9. Labeling: Connecting a mistake to who you are (or others)
10. Blame: Find fault instead of solving problem
Self-Blame: Blame yourself completely
Other-Blame: Blame others completely
* Copyright ¤ 2001, by David D. Burns, M.D.
Example: “I’ll screw up which means people won’t like me and I am worthless”
Possible distortions in this thought:
· Mental filter – dwelling on mistakes, ignoring relationships, ignoring that I was hired based on my skills,
· Mind-reading – assuming people won’t like me, and they will judge
· Magnification – assuming me making a mistake is a big deal for others
· Should Statement – thinking I shouldn’t make mistakes
· Labeling – connecting making mistakes at a new job with being worthless
Reframed thought: “I’m nervous about making mistakes because I want to do well, but I realize that I will make mistakes and that others will want me to do well.”
