MedLink Health Connections Podcast

Understanding Stress: A Conversation with Savannah Smith, LCSW

• MedLink Georgia • Season 1 • Episode 10

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Feeling constantly on edge, like you're waiting for the next shoe to drop? You're not alone. Stress affects everyone—but understanding it and learning to manage it can make a big difference.

Licensed clinical social worker Savannah Smith explains stress as a natural response and how to recognize it through signs like irritability, fatigue, and overwhelm. Awareness, she says, is the crucial first step to addressing it.

Smith shares simple, effective coping tools—from adult coloring books to flexible routines—and uses a helpful analogy: trying to handle every stressor at once is like carrying open boxes. Things spill. Tackle one box at a time.

She also reframes self-care as essential, not selfish: “If we don’t take care of ourselves, it’s hard to take care of anyone else.”

Whether you're facing work stress, family demands, or just the chaos of everyday life, this episode offers clear, practical guidance. Listen now—your future self will thank you. Subscribe today for more health insights.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the MedLink Health Connections podcast. Today we're joined by Savannah Smith, a licensed clinical social worker and behavioral health clinical lead at our Colbert office. Savannah has been working with MedLink since 2021 and provides therapy to patients ages four and up. Today we're talking all about stress, something that affects us all. Savannah, can you start off by explaining what is stress and why it happens?

Speaker 2:

So stress is just a natural human response to difficult situations. You know it can be lots of different situations that can cause it. A lot of times it can be in regards to feeling overwhelmed or having multiple stressors at one time, but it's basically just a reaction to difficult situations or things that are maybe out of our normal, sometimes as well.

Speaker 1:

Okay, what are some common signs that someone is experiencing high levels of stress? Experiencing high levels of stress.

Speaker 2:

So irritability can be a big one. Fatigue, not wanting to do things that you normally enjoy doing, isolating yourself a little bit, just kind of feeling on edge. Just that sense of being on edge all the time, kind of feeling like you're always waiting for another shoe to drop, or that you always feel like something else is about to happen because there's been so many stressors going on. Those are some common things.

Speaker 1:

And if someone recognizes these signs in themselves, what are some coping skills that they can use to manage their stress?

Speaker 2:

So the first one is just being aware of it, which sounds really simple, but is being aware of oh my goodness, I think I'm actually more stressed than normal so that you can then know how to help yourself. The next thing would be to make sure you're taking time for yourself. I know everybody has busy lives kids, work, other activities but making sure that you have time to just go on a walk or take a bath or read a book or play a video game, things you enjoy doing that are not related to the stressors. And then things like journaling can be helpful, or drawing or just doing things that allow you to relax a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Maybe some coloring. I love a good coloring book.

Speaker 2:

Oh, coloring is great and they also have, obviously, coloring books for kids, but they also have a ton of adult coloring books now that are a lot of fun. So those kind of things can be great. Things that don't require us to use the part of our brain that has to do with the stressors is helpful, but things that do require some brain power to where we're focusing on something else, that can be really helpful.

Speaker 1:

So, with that being said, you know being aware that you are stressed out or that that may be the cause. What are some ways that we can identify those root causes? Because I feel like sometimes even me personally if I'm stressed out, it seems like so much is going on at once that you kind of lose track of maybe what's the root cause of it all?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely track of, maybe what's the root cause of it all, absolutely so. One of the things I always tell people is kind of paying attention to when we feel the most stressed. Do we feel most stressed in the morning? Do we feel most stressed at lunchtime? Do we feel most stressed when we're trying to get ready? Do we feel most stressed when we're trying to go to bed and feeling we can't turn our brain off because we've got so much stuff going on and all of our to-do lists. When is the time the stress seems to be the most? That's one way of kind of trying to figure out what the common stressor is. Also, is the stressor more when you're at a certain place or around certain people, looking at those kinds of things, of paying attention of, hey, when am I feeling that feeling in my body of where I'm getting tense and when I just feel really stressed, and paying attention to when that's happening and that can help figure out, okay, what's the root of this, where is it kind of coming from and when do I feel most stressed?

Speaker 1:

So what are some daily habits that can help reduce stress, like, can you know, making sure that you kind of have a daily routine, kind of help this, or do you think it might add more?

Speaker 2:

stress on you. No, I'm a huge fan of daily routines. So now, with everything, you have to be cautious about it. You don't? You know, if we have a daily routine to the point of like we have to be doing this by 1202 and then have to be doing something else by 1217, that's going to potentially cause more stress. But having routines of like every day I take time to read and I go on a walk, and if you know I exercise or I eat well, or you know having things in there that are healthy daily habits that can actually be rejuvenating for us or that we can enjoy that's not just all about addressing stressors can actually be really, really helpful and it's really important to be consistent with those routines. So if we're, you know, if we know we enjoy, you know, watching television, allowing ourselves to do that, but does that mean we're not going to do our other things that we need to do, but allowing us to have time to do those things we enjoy doing?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I personally lately have noticed that around eight o'clock I'm like, ok, it's time for me to play my video games, right, that's what I am. Anything I'm doing. I'm like I'm, I'm gonna just take a moment and I'm gonna do this specifically, at least for an hour, just because I know I enjoy it and I feel better from my day when I do that well, that also allows people, when they're doing it at night, to have a wind down time.

Speaker 2:

So that's also another really helpful thing. So when you're having, let's say, video games or reading or whatever, that thing of choice is right. It allows your body to know oh okay, when I start playing video games, that means I'm starting to wind down, we're not working on the stressor step anymore, we're allowing ourself to wind down and that lets our body know okay, we're heading towards time to go to sleep. When we're dealing with stressors right up until the time to go to bed, it can make it harder to go to sleep because our brain doesn't know when to turn off. If that, makes sense.

Speaker 1:

No, that makes perfect sense. Now, that makes me feel less guilty for being like okay, I'm going to do this because I want to do this.

Speaker 2:

But also remembering too. I think sometimes people think it's selfish to like have self-care. It's actually not. It's actually really important, um, because if we're not having our self-care, then people are more likely to be more stressed and eventually for it to lead to burnout, um, and it makes it harder to care for other people. So I always tell people, caring for yourself is actually ultimately caring for other people as well, because if we don't take care of ourselves, it's hard to take care of anyone else.

Speaker 1:

Um? So, all of this being said, how can someone benefit from talking to you about their stress?

Speaker 2:

So sometimes it's just really helpful to have a person that is not involved um in someone's personal life. So therapists are objective. We don't um know our patients personally. So having an objective person to just be able to talk to and know that you're not going to get judged or have outside feelings about it, because we're able to look at it from objective point of view and don't have personal emotions in it since we're not personally involved I think that can be really helpful.

Speaker 2:

My last question for you is what is one piece of advice you wish everyone knew about managing stress, to try to do one thing at a time.

Speaker 2:

I know that that's a hard thing to do, but I always give the analogy to people of thinking of like boxes when you're moving.

Speaker 2:

Give the analogy to people of thinking of like boxes when you're moving. If you have all the boxes open and try to put them on the little dolly thing that you use to move stuff all those boxes everything's going to fall out right If they're not taped close, right. So if we have all of our life stressor boxers open at the same time so like work bills, family car care, finances all of those things are open all at the same time Then it's really hard to focus on one thing, and it's it tends to be more overwhelming. So trying to focus on one stressor as much as we can, so like okay, I'm going to pay my bills and then I'll look at the next thing, right? So trying to break it down a little bit tends to be helpful as opposed to like trying to handle a bunch of them all at once. I know with our lives sometimes it's hard to do one thing at a time, but just trying to be mindful of it.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I think you gave a lot of advice and great insights on stress. I know personally I'm like okay, noted. But thank you so much for joining me and thank you so much for doing this for me.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for tuning in to the MedLink Health Connections podcast. We hope you found today's episode informative and inspiring. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, rate and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Remember, the information shared in this podcast is for educational purposes only and should not replace professional medical advice. Always consult with your healthcare provider for any medical concerns. Stay connected with us on social media and visit our website at medlinkgaorg for more resources and updates. Until next time, stay healthy and take care.