Applying Concepts of Managing Stress to Practice

Mysticka Robinson

University of South Carolina: College of Social Work

Professor Melissa Reitmeier

October 17, 2023

 Working in the Health career field can be a challenging reward at times. Being a

healthcare worker is one of the most desired fields to work in. Healthcare is always in high

demand. No matter if it is a routine check-up or urgent, healthcare workers are always needed.

Being in the healthcare field there are very rewarding moments. Being able to save lives or even

helping with creating new lives. Having the opportunity to say that you helped with such an

amazing aspect of life is a reward within itself. But there are hard moments as well. Having to be

a front-line worker can become exhausting. Once COVID-19 happened, it was like healthcare

went into overdrive. During that time, people were sick and dying in large numbers. Frontline

workers were working overtime due to the abundance of incoming people. This also created a

shortage of staff as well causing the other staff to work twice as hard. Working day in and out

with barely and resting periods can cause burnouts.

Context

Burnout is defined as a long-term stress reaction marked by emotional exhaustion,

depersonalization, and lack of sense of personal accomplishment. (AHRQ,2017) When thinking

about Burnout in the Social Work field, it defiantly can happen. What I most anticipate being the

most challenging for me when it comes to managing stress would be not bringing work home.

Due to my career path entailing working with families and children, I know that there are going

to be hard cases. Having a habit of wanting to solve the problem or even give help when it is

needed, no matter the day or time, is a huge downfall for me. I am so passionate about what I do,

and I don’t understand when to turn off work and to turn on personal time. When looking at the

dimensions of burnout discussed in the video, I would say my issue would manifest exhaustion.

Not knowing when to put myself first and wanting to help everyone else around me can become

exhausting. Especially once I begin working in the field, I know I am going to want to bring
work home. I am going to place myself inside of the families’ shoes. And doing that is going to

make me push myself even harder to help, even if it is at the expense of giving up free time to

myself. Even though I am taught in college to manage time and stress, it is something I know

will be a struggle when first getting into the field.

Challenging Assumptions

In college, we are taught about time management and how to manage our stress.

Professors advise us to ensure that we map out time for ourselves at the same time. An

assumption of stress that I have is that stress is all in your mind. Growing up, I was taught that

stress was a mind over matter thing. And to get over stress, I either had to stop thinking about it

or focus my mind on something else. An assumption of burnout that I have is that being burnt out

was a myth itself. Growing up in a predominantly black household, I was always taught that

getting tired was a sign of weakness. Having to be strong and put on your “big girl panties” and

do what needs to be done. We are not allowed to be tired when there are things that need to get

done. The world does not stop just because we are exhausted from work or even our lives. We

are to put on our smiles and keep going. Even if we are carrying the weight of others, we are

never allowed to be exhausted. But after learning from the article and video with how unhealthy

stress and burning out is, it was really an eye opener. Stress and burning out is more than just

physical, it is also mental. And learning that carrying the weight of others stress or trauma is

called compassion fatigue. Moving forward, I will address stress head on before I can become

burnt out. Because once I reach being burnt out, then I must do a lot more work to try and get

myself back together. Having to find my passion and drive for my career again and finding better

ways to cope would be top priority to be efficient in what I do.

Past Successes
 When others look at me and see stress would be seeing a change in my body language. I

become more sluggish, not as cheery, or positive, and being soft spoken or quiet. During these

times, I begin to shut down due to the stress that is starting to build up. There was an instance

where I was working full-time hours, going to school, and taking care of my family. I felt as if

the weight of the world was on my shoulders. Having the stress of working to support myself and

my family. And going to school full-time trying to get my bachelor’s degree but having poor time

management due too little to no down time. Having to go back and forth from school to home

was stressing me very badly. Feeling like everyone was depending on me and having to depend

on myself was hard. I was become more and more exhausted from life itself. It got to the point

where it was affecting me mentally. And once it crossed that line, I asked for help. I got a

therapist who helped me cope with what was going on. Having a safe space to speak freely

without being judged along with getting help managing my stress felt amazing. I knew with

something so exhausting I wouldn’t be able to handle it on my own. And learning that it is okay

to ask for help when it comes to managing stress is okay. I learned new coping mechanisms

when it came to managing stress. The one that I still use to this day is journaling. Writing about

all the things that I can and cannot fix helps me a lot. Being able to physically see what I can

improve on and what I can move on from is also helpful. And I will continue to do this exercise

once I am in my career as well.

Values, Beliefs, Convictions, & Identity

Managing stress has not always been the easiest. Not knowing how to manage stress was

also hard. The only thing I knew was prayer. Being able to pray to God was something I did

faithfully, especially when I was stressed. And since learning different ways of managing stress, I

have been able to include them with my prayers. Being able to write down how I am feeling is
the pathway to prayer. This action helps with getting me into my safe and spiritual place with

God before coming to Him. I can prepare myself before having a conversation with Him about

what is going on. Growing up, I learned that we leave all our worries and troubles and God’s

feet, and He will take care of the rest. And knowing this is what keeps me going with managing

my stress. Because knowing that God will continue to listen and answer my prayers is what I

looked forward to most. Praying keeps me disciplined in staying as stress-free as possible. It

helps me have better judgement when it comes to decision making. Without prayer, God, my

therapist, and journaling, I’m sure I would not be handling stress as well as I do.

Self-Care

My most significant take away from the video would be learning that the dimensions of

burnout does not only apply to your work/school life. Learning that family/friend burn out is

real. Feeling forced to have to speak with others because their friends/family can be exhausting.

There are times where you don’t want to be social, but you feel like you must. Along with

exhaustion being more than physical. It can be emotional, mental, and spiritual as well. Having

the misconception of being burnt out can only be physical has clouded my understanding for so

long. The video showed me that there were times that I was burnt out and did not even know. My

significant take away from the report would be learning the different negative consequences of

health worker burn out. I was surprised to see how the negative consequences affected the

different levels. Learning that health workers can develop heart disease and diabetes from being

burnt out blew my mind. Those are very big health issues and knowing that they can develop

from stress really showed me something new. When it comes to managing my stress with

graduate level education and becoming a professional social worker, I will take my health

seriously. And when I say health, I don’t mean just my physical health. I will care for my mental
and emotional health. My short-term self-care strategy will be to have a day, once a month,

where I just unplug from the world and care about me and my mental, spiritual, and emotional

health. My long-term self-care strategy will be setting goals and priorities. Learning to say “no”

when I feel like I will be overwhelmed. Being mindful and grateful of what I have accomplished

for the day and not what I was not able to do.
 References

Physician burnout. AHRQ. (2017, July). https://www.ahrq.gov/prevention/clinician/ahrq-

works/burnout/index.html#:~:text=The%20health%20care%20environment
%E2%80%94with,of%20sense%20of%20personal%20accomplishment.