Keeping Your Head After Losing Your Job (25 page)

Seeing what you have taken for granted

You don’t have the excuse that you are too busy working. Just think about the advantage you have right now as a tourist where you live. You can walk along the streets or footpaths, admire the architecture, walk on the beaches, take a canoe on the river or the lake, learn about art in a gallery, listen to a concert, go to a dance, sample the food in the tiny restaurant tucked in a forgotten place you have never visited, and live fully in the place that surrounds you. Walk across any bridge crossing the river in a city and you will find people sauntering along, looking back over the city and watching the boats going by. When you do this, you see the city in a new light. You can live in a city all your life without really seeing it. Now is the time!

EXERCISE: WHERE COULD YOU GO
AS A TOURIST?

Think about where you live and how you could enjoy more of the interesting places:

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Now that you have time, you can explore and enjoy the area where you live.

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If you were showing someone around your area, where would you take them?

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Identify the places, buildings, museums, concerts, events and natural settings in your area—and take yourself there.

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Think of yourself as a tourist where you live and take part in life where you are.

11

TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF

For many people who are unemployed, the time between jobs is not only lost time, not only a time of increased depression and anxiety, but also a time when the worst habits of self-care develop. One client, John, was a great example of this dissolution and decay. He had been employed for several years and knew that he was likely to lose his job, but he took a passive attitude about looking for alternatives while still employed. He had no plan. Rather than anticipating losing his job and needing a new one, he had been passive and done nothing. He had done no networking, no searching—he just sat there and waited for the axe to fall. It did fall.

When he was laid off because of a company downturn, the only person who was surprised was John. Initially, he complained and thought of himself as a victim (which was understandable, even normal), but then sank into a pattern of passivity, isolation, and decline of self-care. He would sleep late, then stay up late at night watching television, surfing the net and perusing pornography. Alone at home while his wife was at work and the kids were at school, he sometimes didn’t get dressed until late afternoon. His eating habits became the source of momentary pleasure, mindless compulsion, and self-destruction. Stuffing himself with junk food, he would munch on potato chips and cookies, raid the fridge for more ice cream, and sit in front of the television in an almost hypnotic state.

Never exercising, smoking more than ever before, John also began to drink during the day, often hiding the empty bottles under the furniture. John thought he needed more relief from his stress, so he began smoking marijuana during the week when everyone was out of the house. His motivation to look for a job declined along with his health. Every day had the same grey, foreboding quality, accompanied by the worst habits of self-care.

Poor health is often triggered by unemployment

Sadly, John’s story is not unique. Unemployment—even the fear of unemployment—is characterized by a wide range of self-destructive, unhealthy behaviors. People who learn layoffs are coming—but who have not been laid off yet—show an increase in cholesterol levels.
¹⁵

Stress hormones increase, digestion is compromised, and sleep is impaired. During the time between jobs, many people show an increase in alcohol consumption, smoking, drug abuse, and overeating. There are also increases in obesity during this time—the result of a decreased effort in working, plus passivity and compulsive eating. As we discussed in Chapter One, the unemployed have lifetime risks of cardiovascular disease that are substantially higher than those never unemployed. The habits you follow during this time might result in an early death, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

1: Make your health a priority

Being unemployed can affect your health. Harvard researcher Kate W. Strully has found that unemployed people over the course of one and a half years are twice as likely to develop problems with diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol
¹⁶
as people who have never been unemployed.

In fact, in a review of research from fifteen countries over the past forty years, Dr. Eran Shor and other colleagues have found a significant long-term increase in mortality related to prior unemployment. Men are more likely to be affected by job loss than women—men having a 78% increase, and women having a 37% increase in mortality.
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Unemployment has consistently been linked to increased smoking, poor nutrition, reduced quality of health and overuse of psychoactive drugs.
¹⁸

Don’t let a life of poor health start here

It’s essential to focus on your health care during this time, since the effects of poor health care can last indefinitely—especially if you develop the wrong habits. In fact, one of the first things I recommend to people I counsel who are unemployed is that the greatest risk at this point is their health. Veronica was unemployed and came in to see me looking somewhat disheveled. Her hair hung loosely over her face, her clothing looked unkempt, even her walk as she came into my office was characterized by a slump and a slouch that suggested that she was depressed in almost every cell of her body. (I know that’s an exaggeration, but that’s how she described herself.) Her physical being was demoralized, closed down and collapsing.

I asked Veronica to describe her typical day—from the moment she woke up to the minute she went to sleep. “There’s no one time that I actually get up. It depends on when I go to bed. Since I have nothing to do during the day, it doesn’t seem like there is any time I need to be up. I could get up at nine in the morning, or two in the afternoon. I lie there, sometimes for an hour, sometimes falling asleep again, sometimes in a half-sleep state of mind. I don’t always shower. I’m embarrassed to say, this, but I just don’t care. There’s no one around, it doesn’t matter what I look like. I eat throughout the day, sometimes just putting some junk food in front of me while I sit and watch television. The hours drift by. There’s no purpose, it seems. I hardly see people anymore.” As Veronica looked down at the floor, averting her gaze, her voice trailing off into a whisper.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear what you just said.”

“I said, ‘I’m such a waste of time.’ ”

I said to Veronica, “One of the key things during this time is taking care of your health. It sounds like you have been experiencing a lot of depression recently, and that you have closed down physically and perhaps mentally. I wonder how you think you might feel if you got more active, had a healthier diet, exercised regularly, and had a normal sleep schedule.”

“I’m sure I would feel better,” she said, “but that’s a lot easier to say than to do. I just don’t have any motivation, I have no energy. I feel tired all the time. And the ironic thing is I am tired, but I am doing nothing.”

“Perhaps you are tired because of your lack of activity. It could also be that your diet is robbing you of energy. The sugar, carbohydrates, and fat take a lot of energy to metabolize and digest, and this could be a vicious cycle for you: poor nutrition, overeating, inactivity, fatigue and more overeating and passivity. I think we need to work on breaking those habits.”

“I know. I used to take care of myself. It’s hard to believe that just last year I was running four times every week. I weighed twenty pounds less. It seems like such a long time ago.”

“You were feeling better when you were acting better. The hard thing is to act better when you are feeling down. Let’s try to work on taking care of your health. That could be something that you can start working on today—and then work on it every day.”

If you are spending a lot of your time in passive isolation, then you might be at risk of a cascade of poor health problems. Let’s take an honest inventory.

EXERCISE: THE HONEST INVENTORY
OF LIFESTYLE CHOICES

On the table below, circle the items that are true for you and answer the questions where appropriate (if you would rather not write in the book simply note down the relevant information in your notebook)

Sleeping (circle the items that are true for you)	Not enough sleep Too much sleep Nightmares Irregular habits Too many naps Difficulty falling asleep Waking early and can’t get back to sleep Waking suddenly, feeling anxious Finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning
Eating (circle the items that are true for you)	Eating too much Eating too little Not eating regular meals Too many snacks No appetite Eating sweets, too many carbohydrates Eating when I am not hungry Eating more when I am feeling anxious or sad Eating without thinking about what I am eating Feeling a compulsion to eat Feeling I can’t stop Regretting what I have eaten Eating larger portions Not eating enough
Alcohol consumption : have you ever experienced any of the following? (Circle the items that are true for you)	Consuming more than five drinks in one day Not able to recall events the night after you drink Feeling an overwhelming need to drink Driving while intoxicated People close to you thinking you have a drinking problem Drinking to reduce your anxiety
Smoking	Do you smoke? (cigarettes, cigars, pipe) How much?
Drug use	Which prescribed or recreational drugs do you use? How often? Do you ever take prescribed drugs in a manner not consistent with how they are intended? Do you mix drugs with alcohol?
Exercise	How often do you exercise? Which exercises do you do? Does your doctor think you are unable to exercise?

Look back at your answers to these questions and ask yourself if your current health habits are causing you to have problems. Be honest with yourself. Don’t normalize problematic behavior. We know that the period of unemployment is a high-risk time for health issues—and these problems can perpetuate bad habits that can become a lifetime risk. Given the fact that you have more time now to focus on helping yourself, I suggest that you make your health a very high priority.

I often say to my clients, “I want you to become obsessed with a healthy lifestyle.” Perhaps it’s too much to ask you to turn this into a “boot camp,” but I think of this time between jobs as your time to take care of yourself.

EXERCISE: PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR HEALTH

Use the list below to remind you that now is an important time to care for your health:

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Unemployment is a high-risk time for health problems.

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You are likely to develop problematic habits of sleep, diet, exercise, and drug use.

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Take an honest inventory of your lifestyle choices and identify the areas where your health habits are less than optimal.

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Consider focusing on changing your habits now.

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If you are healthier, you are less likely to be depressed, and more likely to be effective.

2: Getting a good night’s sleep

If you are anxious and worried, you may have difficulty with sleep. You may be lying in bed, tossing and turning, trying to get to sleep, or you may wake in the middle of the night or early morning and be unable to get back to sleep. Insomnia is a common problem for the unemployed, as it is for anyone who is anxious, and difficulty with sleep can make you more prone to anxiety, depression, irritability, overeating, and increased passivity and isolation. Look at the questionnaire below, which was developed by Dr Colin Espie of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Glasgow.

EXERCISE: SLEEP PATTERNS

In the text below circle the appropriate number, depending upon how true you feel each of the following statements are for your typical sleep pattern (or write it in your notebook if you prefer).

Source: Espie, C.A., Lindsay, W.R., Brooks, D.N., Hood, E.M., and Turvey, T., “A controlled comparative investigation of psychological treatments for chronic sleep-onset insomnia,” Behavior Research and Therapy,1989;27:79–88

Now answer the following questions:

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Which one of the above statements is most relevant to you?

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Are there other factors associated with poor sleeping for you?

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If so, please describe them.

Slowing down a busy mind

The quality of your sleep can affect almost every aspect of your feeling of well-being. You may be having difficulty sleeping because you are worried about getting a job, worried about finances, or ruminating and dwelling on the negative experiences you have already had. Psychologists know that insomnia is primarily due to “excessive mental activity”—you are lying there in bed and your mind is at full speed, churning one thought after another. The good news is that there are useful techniques for getting control of your sleep.

Proper sleep depends on good “sleep hygiene”

You should keep in mind that your brain establishes daily patterns of activity of wakefulness and sleepiness. This is called “circadian rhythms,” which reflect the daily cycle that makes you sleepy at a regular time. However, if you go to bed at different times, take frequent naps, or use stimulants, the circadian rhythms are thrown off. Moreover, not getting enough sunlight during the day will also interfere with circadian rhythms, since your brain activity is “woken up” when you get sunlight. An important component of proper “sleep hygiene” (or good sleep habits) is regularity of sleep onset and waking. One of the goals of this sleep-hygiene program is to increase the efficiency of your sleep. Efficiency means the amount of time that you spend in bed as related to the amount of sleep that you actually get.