“None of us is immune to stress — not even the professionals who help others cope with theirs. In fact, sometimes it’s just as hard for clinicians. ‘I wish I were [an] expert at dealing with stress management. I find that I’m far better at guiding people to manage their stress than I am at taking my own advice, and managing my own,’ said John Duffy, Ph.D, a clinical psychologist and author of the book The Available Parent: Radical Optimism for Raising Teens and Tweens.
But that’s why it’s so important to have an assortment of tools and techniques at your disposal. This way, when stress strikes, you have an army of options to deal with it healthfully.
Below, Duffy and other clinicians reveal how they reduce and manage their stress.
Before you can deal with stress, you need to recognize that you’re actually stressed out, which isn’t always obvious. ‘In order for me to de-stress, I need to acknowledge my stress-state in the first place,’ Duffy said. For warning signs, he zeroes in on his body. ‘I have certain tells, like tapping my feet or slipping into a headache.'”
