Life is full of moments and events that can create stress, which is a physical or mental response to an external cause. 

 

Moving home, reading the news, giving a presentation, starting a new job, or the demands of the workplace are just a few examples of times when you’re likely to experience stress.

 

Sometimes, stress can be beneficial as it helps you prepare for big changes or motivates you to meet a deadline. There is an optimal level of stress; too little and we aren’t motivated enough to prepare, while too much can affect our performance. 

When stress does get out of hand, it can negatively impact our physical and mental health. It may affect our sleep, lead to burnout, acute stress disorder, anxiety, or depression.

 

So, while it’s safe to say stress is a part of life, there are things you can do to help manage your stress levels for better health and wellbeing. One important element of this involves self-awareness.  

 

What is self-awareness?

 

Self-awareness is being aware of who you are, particularly relating to your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Having self-awareness doesn’t mean you have to thoroughly understand every single emotion you have or justify every thought. Instead, being self-aware simply means you observe your internal and external experiences. 

 

There are three main components of self-awareness:

 

1. Understanding our own strengths and opportunities for change and growth
2. Understanding how our strengths and challenges relate to those of others
3. Understanding how to adapt our behaviour to increase our effectiveness

Self-awareness is essential for choice and control. If your thoughts and feelings are operating outside of awareness, then they are reactive and control you. If you want to take control, the first step is to open up a ‘window of awareness’ that is an opportunity to pause and consider, before choosing, deciding, and acting.

 

Why is self-awareness so important when we’re talking about stress?

Because stress is a physical or mental response, it’s vital that we recognize what we’re experiencing and why. If you’re self-aware, you might realize that you’re not eating as healthy as you used to, you’re feeling anxious, or that your work has become more challenging and cut into your free time.

 

In this way, self-awareness can help reduce stress—if you first start to recognize the causes, you can then more effectively manage the stressor or response. 

 

Stress management is key to better health and wellbeing

 

Now that you have a better understanding of self-awareness, let’s consider how that can help reduce stress. By being self-aware, you can start to notice your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours as signals or clues to your overall health. 

 

If you catch yourself feeling run down, exhausted, or irritable, you can pause and consider what may be the stressor and take action to resolve or manage it.

 

How can I use self-awareness to manage stress at work?

 

Self-awareness can be particularly useful for managing stress at work. Areas that can be positively impacted include:

·       Identifying stress triggers: Use self-awareness to identify the situations, people, or tasks at work that cause you stress.

·       Developing coping strategies: Once you know your stress triggers, you can develop strategies to manage them. This could involve delegating certain tasks, improving your time management skills, or setting healthier boundaries with colleagues.

·       Taking care of your physical health: Self-awareness can help you recognize the importance of physical health in managing stress. This could involve taking regular breaks, eating healthy, and exercising regularly.

·       Seeking support: If you’re feeling stressed at work, don’t hesitate to seek support. This could be from a trusted colleague, a manager, or a mental health professional.

 

What are some self-awareness exercises that can help manage stress?

 

There are several self-awareness exercises that can help manage stress. Here are a few:

·       Mindfulness meditation: This involves focusing on your breath and observing your thoughts without judgement, helping increase self-awareness and manage stress.

·       Journaling: Writing about your thoughts and feelings is a great way to develop self-awareness and help identify stressors.

·       Body scan meditation: This involves paying attention to different parts of your body and noticing any sensations, without judgement. 

·       Self-reflection: This involves taking time to reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.

·       Seek feedback from others: Others often see aspects of ourselves that we’re not aware of. Seeking feedback can help you become more self-aware.

 

Over time, you can learn to reduce stress relating to things that are completely outside of your control. Being aware of stressors within your control will give you the power to take positive action in reducing and managing these stressors. 

 

Stress isn’t something that can be fixed overnight, but by taking small, consistent steps and sticking with it over time you can see impactful changes.

 

What Next:

 

How self-aware are you?  If you want to know how self-aware you are,  while taking positive steps to develop your self-awareness to support your health and wellbeing, then the following free Money Advice Scotland workshop is perfect for you.       

 

Wellbeing Workshop:  Building Empowerment and Resilience through Transactional Analysis (TA): 

This 2-hour workshop is part of our Workforce Wellbeing Project stress management series.  It will take you on a journey of self-discovery through Transactional Analysis theory as we explore your working styles and motivators. We will look at how these shape your interactions and communication with others, your contribution to the team, style of management and how you organise your work and time. You will learn how to identify your strengths and challenges while reducing stressors and potential conflicts in the workplace. 

 

You can book a place on the workshop here.  This workshop is available to anyone working in the free money advice sector.  All the latest workforce wellbeing training, events and resources can be found on the Money Advice Scotland website.