Use journaling as a tool to reduce, prevent stress

MINNEAPOLIS — Stress experienced by farmers, their families and others that work in the agricultural industry is oftentimes the result of the uniqueness of this life that people in other professions don’t experience.

“Things like financial pressures or feeling like you have no control over outside influences like weather or commodity prices,” said Brenda Mack, behavioral health and wellness consultant.

“We are also dealing with things like extreme outdoor working conditions, excessive workloads and exhaustion,” said Mack during a webinar hosted by the Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture program.

“Farmers and ranchers experience higher rates of depression and anxiety and are at greater risk of suicide compared to the general population and that can include suffering in silence,” she said.

Stress is a response to internal or external stimuli.

“Internal stimuli are our own thoughts and self-messages,” said Mack, who is an associate professor in the social work department at Bemidji State University. “External stimuli impact our physical, emotional and social health.”

Chronic, untreated stress, she said, can lead to other issues impacting a person’s wellness and wellbeing.

“Depression is a health condition that is related to a neurochemical balance in the brain,” she said.

Symptoms of depression include low energy, sadness, bouts of crying, sleep disruption or changes in eating behavior.

“We all experience sadness in our lives, but those situations are different than depression that is diagnosed by a mental health professional,” Mack said.

“You must have multiple symptoms that have been in existence for at least two weeks to have a diagnosis of depression,” the behavioral health and wellness consultant said.

“Anxiety is the most common of all behavioral health conditions,” she said. “It includes things like excessive worrying, thoughts and behaviors related to distress, apprehensive mood or feelings of dread.”

Some people have found that journaling for three to five minutes before they go to bed or as they are waking up in the morning to be beneficial as a way to reduce or prevent stress.

“Other folks have found it more beneficial to write for 20 to 30 minutes,” Mack said.

“I want you to use the journaling tool to reduce stress in an individualized way that works best for you,” she said. “Maybe there are times in the year where you will take more time to journal because it is less busy on the farm and other times you will write for shorter periods of time because life is so busy.”

One in four farmers, Mack said, experience significant stress.

“I often think that number is underreported,” she said. “We know that over half of the farmers in the U.S. experience depression and 40% experience anxiety.”

Physical symptoms of agricultural-related stress can be muscle aches and headaches, digestive and stomach issues, shortness of breath, low energy or fatigue, high blood pressure, sleep or eating disruptions and an increase in physical illness.

“It could also mean things like difficulty in concentrating, feeling sad, angry, depressed or cynical,” Mack said. “It could be a loss of your spirit or humor, withdrawing from the world or using substances in an unhealthy way.”

Healthy relationships and connections with others can fuel resilience, the associate professor said.

“We also know the relational connection to pets has proven to help reduce stress,” Mack said.

“Eating fruits and vegetables, healthy grains, drinking water, getting enough sleep per night, exercising and doing deep breathing exercises are all examples of physical things that we can do to address our stress,” she said.

“What one person’s wellness and well-being plan looks like regarding healthy relationships and connections to others is going to look different from the next person,” she added.

When a stressful event happens, it is important for people to complete their stress cycle.

“If we don’t address our stress through rational means or cognitive restructuring of our thoughts or physical activities, then stress lives and percolates in our body and manifests in unhealthy and emotional ways,” Mack said.

“When a particularly stressful event happens in your life, there is a stressor that prompts us to feel stressed, burdened or anguished,” she said. “Then we need to engage in some sort of action to resolve that.”

Some action steps may include talking to a spouse, sibling, best friend or pastor.

“Move your body by shoveling snow, cleaning stalls in the barn, exercising, dancing, riding your horse or writing a gratitude letter,” Mack said.

“When I have a stressful event happen at work or on the farm, I will take time to write about that and I don’t worry about spelling or if I am grammatically correct,” she said. “There is something cathartic that happens for me when I write about the situation.”

Additional stress-relieving strategies include engaging in social or recreational activities such as woodworking, playing games with others or engaging in random acts of kindness.

“Listen to inspirational podcasts,” Mack said. “Define your boundaries and know that it is OK to have a boundary and say no to some things.”