Your Stress Bucket Needs You
Stress is our body’s normal response to increased physical and emotional pressure. When we’re repeatedly adding to our level of stress, and don’t have anything in place to counterbalance it, those stress levels go up and up until we reach our capacity, our emotional limits – negatively affecting our mental wellbeing.
We all have a different capacity for stress and our own emotional capacity will change over time. However, what is important is how we might manage our stress levels to prevent ever reaching full emotional capacity.
To stop our bucket from overflowing we need to add holes to our bucket; outlets to allow some of this stress to flow out in a healthy way.
Self Care – The thing to remember when considering self-care is the ‘self’ – the things which energy, help you process, calm and soothe you. If we are looking after ourselves and making time for our own needs, we will keep our levels low enough to be able to avoid them overflowing.
Saying No – We need to monitor our own stress bucket. We can’t take on extra pressure if we are already filling up too quickly. That might be telling your employer you can’t take on extra work, telling a friend you are not able to help with a project or telling yourself you need to stop trying to please everyone else.
Saying Yes to You – Spend time doing things you enjoy. When you are happy and relaxed it ensures the taps stay clear of blockages and the stress bucket can empty smoothly.
Talking Therapy – A counsellor or therapist might be able to teach you techniques to keep your stress levels lower and help you identify areas of your life that need adjustment for this to happen.
Relaxation – Whether that is mindfulness, exercise, yoga or something else – spending time in the moment and finding techniques to relax can help keep those levels down.
Looking After Ourselves – Ensuring we are getting enough sleep, eating well and seeing a doctor when needed all help us look after our physical health – which in turn helps keep our stress bucket stable. When we become ill our stress bucket can shrink, leading to a much higher risk of it overflowing.
It is important to remember that our holes will all be different things, we all have our own self-care and our own way to relieve our stress. Find what works for you and if you’re unsure, monitor how you feel after experimenting with different activities; talking to someone you trust, journalling, drawing, painting, sewing, etc.
We might think the best thing to do is to just empty the bucket and start afresh. We might take a holiday, we might leave a stressful job or end a difficult relationship and this will act like turning the bucket upside down. But if we haven’t also added in lots of holes to our bucket, it is just going to fill up again.
We need to keep the holes open all the time as well. It’s great to add all our holes in when we feel we are reaching our emotional capacity, but if we stop the self-care, the bucket will fill back up again. Self-care is not only for when we are unwell – it is a preventative tool too.
Even with holes in place, it’s really important we continue to monitor our stress bucket. If the flow is running in faster than it is coming out, it is still at risk of overflowing.
Some things we can watch out for are:
Becoming irritable. Snapping at loved ones, colleagues or ourselves when that is usually out of character is often a sign our stress bucket is near the top.
Using unhelpful coping strategies. When we’re starting to feel awry, we might turn to things to help us quickly such as turning to substances such as alcohol, coffee, food or drugs.
While these strategies may initially feel like we’re putting holes in our bucket – they often become a plug and can add even more stress to flow in.
Feeling overwhelmed. When it all feels like it’s getting too much, it is time to step back and re-evaluate what you are doing to keep your stress bucket below emotional capacity.
Appendix: The Blurt Foundation