How to deal with stress and loneliness? Have you been too stressed lately? Looking for ways to overcome it? Ok, I will tell you a quick fix but I am sure it won’t work. You know why? Because there isn’t any quick fix. Nurturing your mental health is an on-going process.
Recently, I have conducted several webinars on stress management. Workshop about stress management in teenagers, adults, and meditation sessions as well, one day I was just reflecting on the core need of all the attendees who have participated in my webinars, and it was a quick fix they were seeking.
Everyone wanted a shortcut, a way to just shoo away and snap out from the stress they are going through, because it is so heavy, and while I spoke at length about 10 -20 tips, they picked up the easiest ones.
Now the point I am trying to make here is, it is indeed a two-way effort. A giver and a receiver, people like me who serve their fellow members and the trained experts will give their best and move on to the next needy person, but if you stop looking after yourself no one and nothing will be able to help you. Yes, this is a little hard truth.
And we are going to speak about how to deal with stress and loneliness in this blog while staying aware of your own surrounding.
How to deal with stress and loneliness
Before I jump into sharing these ten helpful tips and hacks, I want you to make up your mind to understand how exactly you are feeling, rate your stress level on a scale of 1 to 10. Take a deep breath, bring all the awareness to yourself, and then begin to think about what you need.
Write down on a piece of paper or make a mental note. If you struggling with long-term stress or loneliness, I am sure you know how it feels to be helpless and sad all the time about your situation but before you actually try to help yourself, you need to make up your mind to help yourself, accept your present situation and be firm about working on that. Today I will not share a typical list of tips but I will share two true and very personal experiences that are very close to me and it will force you to evaluate yourselves. So are we together here?
I will begin with two very personal experiences:
Recently an Indian Television actor died of suicide, he was found hanged in his flat. The loss felt a little personal because we had recently spoken at length about mental health issues and how society needs to be sensitized and we even exchanged our poetry. I could not believe he is gone.
I went numb for a while when I heard that he is no more, he was full of ideas, he was working on something, but what happened, got me into thinking that maybe he was fighting a fight within himself, maybe that bright smiling face was hiding his invisible wounds or maybe I am just relating all this because he ended his life his way.
So when I say that people don’t die because of depression, they die because of the burden of sadness occupied in their life and the loneliness paving through each vein in their body, which is hard to explain to any random person or maybe any person, I mean it.
One of my close friend who has been staying away, abroad, in a foreign land for around 6 years now. Away from his family and struggling on his career path. A very genuine and family-oriented guy. He is a family person and he could not adjust well there but the burden of a hefty amount of educational loan and the baggage of expectation he is carrying on his shoulders could not let him breathe freely.
He got stressed, anxious, he faced rapid palpitation and even panic attacks. The worst part was he was not sharing this with anyone because he himself was not understanding what is happening to him. So how to deal with stress and loneliness? By acknowledging it, by accepting that there is a problem and he saw me writing stuff on mental health, promoting mental wellness and he cared to open up.
I am glad he did, and he understood what is to be done and now he has crossed that initial inhibition of sharing how he is feeling and he talks to me without any hesitation. It helps both of us to help each other. I listen to him non-judgmentally and he believes me when I try to help him out.
There are two simple reasons behind sharing these incidents:
1.) Both incidents are about Men ( so please drop the stigma that men can’t cry, men can’t be stressed)
2.) Both the incidents are very different from each other but I feel the baseline here is loneliness and pro-longed stress. So please care to reach out.
Ten ways to regain your lost inner space
There will always be circumstances that will make you vulnerable and you will feel that you can’t hold it anymore. You will face occasional burnouts and even feel like screaming at the top of your voice. Do it! Do not suppress your emotions, remove that mask, and be the real you, take complete charge of your life.
| 1.) Speak up about your feelings, bottling up emotions will suffocate you. |
| 2.) Share the burden when it becomes heavy, it doesn’t make you weak. |
| 3.) Shun the shame attached to mental illnesses, it is just like any other illness and it needs timely intervention. |
| 4.) Acknowledge how you are feeling and accept it. |
| 5.) Notice your thought patterns. |
| 6.) Reach out and initiate conversations. |
| 7.) Be kind to yourselves. |
| 8.) Have a structured day, even if you stay alone. |
| 9.) Try to break the monotony by doing a new task every day. |
| 10.) Have a creative outlet. |
How to deal with stress and loneliness? By doing all the above things plus many more things which you want to do but feel hesitant and ashamed of. Drop that fear, come out of the inhibitions and shyness. Seek help. Talk to someone and please value your precious life. If you can surpass this, you can live a more meaningful life and also guide someone else. Remember that you are not alone. Take command over your life. Take Care.
Love and light!
Priyanka Nair is the author of 26 Days 26 Ways for a Happier you and Ardhaviram. An NLP practitioner and Founder of Sanity Daily, helping you prioritize your mental health. Let’s build a happy community.
