A friend of mine almost lost her job awhile back, because her coworkers rightly felt that she was too easily prone to anxiety attacks. Friendly advice, self-help books etc. only seemed to trigger her stress levels to new highs.
Finally, a common friend had a brainwave to gift her a list of why and when each of us in our group got stressed on both personal and professional fronts. I thought it was a stupid gag gift. But wonder of wonders it worked! She stopped her self pitying routine long enough to also list all her coworkers’ stress-flaws. Those lists amazed us all. We learnt through actual experience that we were not alone in feeling frazzled over a particular situation. The only thing that changed was how we showed our stress. The next time I faced a tense situation I remembered that and felt more in control. So did she.
Following popular advice to control stress through breathing exercises my friend ended up hyperventilating in a paper bag! That is when we devised our own breathing exercise. I would listen to Chopin and Beethoven and she would listen to soft, sentimental music. Our breathing got modulated and we never felt we were exercising. The trick really worked!
Another thing that birthday gift helped us friends do was realize that we all felt alone and worried about money and security and the future a lot. Well we couldn’t do much about the latter three but we hung out together more often and chased each other’s and our own loneliness. We talked about our frustrations and knowing from the list the value of a good ear, listened, when the others aired their problems.
I now feel calmer and more valued. And know what? My ‘anxiety-prone’ friend got a promotion recently.
