Fashion Is a Stressful Business. How Is It Affecting You?

This is my first post for 2018, and the year has started grey and somewhat miserable as far as the weather is concerned. I'm looking for the spring sunshine to start soon and to brighten things up all around.

My partner suffers a little from seasonal affective disorder, that is, feeling blue and down due to the lack of sunlight and bright days. He finds it takes the edge off the normally happy disposition and air of positivity that he generally has.

He's not alone in this either. According to psychiatrist Dr Elinore McCance-Katz:

"It's been shown pretty clearly that as daylight decreases, starting in the fall, people will have more feelings of depression and anxiety. If they are feeling depression and anxiety they will report stress." 

I'm lucky. I work doing what I love and have the added benefit of being my own boss, running my own business and managing my own diary to fit in with my family's needs and how I want to balance my life.

But it hasn't always been like that.

There have been times when I've been extremely stressed out. Juggling a career, bringing up four children, managing the expectations that I felt I needed to live up to, placed upon me by others. These have all in the past meant I've paid a heavy price.

And in particular, when I was much younger and eager to impress at university and my first design job, I suffered from an acute period of burnout, stretching myself to achieve as much as I could. Top that with my known gravitas toward perfectionism, and I was a stress disaster waiting to happen.

Time to Take Stock of Your Life

At times like those, when we need to take stock and ask ourselves how my life has gotten out of balance? Why am I so stressed? Is all this effort really worth it? Is it time to recalibrate my life?

Taking stock means first taking the step back and assessing your life overall. Assessing each theme of your life (relationships, work, finances etc.) and asking yourself the question, "Am I happy with this part of my life?" Only by answering such questions will we ever be able to take stock of how our lives are evolving objectively. Otherwise, we'll end up like that poor creature in the boiling frog syndrome.

I'll share with you in a minute or two a tool you can use to help assess your life and what to do about what you find (or you can skip to the end of the post). But first, I wanted to share some points about stress in general.

Some Stress is a Natural Part of Life

We all live in a world of stress. It's natural, and there's very little we can do to eradicate it from our lives. What matters most is how we handle it. The best thing we can do to prevent stress overload and the health consequences that come with it is to know our personal stress symptoms.

By recognizing our symptoms, we can then take action to do something about them.

Signs of Damaging Stress Levels in Your Life

Stress impacts us emotionally, physically, cognitively and behaviorally. I've listed below the typical range of symptoms that are related to stress. Please don't wait until you have all of these before you take action! Scan them and see how many you recognize in yourself or in someone you know.

Emotional Symptoms of stress include:

• Becoming easily agitated, frustrated, and moody.
• Feeling overwhelmed, like you are losing control or need to take control.
• Having difficulty relaxing and quietening your mind.
• Feeling bad about yourself (low self-esteem), lonely, worthless, and depressed.
• Avoiding others.

Physical symptoms of stress include:

• Low energy levels.
• Headaches.
• Upset stomach, including diarrhoea, constipation, and nausea.
• Aches, pains, and tense muscles.
• Chest pain and rapid heartbeat.
• Insomnia.
• Frequent colds and infections.
• Loss of sexual drive and/or ability.
• Nervousness and shaking, ringing in the ear, cold or sweaty hands and feet.
• Dry mouth and difficulty swallowing.
• Clenched jaw and grinding teeth.

Cognitive symptoms of stress include:

• Constant worrying.
• Racing thoughts.
• Forgetfulness and disorganization.
• Inability to focus.
• Poor judgment.
• Being pessimistic or seeing only the negative side.

Behavioural symptoms of stress include:

• Changes in appetite -- either not eating or eating too much.
• Procrastinating and avoiding responsibilities.
• Increased use of alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes.
• Exhibiting more nervous behaviours, such as nail-biting, fidgeting, and pacing.

Stress in Fashion and What to Do About It

Is fashion more prone to stress than other fields? Probably not. It gets perhaps more attention because of the celebrity status and glamour attached to it and therefore gets noticed more. But undoubtedly, it is stressful whether you are in fashion education or fashion commerce. Wherever you work, you'll know how stressful it can be and its impact on your physical and mental health, relationships, and overall satisfaction and happiness with life.

15 Simple Stress-Busting Tips

1. Focus on what’s important and ruthlessly prioritize.  Get rid of the stuff that really doesn't matter.
2. Share the load by delegating where you can. Don't do work that others should be doing. Delegate. When you can't delegate, ask for help or eliminate the need for the task.
3. Get more organized. Stress can lead to becoming disorganised, so make sure you put the organization into your routine and organise your day, including paperwork, admin etc.
4. Set short-term goals you can reach and then celebrate success when you reach them.
5. Be assertive and say no to further obligations and commitments. This will create space in your life and take some of the pressure off.
6. Focus on the positive. Always look for the good in situations, others and yourself.
7. Laugh and smile with others. If necessary, watch a funny video clip on YouTube or instead of getting further bad news form your news network, tune into a comedy show for some mood-boosting.
8. Listen to music that energises you and lifts your mood.
9. Talk to a counsellor or a friend.
10. Don't look for perfectionism. Things don't have to be perfect, “good enough” is often fine enough.
11. Take a time-out for yoga, meditation, or mindfulness.
12. Get regular exercise. Find something you like doing that you can work into your schedule.
13. Set aside some time, even 5 to 10 minutes, for yourself each day.
14. Leave for work 10 - 15 minutes earlier, so you have a chance to get set up before the day starts, phones start ringing and so on.
15. Learn to manage conflict well.

How Balanced is Your Work / Life?

OK, I promised a simple tool you can use to assess the themes in your life. Using a Wheel of Life is a beneficial technique for helping you consider each area of your life in turn and to assess what's off-balance. It gives you the chance to figure out where you need to pay more attention to.

Like the boiling frog who found herself being cooked alive because she was unaware of the rising water temperature, it's easy for us to have lives that evolve. Before we know it, we're paying too much attention in some areas (too often work) and neglecting others areas to their detriment. We end up missing out on dream opportunities or fulfilling our full potential, or even enjoying our lives at all because we lost sight of what's really important to us.

Here's your chance to carry out your own wheel of life assessment and get a free coaching session. Follow this link for further details and to access a copy of our FREE wheel of life tool that you can use immediately. It comes with easy to follow instructions and can be used over and over again.