How to Crush Anxiety & Stress
210: Remove financial, social, and mental impediments
Good morning kings and lords everywhere.
Tomorrow morning we will be covering the Zaporizhzhia Power Plant situation in Ukraine, the updates from BlackRock and other crypto firms on ETFs, as well as general equity market thoughts.
As we roll out of the 4th of July here in America and the week moves along, I thought it would be a good idea to do a deep dive on one of the emotions that so frequently holds me personally, back, as well as others I know and speak with.
Stress and anxiety.
It’s no secret that in the world of high finance and business the most effective leaders and performers find ways to deal with stress and anxiety. Whether it’s hitting quota at your SAAS company, avoiding big losses as a trader, or pulling all nighters in investment banking, the business world comes with it’s fair share of stressful and anxiety inducing moments and periods.
For many of us — the Pandemic and current state of the world contributes to an overwhelming sense of anxiety and dread.
After all if you lose your shit like Upham in the infamous Saving Private Ryan Scene chances are you won’t be in your job for very long — especially in the current economic environment where fools are getting cut left and right and the stakes are getting higher.
Most people deal with some form of anxiety and I’m not talking about your run of the mill millennial anxiety over getting the wrong Starbucks order or freaking out because the person next to you has a lap dog on your 6 hour flight. I’m talking about real anxiety that can affect your mental health, your focus, and your ability to get things done and make money.
About 33 percent of people report feeling extreme stress. 77 percent of people experience stress that affects their physical health. 73 percent of people have stress that impacts their mental health. 48 percent of people have trouble sleeping because of stress (American Institute of Stress Statistics). About 264 million individuals worldwide — have a stress or anxiety related disorder.
Our Deep Dive today will cover:
The Causes of Stress and Anxiety for most people
The Solutions to addressing anxiety and stress
How to leverage stress and anxiety to become better
We touched on this all a bit in our Why Your Mondays Suck Post from a few weeks ago, but I figured it merits a deeper dive especially given the state of American politics, the market environment, and the increasingly difficult financial landscape many people find themselves in.
Anxiety refers to a common mental health condition characterized by feelings of unease, worry, fear, or nervousness. It is a normal reaction to stress or a perceived threat and can be experienced by anyone from time to time. However, when anxiety becomes persistent, excessive, and starts interfering with a person's daily life, it may be considered an anxiety disorder.
Anxiety disorders encompass a range of conditions, including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, specific phobias, and others. Each type of anxiety disorder has its own specific features, but they share common symptoms such as excessive worrying, restlessness, irritability, difficulty concentrating, muscle tension, and sleep disturbances. These are the toxic impacts on our lives when we let stress and anxiety rule our day to day.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Today we’ll talk through some healthy and productive methods for eliminating anxiety and stress from your life with plenty of real world examples and solutions from NAVY SEALs, business professionals, stoics, and others who deal with high stress and anxiety in their professions or lives.
The goal today is to illustrate that there actually is quite a bit you can do towards alleviating stress and anxiety from your life TODAY. It doesn’t need to be something that you continue to suffer from day to day — there are ways to buck the pattern and get yourself back on track.
If you fail to think deeply about stressors and what causes you anxiety in your life — you’re going to be endlessly incapacitated by a lack of inaction and snowballing mass of crap. The most successful people in the world have all found ways to effectively tackle stress and anxiety, and as we’ll talk about today, one of the main keys is finding ways to make these feelings work for you and not against you.
If you find yourself discontent with where you are in life or worrying endlessly about work, family, the world, or your problems this post is for you. We can all benefit from examining what the causes of our anxiety and stress are and then making moves towards addressing them in the best way possible.
This is a core focus for me and many others this summer as we continue to navigate a changing world wrought with factors outside our control and changes that can stress out even the most stoic king among us.
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
—Marcus Aurelius