When you feel the urge to freeze, flee, or fight, use these strategies to cope with overwhelm.
The clock is ticking before an important meeting or presentation. Your heart begins to race and you start to sweat. You’ve encountered a threat (whether real or perceived), and your brain has activated its innate “fight, flight, or freeze” response.
This physiological response is a survival mechanism—fighting to overcome a threat, fleeing to get away, or freezing and doing neither out of panic. But that response is one that’s often not needed to endure the types of threats we face in the workplace today.
“Emotional stressors like a confrontational boss, a needy friend, or even a traffic jam can come with out-of-proportion physical reactions, which aren’t exactly conducive to life’s demands,” writes Ashley Abramson in Elemental.
Lynn Bufka, the associate executive director for practice research and policy at the American Psychological Association, said in the Elemental article, “It’s really evolutionarily a mismatch between how we are hardwired to respond and where the threats are now.”
Over time, when experiencing chronic stress, we may decide to engage in “flight, fight, or freeze” in different ways. Whether we’ve been asked to take on more and more responsibilities and projects or we’re bombarded with last-minute requests, feeling underwater at work day after day takes a toll on us mentally, physically, and emotionally. The chronic release of cortisol (a stress hormone) even weakens the immune system, which can make us more susceptible to illness.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also been a collective stressor for several months for employees across industries. A pandemic is a triple threat of change, uncertainty, and loss of control. According to one global study, 67% of people reported higher levels of stress, 57% were feeling greater anxiety, and 53% said they were more emotionally exhausted since the outbreak.
Perhaps you’re on the front lines, working in health care, research, or policy settings, with tremendous pressure. You may be balancing a far heavier workload than you’re used to. Or maybe you’ve been working from home, the environment blurring the distinction between your work hours and personal time. Maybe you’re walking on eggshells, bracing yourself for possible furloughs or layoffs.
It’s enough to push anyone to the brink of exhaustion. You may initially consider “flight”—what could it look like to leave your job and find another position at a different organization or try something else entirely? While this may be a reasonable option, your frustration may lead you to jump to this sooner than you really should. After all, quitting is a long-term solution to what may be a short-term problem.
Or you may freeze, whether you mean to or not. Work may become so overwhelming that you 1) go through the motions in a numb state, feeling paralyzed to act on your situation to improve it or 2) slow down your productivity and lessen your output. Either way, you’re not likely to be producing your best work or maximizing your efficiency (which is why it’s in the employer’s interest to ensure that employees don’t reach burnout).
Let’s say you take up the fight to regain control in the midst of chaos and overwhelm. Even though there is a lot that you may not be able to change, you can focus on what is immediately in your circle of influence. Here are some ways to manage and cope with stress in the workplace so you can not only survive, but power through in a way that you can be proud of.
01. Reassess your resources
No one can pour from an empty cup. When we are asked to give more than we think we are capable of, we start to worry. We not only feel a lack of control, but also may fall into the alluring trap of insecurity and feeling like we’ll just never measure up.
Before you spiral into this line of thinking, take a moment to reassess and think outside of the box. Open up your calendar, your task list, planner, etc., and ask yourself the following questions: What can I rearrange in my schedule? Do I have any lost time in my day that I can reclaim with a few tweaks? Can I tap a teammate for help?
If your resources simply don’t stack up, press pause on your assignments, and politely decline any new ones as you attempt to come up with a solution. Employ boundaries around your bandwidth and prioritize your most important commitments. (And try not to compare your capacity with someone else’s—we all have different tipping points for stress.)
02. Remember, this is a season
Keep in mind that the season you’re going through will end (eventually). Even if you don’t know the timetable, it’s likely that the tornado of various factors at play right now won’t always exist at its current intensity.
It can also be encouraging to keep in mind that you’ve surpassed challenging times before. Open up an empty document file or grab a sheet of notebook paper to make a list of the obstacles you’ve faced in the past and the other stressful time periods you’ve endured. I’ve found it to be particularly valuable to recall my initial training period at a job—those pressure-filled months where I was learning a new set of skills, software programs, team dynamics, and standard procedures. Reminding myself that I did make it through that overwhelming season renews my sense of confidence and optimism about whatever current situation I’m facing.
03. Reconnect and communicate
When you’re drowning, you may feel like it should be obvious to your manager. But it’s very likely that they have plenty of other things occupying their headspace, so they may not notice how much you’re struggling.
If you need help, reach out to your supervisor and ask for a meeting to open up a discussion. Talk about your workload and what exactly is placing the largest burden on your shoulders. See if they can shift some things off your plate, or help you prioritize. At the very least, being transparent and authentic with your manager shows that you care about bringing your whole self to deliver your best work—an admirable quality.
If you’re feeling particularly isolated, try connecting with your coworkers or with your friends and family. Explain what’s been going on and make specific, time-bound requests for aid. Perhaps your teammates will be able to pitch in at work, or your loved ones would be happy to take care of more tasks and responsibilities around the home.
