Jul
19
Unemployment isn’t easy or fun. It can actually be incredibly stressful (one of the top 10 most stressful life events), not only for the unemployed workers, but for their families. There are ways to manage the stress.
- First of all, don’t blame yourself – it’s probably not your fault. Unfortunately in this economy, lots of people have lost their jobs.
- Try to stay positive. Losing your job doesn’t make you a bad person – others won’t perceive you that way and you shouldn’t either.
- Understand what stresses you (besides your employment situation). Learn about stress and how it impacts people so you can have a greater awareness. What else is stressful currently? Can you do something about it? Stress is cumulative – every little thing adds up.
- Talk about your stress with others. Talking about it helps and those people may be able to help – to offer suggestions or minimize the stress they may cause. If you find yourself having trouble coping, you may be clinically depressed – consider talking with a professional (and most communities have free mental health services as you may be low on resources).
- Learn about resources available to you for help – all sorts of help. Near you may be support groups for unemployed workers, free public employment services and retraining programs (see careeronestop to learn locations – click on your state’s eligible training provider list and see where you should go – and they do more than just training), mental health services, food pantries, etc. Be willing to accept some help if you need it.
- Take action to deal with the stress of unemployment. Create a plan like I mentioned in another blog post: Job hunting is a full-time job. An activity to overcome the stress helps relieve it, temporarily, so keep at for longer effects.
- Be sure to get some physical exercise (especially since you may likely have some extra time). It’s a great stress reliever!
Being an unemployed worker is difficult, but don’t succumb to it. Things will get better in time, you just need to work at it to get through it. Good luck!
[...] I wrote a blog post, Unemployment and stress – you CAN cope, which addressed the first. Today, I’d like to look beyond the unemployed worker to those [...]