How to manage work stress using expressive writing
Feeling in control versus feeling helpless
Feeling that we have some control over what we do, and that we can make our own choices, is important for our wellbeing. However, in some work environments, our stress can be more intense if we feel there is nothing we can do to change things. This can be especially difficult if we also start to lose a sense of meaning and feel like where we are and what we are doing is not aligning with what we value.
Learning a sense of helplessness
Psychologist Martin Seligman developed the theory of learned helplessness to explain how we can learn to give up if we feel like nothing we do can change things. If we keep trying and nothing ever changes, we stop trying. We stop believing that what we do can change things. Feeling like this can also contribute to depression.
Individual differences are also at play here, as always in psychology. Some people might react differently depending on their personality and attachment style. Of course, the individual situation might call for us to repress what we might instinctively want to do as well.
However, stress at work can lead to burnout when we lose our reason to keep trying. When we lose our purpose, our motivation can also be affected. When we lose our motivation, our energy level drops, and when our energy level drops, our activity levels reduce. We may withdraw and disengage, and this can significantly impact our mental health and our daily functioning.
Are you feeling stressed at work?
Feeling that you have control over your workload is only one area that can cause stress at work. However, there are many facets to what makes us feel stressed at work. For example, competing demands, too many demands versus time and resources to meet the needs, social tensions, bullying, commuting and financial pressures, and tensions in our home life.
What areas cause you the most stress at work, and how do you handle them? There are some questionnaires you can take to unpack the different elements of stress and give yourself a score for how stressed you feel. Here is one that you can use. It’s called the ‘Work Stressor Questionnaire’ by the American Institute for Preventative Medicine.
What can we do about work stress?
The first step, as with anything that is upsetting us, is identifying and pinpointing what it is—noticing and identifying the stressor. The questionnaire above can help to pinpoint specific areas. Once you know what these areas are for you, you can decide what you can and cannot change. What do you have control over, and what can you do something about, rather than feeling stuck or helpless because it feels like you cannot do anything? Even if they are tiny, look for things you can do something about. Things that mean something to you, things that you value, and things that make a positive difference.
We can also speak to someone about how we feel or use expressive writing to clarify and work through our thoughts and feelings and devise a plan for what to do.
Using expressive writing to manage work stress
Expressive writing is a technique that has a good amount of research to support what it can and cannot help with in relation to stress. I have added a list of some of the many research studies if you want to dive further into this.
To try expressive writing for yourself. Set aside 15 minutes where you won’t be disturbed, and get something you can write on, preferably pen and paper. Follow my guided session below:
This is what we do in the sessions:
- In the first 7 minutes, we offload all our thoughts and feelings about the stresses.
- Then, we pause and breathe
- Then we use the second writing session of 7 minutes to reflect and process what we have written.
- We also problem-solve the steps you can take to deal with what has come up for you. However, make them small and specific and linked to what came up in the writing. Make them manageable and something you see progress in, however small that may be. This is why writing works so well. We can see the issue; we have put it into word form rather than only a general feeling, and we can unpack what is there and see which parts we can do something about.
Books with a CBT / Expressive writing / Stress theme:-ACT for Burnout: Recharge, Reconnect, and Transform Burnout with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
ACT for Burnout: Recharge, Reconnect, and Transform Burnout with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
The Little CBT Workbook: A Step-by-step Guide to Gaining Control of Your Life
Expressive writing research studies that mention stress and/or work stress:
- Expressive writing as a practice against work stress: A literature review
This study reviews the literature on expressive writing as an intervention for processing stressful experiences, specifically in the context of work stress. - Effects of Expressive Writing on Psychological and Physical Health
This study examines the effects of expressive writing on various psychological and physical health outcomes, including stress-related measures. - Effectiveness of Expressive Writing in the Reduction of Psychological Distress During the COVID-19 Pandemic
This study assesses the effectiveness of online expressive writing in reducing psychological distress, which includes stress, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. - Expressive writing as a practice against work stress
This experimental study looks at the effectiveness of expressive writing in reducing work stress.
Come to a LIVE guided expressive writing session
Every Sunday I use expressive writing to offload and process my week, and I have opened this up LIVE so that we can all do this together but in our own spaces. If you’d like to try this, do join us at 7.30pm (UK) on Sundays. Just go to my YouTube channel here or click the image below. You can be notified of the next LIVE by subscribing and clicking the bell icon.
