Worry, Anxiety & Depression

This is the other kind of stress, mental.

I read in a study that an business owner is 19 times more likely to suffer with depression & 7 times more likely to commit suicide than the average person. I do believe a huge proportion of that is related to physical stress & nutrition, as mentioned in the previous post.

By definition, stress is a pressure or tension exerted on an object or material. Stress is a real hormone in our body, known as cortisol, its comes from the adrenal gland near our stomachs & in large doses is poisonous to our systems if our bodies are put into stressful situations too frequently. The side effects of cortisol poisoning amongst other include; fatigue, irritability, headaches, anxiety, depression, weight gain, weight loss & sleep deprivation. This leads onto malnourishment & confusion. The human body is super-intelligent, without you realising it your body will use all methods possible to keep you on your feet. It'll laugh, it'll cry, it'll get confused, it'll fall asleep on your work desk to give you subtle messages that you're pushing it too far. It can force you to pass out, live passed the hunger, feel no pain, feel pain in area's that aren't recovering correctly from fatigue & it can suck the hydration from your muscles to keep itself going. But eventually, neglect the body's ability to absorb the exerted pressure, it'll reach total burn out.

I know from experience as as entrepreneur that you will get out of bed every morning ready to take on all of the problems in the world, the ambition is unlimiting & if you're anything like I was, you'll take on every problem that isn't yours. The overthinking of information constantly is what enables our minds to explore new ways of doing things, to find that next solution. It is a blessing and a curse in one. When I first began my business journey, things were so exciting, everyday seemed an experience learning more & more about the business world. I met an array of individuals from different backgrounds, over what I look back on now as a relatively short period of time. I love it, new people are new lessons. As much as I love teaching, I love learning too. My mind seeks new problems all the time, which only attracted more to learn from & more to teach others. Us entrepreneurs are less than 1% of the global population.

The following is my interpretation of mental stress based on my experience. I hope it can help you see life in a different light & remove the curse that overthinking can (if you let it) bring to your life. I think that 'Worry' causes mental 'stress' & too much 'worrying' about the same thing will cause 'anxiety'. My perception of 'depression' is that, too many 'anxieties' collectively cause 'depression', or a 'dull mind' as I like to refer to it.

If you replace the word 'stress(ful)' in life situations with 'worry(ing)', this would all make sense to you.

Somebody asked me last year, 'how do you cure depression?' I'm not a doctor by any stretch, but I have had to learn a lot about stress & how it's played such a big factor in my business & personal life & I've also learnt what you can lose through it too. I'm not sure I know the answer for everybody, but what I have learnt is to recognise how the intelligence of the human mind can play such a significant factor. I may be wrong to say this, but I believe the more intelligent you are, the more the energy you are building up will effect you.

The human mind is complicated & programmable. It isn't designed to unlearn things, or to remove a thought. If I asked you to remove the thought or image of a tree from your mind & I proposed to give you 30 seconds to do it, you will continue to think of a tree. The chances are that your mind will expand into thinking of more trees and the thought will not be removed. Our brains are designed to learn new things, we've done it since we were born into the world. The brain continues to add thoughts & multiply the thoughts that we are trying not to think about or more to the point, the thoughts that are running through us and this is why I think that the more intelligent we are, the more our mind will multiply the idea. I understand, you cannot simply forget an idea & some worries need to be addressed & resolved which I will talk about in a moment, however the principle I am trying to teach is that our minds can learn new things, its just a case of giving it a little time to learn them. You have to learn to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. For most of us, there is always another person worse off than we are - we shouldn't hone in on those problems either, but a little appreciation & recognition to what you still have in life can go a long way in changing the way the mind is working.

We all have some problems, its just part of being alive - if there was no problems, there would be no challenge. A method to get out of the 'worry' focused mindset is to write everything down on a big piece of paper or whatever you have to hand. Ask yourself, how it is a worry to you? How did it become a worry? & more importantly, Is it actually your worry to deal with? Then putting aside how long it'll take to fix the problem, write a solution for the problem. It may not be the first fix, but it's a start at reviewing solutions. Then continue writing them until you've written all you can think of. Then walk away. LEAVE THE PAPER OR WHATEVER YOU FOUND TO WRITE IT OUT ON ALONE, GO AND EAT SOMETHING. In the meantime, your mind is likely to improve on whatever solutions you have thought of, which is far better for your mind than thinking of the worry in an unresolved way.

Look at it all again the next day. You'll see a lot of it in a different light. It may lead you onto to better solutions, it may make you realise which 'worries' can be dealt with faster and which ones can wait a while. I won't promise they will all go away, but you will now have a strategy to work with. On a side note, work out the worries that you have adopted first and remember that you have your own too. The cycle will give you that small bit of encouragement that things can be fixed. Charity starts at home sometimes, especially with mindfulness. Business is by definition the commercial activities between individuals & entities. If you have made the commercial decision in your life to trade someone else's problem with the disadvantage of worry to no benefit, the business transaction wasn't entirely fair & extra problems won't be good for your mind or your business.

Prioritise worries & as you scribble out the worries that you have solved, you should start to feel some focus back onto the individual problems. After this, grab another piece of paper & write down what you want to focus on, what you believe you want to achieve in the next 60 days & keep thinking of this instead.

A great tip I found helped me for a long time - spend 3-5 minutes every morning thinking of 5 things you are grateful for in your life, before you open your laptop or look at your phone, take a moment for you, to appreciate life & recognise where you are.

They say you have to come close to death to realise how alive you are. I was poorly & in bed for a while. It really makes you assess how far you've came in life. It gives you time to reflect on what you have achieved & the important goals you set out that you haven't. I'd burnt myself out completely & my body just couldn't take anymore. I started my business for ME & my future family, because I was sick of seeing others struggle in the majority of society & I swore on my own life that I would push as hard as I could & never spend another day seeing my family in them positions. It caught up with me when I lost focus on what to prioritise & being in that position made me realise that burning myself out, was never going to get me to where I wanted to be in life.

The message I can pass on to others is that being an entrepreneur is hard work, but don't let it take over your life in a negative way. There are many other methods to improve your mental state, such as yoga, tai chi or just simple exercises can help.

The correct things to worry about should be the people that surround you & care about you, not the material things. Review your stress levels, prioritise worries & focus on what you set out to achieve. Read my post about focus to understand more.

And if you're reading this & have hit that wall, where you feel there is no return or perhaps you have a tonne of weight on your shoulders, please reach out to me... I can't promise to fix everything, but I will offer impartial confidential advice where I can.