Taking Care

• Author: Jeena Cho
• Pages: 28-29

Taking Care

Self-care is the key to stress and anxiety management

By Jeena Cho

When I teach mindf ulness and medita-

tion, I’ll often st art by asking the people

in the room for a show of hands: Do they

frequently experience st ress and anxiety?

Almost all the ha nds in the room go up.

Then I ask, “How many of you take deliber-

ate steps to prevent or let go of stress a nd

anxiety?” O ften, it’s only a small percentage

of the room that responds.

It’s paradoxical that even though most

lawyers would say they would like to le ssen

the impact of stress a nd anxiety, only a

small percentage of us uti lize concrete

strategies for doing so. As law yers, we’re

conditioned to work hard, putting our

well-being second to our clients. A nd we

tend to hold ourselves to impossibly high

standards. We can fa lsely believe that

every minute not spent billing is t ime

being unproductive, therefore wast ed.

We can discount the importanc e of

resting the mind and the body.

WHAT IS STRESS?

Simply defi ned, stres s is a

reaction to a stimulus t hat

disturbs the body ’s equilibrium.

The stimulus can be any thing

from someone cutting you o on the

highway to an unpleasant excha nge

with an opposing counsel. O ften

we place the blame for the stress on

others or externa l circumstances,

trying to ch ange what we cannot

control. We try to get others

to see things from our per -

spective, act d i erently and

change their behavior.

When we talk about

managing stre ss, there are

two obvious strateg ies. First,

get rid of or change the stimu-

lus; two, change our reaction.

But there is a third way, which

is to become more resilient so

that the stimulus becomes less

disruptive. Resilience i s one’s

ability to not only sur vive the

many challenges in life but

also learn and g row from the experience.

It’s important to recogniz e that each of

us reacts to st imulus di erently. One person

may recover very quickly f rom an unex-

pected car c utting into their lane, whereas

another may stew and continue to exp eri-

ence stress long after the d anger has passed.

Also, we may react t o a stimulus di erently

based on how we’re feeling physically or

emotionally. For example, you may react

more strongly t o an unpleasant convers ation

with your client if you’re sleep-deprived or

already under a lot of stress.

WHAT IS ANXIETY?

Anxiet y is the subjectively unpleasant

feeling of dread over anticipated e vents.

It’s similar to stress in th at it’s also a

reaction to a stimulus; but w ith anxiety,

the stimulus is the anticipation of some

future event. An xiety can trigger

rumination and persi stent worrying,

which can distu rb one’s e quilibrium.

With both stress a nd anxiety,

we can get better at c oping and

lessen the impact through

deliberate practices.

SELF-CARE, NOT SELFISH

Self-care is any a ctivity

or behavior you do to take

care of your mental, emotional

and physical well-being.

Consider these

questions: What do

you do on a regular

basis to care

for your own

well- being?

On

Well-

Being

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE JC LAW GROUP

Practice

28 || ABA JOURNAL AUGUST 2018

“KEEPING BUSY

WAS A DEFENSE

MECHANISM

FOR NOT FACING

WHAT’S NOT

WORKING IN

MY LIFE.”

— JEENA CHO