This weekend was pretty hectic in my household because spent a good part of it worrying about my MIL (still not out of the woods) because she’s worked herself to the point of exhaustion thereby aggravating other medical problems.

She’s been working three jobs, taking 15 credits towards her nursing degree and this time of year is also the anniversary of her father’s death. As you can imagine, this has been an incredibly stressful time for her as she was trying to juggle way too many things at once. Something had to give and I guess this was her body’s way of telling her she had to give something up. We are in the process of seeing which job she can quit because well she loves working and she loves the money.

Since the recession started, she started saving money aggressively i.e building her emergency fund so that she’d be OK in the event that she lost one or all of her jobs. She also rents two rooms in her home so her mortgage is subsidized by the rental payments, so financially she’s doing fine. We suppose that with all the talk of the recession and people losing their jobs she went into worker bee mode without really thinking about how this would all impact her health.

Being that I am a therapist in my day job, I felt it necessary to have a heart to heart with my husband about her health and how overworking herself like this could exasperate and trigger other medical conditions. We see it all the time in my field, a client becomes so stressed out that they start to show psychosomatic symptoms as a response to increased and often unmanageable stress in their lives.

So what should they do? For some, not working isn’t an option, but they can figure out how to create balance without losing their sanity and sense of balance.

• Be Realistic Sometimes we have such lofty goals that it makes sense that we pursue them all at once, even to the detriment of our physical and mental health. Be honest about the time you will need to “check out” and recharge yourself. In my MIL’s case,working three jobs is enough, but she went ahead and added 15 credits of classes. It would have been better to have 2 jobs and 2 classes and then see how that works out.
• Recognize Your Body’s Response To Stress Are you more tired than usual? Eating habits changed? Not interested in things you once loved to do? Feet swelling at the end of the day? Don’t brush aside these symptoms, they are your body’s response to stress and you should do something about it.
• Educate Yourself On Stress-Related Illnesses These can often include but not limited to: heart disease, stroke, gastrointestinal issues, sleeping problems, body pain and memory and concentration problems.
• “Check Out” If giving up something isn’t an option, then carve out some time for yourself. This ideally should be a time where you’re alone doing something that’s relaxing and stress free. This could be taking a warm bath, going for a walk, lying on a bed listening to calming music, sitting in a room by yourself and taking deep, calming, cleansing breaths or anything that you know puts your mind and body at ease.
• Track Eating Habits This is often an early indicator of increased stress levels. People tend to eat carelessly and resort to comfort foods when stressed as this serves as a calming effect on the body but they risk gaining weight, increasing cholesterol and an increased risk of health problems as a result. Try to remain mindful even when you’re stressed as to not add to any current problems you may be having.

Hopefully these tips are useful to those of you in need of ways to relieve without giving up your livelihood. Remember that in order to take care of others, we need to first take care of ourselves.

What tips do you have for someone needing to relieve stress?