Last month, our “promoting emotional
health” Be Well Initiative (BWI) Team helped co-sponsor an EQ15 Memorial on the
one-year anniversary of the tragic Nepali Earthquake. At the event, I met a delightful woman, Dr.
Eva Stitt, who is a Refugee Mental Health Analyst in the Office of Cultural and
Linguistic Competence for the State of Virginia. She wrote yesterday asking if I would
consider being a “very low budget” speaker at the Refugee Mental Health
Summit. Dr. Stitt had seen me facilitate
small group exercises helping Memorial participants to: a) recall the stress emotions and coping
behaviors being 10,000 miles away from ground zero, that is, the anxiety being disconnected
from family and friends amidst the devastation, b) discuss the stressors of
everyday life along with the transition to a new country, when still feeling
like a “stranger in a strange land,” and c) grapple with “The Challenge of
Pursuing the American Dream,” to quote BWI visionary and friend-partner, Dr. DK
Gurung.
The relative ease with which people – a
mix of adults and children of varying ages – opened up and shared caught most
folks by surprise. Typically, talking openly about stress, depression, and/or
all manner of emotional-mental-health issues and concerns goes against
traditional cultural norms and sense of family honor. However, over the years, I’ve facilitated
many hundreds of small group stress exercises, including recent exercises with
Asian and Nepali participants who initially had been skeptical about breaking
down personal sharing barriers. Perhaps
my experience and quiet belief, passionately relaxed and assured manner was
infectious. And, of course, also
instrumental was having BWI team members as group participants, roving
facilitators, and translators.
Reaching
the Summit
Dr. Stitt’s event is the annual Refugee
Mental Health Summit, a gathering of agency executives, behavioral health
providers, direct service workers (nurses, case managers, social workers, etc.),
and refugee community leaders in Virginia.
It is one of the activities sponsored by the Virginia Healing
Partnership, a statewide initiative that aims to identify mechanisms to support
the provision of holistic care to refugees who see Virginia as the place of
hope and refuge. This event aims to:
• Gather
information on local and regional best practices, successful collaborative
efforts, and promising practices that can help address barriers in mental
health care
• Gather
policy and program recommendations to expand the number of providers prepared
to serve refugees in the public and private sector
• Create
a venue for networking and collaboration across the Commonwealth related to
refugee mental wellness and capacity building measures
Dr. Stitt went on to write: I am
thinking that you may want to share your “10 Tips to De-Stress” like the
one you presented with the Nepali group last month. Or maybe you have better
ideas that could resonate well with our group.
Eva
P. Stitt, Ph.D.
Refugee Mental Health Analyst
Virginia Department of Behavioral Health
and Development Services
Office of Cultural and Linguistic
Competence
When Dr. Stitt asked me for a possible
title for my 45 minute Plenary Speaker program I wrote, Practice Safe Stress: Using
Healing Humor to Transform Stress, Burnout, and Conflict. Her immediate reply: I’m
laughing already! I knew I liked this
woman.
Here are the Memorial “Stress
Tips.” I hope you too find them meaningful,
useful, and memorable!
Stress Resilience Tips for Pursuing the
Dream and Climbing the Summit
“Top Ten” Stress Resilience Tools &
Techniques
for Surviving Trauma, Transition, and
Everyday Stress
This past year we have witnessed how
imbalances and stressors in nature may suddenly erupt producing devastating
consequences. While not as cataclysmic,
work-family-life imbalances and pressures may manifest in confusing, overwhelming
and destructive, even life-threatening, emotions and behaviors. As one Nepali community leader
articulated: “We too will erupt if our
life gets out of balance, if we deplete ourselves, run ourselves to the ground,
stretch ourselves thin, and live for all the wrong reasons. We will either collapse into ourselves or
explode onto others.”
We need a powerful stress
tool kit to manage such stressors as: a) being emotionally connected to two
homelands, b) separated from significant others as well as from geographical
and cultural markers, c) everyday pressures pursuing the American Dream,
including adapting to new cultural values, d) the challenges of finding
meaningful employment, and especially, e) being an individual new to the US,
feeling like “a stranger in a strange land.”
Perhaps most critical, as a
community we need to affirm that reaching out for mental and emotional health
services (the mind-heart) is as natural and normal as seeking help for physical
illness (the body). We must help our under-served
community come out of the shadows of shame, stigma, and silence and discover a
new horizon of hope!
Here
is Be Well Initiative and the Stress Doc’s ™ “Top Ten” Stress Resilience Tools
and Techniques for Surviving Crises and Everyday Stress:
1. Find a “Stress Buddy.”
When it comes to stress, we
initially may need to share our feelings outside of our immediate family,
perhaps with a trusted friend or community leader. Having another help put the situation in a
more reasonable or calm perspective, may reduce feelings of guilt and
self-blame and make it easier to later discuss the situation with family
members. If still relatively new in the
US, it’s vital to have a “Stress Buddy” who understands the “trials and
pressures” of immigrant stress.
2. Speak
to a Professional. If
you are feeling intense levels of stress, anger, and/or depression, with
disrupted patterns of eating and sleeping, misusing alcohol and drugs or simply
wanting to withdraw from life, it is time to speak with a person trained in
providing mental health counseling. There are Crisis Hot Lines for
you to call. If you are not sure where
to go, contact one of the counseling/clinical members of the Be Well Initiative
Team:
Bharati Devkota, Nepali Speaking,
Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) – telephone # 443-742-2575
Anshu Basnyat, Nepali
Speaking, Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) – telephone
# 443-574-3430; call for an appointment
Mark Gorkin, the
Stress Doc, Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) – telephone #
301-875-2567
3. Join a Support Group. Share your
pain, purpose, and passion with a group of like-minded community members and a
qualified facilitator; talking with one another, we lean on, learn from,
and then provide an ear or a shoulder to our brothers and sisters. Consider starting a Nepali/community support
group. BWI will be glad to assist. Also, there are a variety of free, 12-Step
Groups – from dealing with problem drinking (or being a family member of a
problem drinker) to handling difficult emotions – located in schools, churches,
community centers, etc., throughout the Greater DC-VA-MD area.
4. Understand Change, Loss, and the Need to
Grieve. Whether it’s a devastating earthquake trauma
or just a more quiet realization of missing loved ones, alive or deceased, no
longer close by, or longing for our former life…we need to take time to
remember. The challenge of change is
omnipresent for people adapting to a new land and way of life, or just going
through transition. Grief stages – shock, sadness, anger, fear, confusion,
disbelief – are not just products of death and dying; grief can be stirred
by the loss of a job, the loss of health and mobility, or the loss of a
dream. Grieving may help you make peace
with both your past and present…and open paths for a more productive
future. Of course, there is not one way
to grieve; each person has his or her own grief rhythm and time frame. However, if after 2-4 weeks you are not back
into your routine, find a trustworthy and understanding stress buddy or, even
better, consider consulting with a professional counselor.
5. Make Sleeping/Rejuvenating and Healthy Eating
a Top Priority. When it comes to sleep, we often provide
solid guidance with our kids, but don’t follow our own advice. Try to apply those sleep routine principles
that you’ve designed for your children:
turn off the gadgets, take a shower or listen to soothing sounds of
nature, or do quiet reading in bed. And,
limit alcohol and caffeine several hours before bedtime. Meditation or taking a ten-fifteen minute
“power nap” can be an effective way to rejuvenate during the day.
As for food and fuel intake, beware of
picking up some of the sloppy eating habits of too many Americans. Reduce your intake of salts, sugars, and
saturated fats – those cans of soda and bags of chips. Eat more fruits, especially the berries, and
green and leafy vegetables; whole grains, beans and legumes and, if not going
vegan, Omega-3 fish – salmon and sardines, are heart-healthy choices. Listen
to your grandmother!
6. Get Regular Exercise. Do
you get thirty minutes of brisk exercise three-five times a week? Regular exercise provides both physical and
psychological advantages. Thirty minutes
(or even two fifteen minute segments) of vigorous, non-stop, large muscle
movement activity – brisk walking, swimming, bike riding, dancing, etc. –
releases brain chemicals such as endorphins and dopamine which are the
mind-body's natural mood enhancers and pain relievers. It's less a runner's high and more that we
can step back and see things with a calmer disposition and fresher
perspective.
When
stressed, everything feel’s up in the air.
The answer: to feel grounded. There is nothing like a brisk thirty minute
walk for creating a beginning and end point for a tangible sense of
accomplishment and control. Actually,
you’re developing a “success ritual.”
And while I don’t always love to exercise, after my ten-minute “while
still in bed” morning routine of stretching, sit-ups, push-ups, yoga positions,
etc. and my early evening walk…well, I do like feeling virtuous. And if you’re having difficulty getting
started…find a walking partner.
7. Learn to Say Set Limits. During my workshops, more
people have said to me, “Mark until I learned how to say ‘No’…I was living on
the edge of stress!” Remember, being a
mature adult means that sometimes you
will have to disappoint people. For
friends and family, for example, let them clearly know what you cannot do (at
this moment in time) but also perhaps what you can do. Give people the option to call you back in
two days when your schedule might not be so busy. Naturally, expect that your
initial “No” might prove upsetting. But
don’t overly explain your position; excess talking undermines your own sense of
control and authority. People see you as
wishy-washy. Briefly remind people of your stated
position.
On the other hand, when relating with an impatient or “the sky is
falling down” authority figure, e.g., the big boss at work, the key is not to
let this person’s false or exaggerated sense of urgency become the only
reality. Remember, for something to be
urgent or an emergency, it’s “life and death.”
Everything else can be prioritized.
So to regain some control, say to that boss, “I know this is a very
important matter. Because it is
important, let’s take five minutes; help me prioritize – what should I put on
the backburner while I focus on this new vital priority.” Don’t
let someone else’s false urgency become your anxiety!
8. Identify and Defuse Stress Triggers. We all
have emotional areas in which we are especially sensitive or reactive – for
example, someone questioning our honesty or intelligence, talking badly about a
friend or family member, or trying to tell us how we must do something his or her way, etc. We tend to overreact emotionally and verbally
when someone hits our “hot button.” To improve your capacity for
self-regulation, before reacting: a) take some deep breaths, b) pay
attention to those “3 B” – Brain-Body-Behavior – stress smoke signals; as I like to
say: Count to ten...and
check within, c) can
I observe the other without making a snap judgement and if they are judging me
not “shake, rattle and BLOW?,” d)
learn to use assertive “I” messages instead of blaming “You” messages, for
example, “I don’t agree” or “I am not comfortable with…” as opposed to “You’re
wrong!” or “It’s your fault!”
Actually two of my favorite stress defusers also
help set limits:
A firm
“no” a day keeps the ulcers away and the hostilities, too.
Do know
your limits and don’t limit your “No”s.
9. Get Organized. Chronic
clutter in a room or office (or even a car) creates a messy mind. Recognize that anger, fear, boredom, or
depression often contributes to ongoing procrastination. Develop an ABCD system: “A” or “top priority” items deal with
promptly; “B” or important items file in a “to do” file that’s visible or
easily reachable; “C” items discard whenever possible; and have a “D” box or
file for future reading or reference.
(Discard most items after a short period of time if not read.) Again, if this ABCD system is not working,
reach out to a concerned friend or a counselor.
Consider this variation of the “Serenity Prayer”: Grant
me the serenity to discard the things I really do not need, to save and file
the things I do, and the wisdom to know the difference (or to brazenly
eviscerate 90% of my in-box)!
10. Discover a Hobby or Engage in an Art
Project…Or Just Laugh. A life that completely revolves around
responsibilities to family and work, with no time for mind-body-spirit
nourishment and rejuvenation, is a life at-risk. Remember, burnout
is less a sign of failure and more that we gave ourselves away! Hobbies or art projects, engaging in sports
or physical activity that especially integrate the mental-emotional-physical,
e.g., digging in a garden, walking in parks or forests, going for bike rides,
trying your hand at water coloring, writing poetry, playing tennis, regular
meditation, taking dance lessons (research shows this is a an especially good
activity for preventing dementia as it is both mind-body spontaneous and
structured)…all enable us to step back, shift gears, have fun, and rediscover
the sublime in nature and our true essence.
And if not quite ready for a hobby, at least read books or watch TV,
videos, or movies that make you laugh. Laughing with gusto is like “inner jogging,”
giving vital organs a brief but hearty internal massage!
In closing, if you begin to apply these “Top Ten”
tips and techniques you will become commander of your own stress ship, being
able to navigate stormy seas and eventually reach your own island or homeland
of mind-body-spirit-relationship resiliency, support, and serenity. Just remember…Practice Safe Stress!
Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer,
and "Psychohumorist" ™, is a founding partner and Stress Resilience
and Trauma Debriefing Consultant for the Nepali Diaspora Behavioral Health
& Wellness Initiative. A former Stress and Violence Prevention
Consultant for the US Postal Service, he has led numerous Pre-Deployment Stress
Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for the US Army. The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Preserving Human Touch in a High Tech World. Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online
"HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a
"workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR). For more info, email: stressdoc@aol.com.
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