One of the best professional experiences I’ve ever had was working in an adolescent drug treatment center for much of the 1980s. I certainly didn’t make a lot of money there, but what I learned over those six plus years was priceless.
HALTS is an acronym commonly used in substance abuse treatment that can be very usefully applied to stress management. A HALTS approach to managing our stress recommends that we avoid feeling too Hungry Angry Lonely Tired Scared.
Hungry – Although food comes immediately to mind (when doesn’t?), there are many other things we can be “hungry” for. We all need a sense of worth, connection to others and to something bigger than ourselves, appreciation, and many others. If we miss out on some of these basic emotional needs for too long, we can end up sad or depressed.
Advice:Pissed off – I get angry, you get angry, we all get angry. There is no problem there. The problem arises when anger is our most common emotion and our first response to most situations. Recent research has shown that constant anger is not only not good for you, it can kill you.
Advice: Pay attention to and deal with the emotions that anger normally arises from: fear, frustration, hurt.
lonely – Despite all the modern ways we have to communicate, we still live in a culture where it’s incredibly easy to isolate yourself. Most people don’t know the names of their neighbors on either or across the street. I know of people who are “too busy” to spend time connecting with other people. These people are too busy for their own good.
Advice: Take time to connect and stay connected with others. Walk next door and introduce yourself. Call an old friend you haven’t talked to in a long time. Stay connected.
Tired – Vince Lombardi said “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” It’s not that most people don’t have time to rest, it’s that most people have forgotten how to do it. When it comes to the best way to rest, sleep, when was the last time you got the recommended 8 to 10 hours? You can stop laughing now. We can push ourselves to a certain point before the body takes over and forces us to rest. I have worked with clients who have told me that it is actually a badge of honor among their colleagues to have been hospitalized for exhaustion. Go figure.
Advice: In addition to getting enough sleep, schedule time to rest. Put it in your appointment book, protect it, and preserve it as you would any other important appointment.
Scarred – In the Tarzan movies that I watched as a kid, there were these natives with blowguns that would shoot poison-coated darts that left a person temporarily paralyzed. Fear can do the same thing: paralyze us and render us inactive. Fear of failure, rejection, success, the future, whatever, we get too scared and freeze.
Advice: Facing your fears and taking action despite them can reduce or eliminate your fears. Remember that fear means forgetting everything and running and false evidence that seems real. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is being afraid of something and doing it anyway.
For better or worse, we may have too much of one of these on any given day. Having two or more consistently can indicate a situation that needs a change. Practice these tips to successfully manage your stress, or you may want to connect with someone who can help you make your stress work for you.