How to Deal with Hopelessness After a Job Loss
Losing your job is a difficult situation that can lead to many negative emotions. This can range from listlessness to hopelessness, but you do not have to give in to this. There are a number of things you can do to deal with hopelessness after a job loss.
In the rest of the article, we are going to look at how to deal with hopelessness after a job loss in different ways. Some of these are by giving yourself time, creating a routine, becoming more active, engaging your support network, practicing relaxation, getting therapy, or talking to your doctor.
Give Yourself Some Time
It is normal to feel overwhelmed after a job loss. If you feel this way, you should not feel rushed about moving forward. Give yourself some time to take a breath, sit back, and let it pass. Whether you use this time to process your grief or just let your stress levels simmer, it is valuable either way.
With that said, be very careful about making a bad habit out of this. There is a sweet spot of time to take. Find a balance between getting to the mental state you need to be but not enough that you slip into deeper feelings of listlessness.
Create a Daily Routine
The best way to prevent yourself from slipping into consistent inaction is to set up a routine. You can even treat the time you are taking for yourself as part of this routine. Make sure you’re scheduling out the days that you will take and when you will move onto further things.
On a micro level, you can implement these daily routines in much more mundane ways. Set up specific times every day for you to wake up in the mornings, have your meals, do housework, or even engage in your hobbies. If so, the transition from employment to unemployment can go a lot more smoothly. More than that, it will help you transition back into employment more easily.
Get Into a More Active Lifestyle
Low mood has been linked to lower levels of physical activity. Conversely, engaging in physical activity has been found to improve mood. You may find that it can be difficult to begin an exercise regimen when you are feeling down. The last thing you may feel that you want when you are dwelling on your job loss is to get sweaty, but do not give in to that.
You do not have to train for a marathon or get into a full training program to be more active. Going for a run around your neighborhood every now and then is enough to get the positive feelings flowing. If that seems like too much effort, you can even ease into a more active lifestyle by starting with walks, graduating to jogs, then all out runs.
An added bonus of adopting a more active lifestyle is that it will improve your overall health. Health can suffer after a very difficult situation like a job loss. Mental health is often downstream from physical health, so this is a good solution even if you are not normally a very active person.
Tap Into a Support Network-Others Have Had Hopelessness After a Job Loss, Too
You do not have to deal with your hopelessness alone, but you also don’t have to talk to therapists or medical professionals if you do not want to. Whether the support network you choose to tap into is internal or external, you can feel a valuable sense of togetherness from sharing your thoughts with others.
If you have friends or family members or even former colleagues that you think might understand, you should reach out to them for support. A lot of people feel that it would be awkward or shameful to go to others for help. However, bottling your feelings up to fight them alone can be far more damaging.
If you want a support group that is more specialized to your situation, you can find a group that gets together to specifically deal with hopelessness after a job loss. Feeling you are not alone can itself improve your state of mind.
Practice Proper Relaxation Techniques
It may sound like unhelpful advice to be told to relax when you are feeling bad. On the contrary, there are specific things you can do to increase your levels of relaxation and decrease your levels of stress. Deep breathing is a good start to getting in the right mental and physical state. Take your time to breathe in and breathe out and take pauses between them.
You can take it further once you are in control of your breathing by engaging in more advanced practices. Focusing on relaxing your muscles will help reduce the physical symptoms of your stress. Different types of meditation can also be used to get you into a more settled mental state.
Seek Professional Therapy About Hopelessness After a Job Loss
If you are feeling especially overwhelmed by hopelessness after a job loss you can consider therapy. This is a good solution if you either don’t want to engage people that you know personally or want to go through a more professional approach to dealing with your issues.
Therapy is not the approach for everyone. However, if the other methods have not decreased your feelings of hopelessness and general low mood, you should consider exploring this option.
Speak to Your Doctor
If nothing you try helps you to get better, then you should think about speaking to a doctor. This might lead to a referral to a psychiatrist or a psychologist if your doctor believes that your feelings of hopelessness stem from something deeper. This intervention can be crucial to preventing the situation from worsening.
Your doctor may also prescribe you medication, such as anti-depressants. Going on pills may seem scary or like a sign of defeat, but sometimes a pharmaceutical solution is simply the best way forward due to circumstances beyond your control.
Conclusion on Hopelessness After a Job Loss
We know that feeling hopelessness after a job loss can feel overwhelming sometimes. This article has taught us a few ways to deal with this, from lifestyle changes to techniques to professionals that you can talk to.