4 Tips for Handling Chronic Stress

What a burnout expert does when she needs to take a sip of her own medicine.

Tip #3: nourish yourself. For me, this includes yoga and nature (and pink tights).

I crumbled this weekend. I’d reached a low point — a confluence of loneliness, dismay and overwhelm. After a solid cry, I took myself on a wander through the cool, autumnal streets of Amsterdam. As I watch light rain fall on canals and leaves loosen from trees, it dawned on me. I’ve been experiencing chronic stress: low-level, ongoing stress that dissolves our energy and damages our physical, mental and emotional health.

Immediately, this realization was accompanied by a sharp pang of shame. As I put it to a friend on the phone a couple of hours later, “All I do is talk about burnout prevention and the dangers of chronic stress. How could I let this happen?”

I heard a gentle, compassionate smile in my friend’s voice as she answered, “Sal, you’re human.”

A silent assassin

What makes stress ‘chronic’? Acute stress is a short-term physical response to an immediate threat. Chronic stress plays a longer game.

Chronic stress is a silent assassin — imperceptible, insidious and patient. If you’re watching the brilliant series Lupin, it’s stealthier and cleverer than Assane Diop (though nowhere near as charming).