How entrepreneurs can battle stress and depression

You are an entrepreneur, so when you try to tell someone that you’re not happy with your life, the best advice they can give you, is to “fake it until you make it”. When you successfully run your business, all people see are your cars, clothes, house and money. They don’t see the sacrifices you made to get them, the obstacles faced, and the battle you fight daily with stress and depression. 

Depression is a condition more and more entrepreneurs experience. Stanford conducted a study in 2015 that revealed that 70% of businesspersons suffer from some type of mental problem. The sad news is that there’s short information on how entrepreneurs can fight depression and stress. This article should help you battle both conditions. 

Prioritise problems and solve one at a time

Running a business is a complex job because you have to solve problems daily. You need to prioritise them and solve one at a time if you want to prevent stress. Trying to solve multiple problems at the same time is overwhelming because you have to split your attention and you cannot focus on the triggers. By identifying the cause of the problem, you can easily solve it. The best approach is to establish an approach you’ll follow every time you’ll have to solve problems, and to stick with it. Move to the next challenge only when you solved the first one.

Most of the time negative thinking impacts your efficiency in solving a problem. It’s the moment to stop problems from consuming you. You need to accept that all entrepreneurs are facing problems. It’s part of your life and you must begin to solve the most important one, and then the next one and them the next. After you solve enough issues you can return to a balanced life. 

Take care of your body

Stress and depression don’t affect only your mind, but also your body. The connection between mind and body is more powerful than you think. Your emotions and thoughts impact your physical state, and your physical well-being influences your psychological one. When your back hurts you find difficult to focus on the tasks you must complete. Your ailing back drags your mood. Similarly, your emotions cause headaches and tension in the body. 

To fight emotional distress, you need to take great care of your body. How can you do it?

You should start by ensuring that your body is strong enough to deal with the daily challenges you experience. Your emotional symptoms often overlap the physical ones. For example, if you are stressed out and sad, it can be a sign of depression or a malfunctioning thyroid. A visit to your physician can help you understand if your emotional state is psychological in nature or it’s a symptom of a physical condition. 

Once you’re sure you don’t have health conditions that can accentuate your mental health problems, try to understand how your body reacts to what goes into it or what it needs. For example, dehydration is often associated with lack of motivation, tiredness, and exhaustion. Hunger causes agitation and moodiness. A high intake of sugar can lead to depression and anxiety. Sometimes the medications you use to treat a physical condition can impact your brain and cause anxiety and depression. Ask your doctor if the medications you take are associated with mood swings, paranoia, and slow thinking. 

Physical activity can help you fight stress and depression, so you should exercise regularly to prevent psychological and physical problems. Physical activities boost your mood, clear your head, and sharpen your thinking ability. They will help you solve problems faster and improve your mood. 

Learn to understand your emotions

It’s crucial for entrepreneurs to read people’s facial expressions and body language, but they find difficult to understand their own emotions. 

You are probably pretty good at understating if your clients are happy, sad, angry or surprised. But you find hard to understand what you feel. You must know what your own feelings mean if you want to fight depression. 

Emotions are complex entities, and even your psychologist will find difficult to explain their meaning to you. If it would be to ask different people to define emotions, each one would have a different answer. 

To better understand your emotions, you need to understand that they are part of your biology, and a lack of feelings can be the sign of brain damage. Your emotions influence your actions and decisions, so they highly influence how you run your life. You should give them more credit. By analysing your emotions, you can realign your actions. 

Let the professionals help you

Most of the time, you can solve your problems without help, but when it comes to depression and stress, the support of a professional can prove beneficial. The specialists from Canterbury Healthcare state that sometimes an informed opinion from mental health experts is necessary. For example, when you find difficult to fall asleep or to sleep peacefully the entire night because you have worrying thoughts about your business, you should ask for professional help.

You should also visit a specialists if you find difficult to meet deadlines, you cannot complete projects, you cannot get out of the bed, you don’t feel able to deal with the world, you apologize a lot for not solving problems, and you think that world is a better place without you in it. 

Seeing a therapist doesn’t mean you are too weak to deal with problems on your own, it means you are working with someone to understand what is causing your state. Learning to cope with your stress and depression is important if you want to be successful. 

It’s the moment to understand yourself better. Find someone who shares your ideas and who is equipped with the needed knowledge to support you. 

And the last but not least recommendation would be to try not to do everything on your own, at the cost of your health. Collaborate with experts who can help you run your business, and offer you the free time you need to focus on your health.