Three Ways Therapy Can Help In NYC’s Fast Paced Lifestyle
Why slowing down matters
3 min read
New York City is a place of opportunity, excitement, and endless stimulation. Those of us who live here are typically drawn to the energy and sense of potential that reverberates night and day. But what we love about the city can also be sources of stress and anxiety. If we don’t take the time we need to recharge ourselves, we can find ourselves feeling depleted. Therapy is one outlet that can help ground you in a frenetic place like New York City.
Here are three ways that therapy can help you cope with New York City’s high speed environment:
1. Therapy can help you establish a healthy work/life balance: Careers and jobs in the city are often highly demanding. Long hours in the office extend to expectations of being available 24/7 on phone and email. Pandemic life has made these boundaries even messier. You may not be commuting into Midtown anymore, but the trade off is that it can be hard to tell where your work life ends and your personal life begins when it’s all done under the same roof.
Therapeutic work can help to create a realistic balance in your life. This means attending to the demands of your job, and also giving yourself downtime for personal needs, family and friends, and hobbies. Setting aside time for yourself helps to establish clear and healthy boundaries that speak to your values and having a dedicated space where you return to this commitment can help with accountability.
It’s also worth noting that constantly working can border into a form of addiction or avoidance. “I sometimes work with clients to consider what needs they might be trying to fulfill by being overly focused on working so much and so hard,” says Christine Menna, a therapist at Downtown Somatic Therapy.
Therapy allows you to reflect on and become aware of what might be driving you to work so hard. It is a place to process unresolved issues and find healthier ways to meet your needs.
2. Create a space that’s just for you: Let’s be honest, you don’t move to NYC in pursuit of expansive living arrangements and luxurious amounts of personal space. You’re more often met with small apartments, cramped subways, and congested sidewalks and streets. Therapy can be an opportunity to create a space that is just yours.
That may be in the form of an in-person session in a therapist’s office - a way to physically escape. More recently, that might also mean a virtual appointment where you symbolically create space for yourself. Either way, creating this structured time helps to hold you accountable to showing up for yourself.
“Identifying our emotions and thoughts can feel overwhelming at times. Therapy offers a safe space to explore our inner worlds.”
According to Christine, “During the pandemic, many of my clients at one point or another have asked a partner or roommate to give them 45-minutes of personal space for their therapy session. It’s actually been a great opportunity for people to create healthy boundaries in relationships.”
3. Tend to your nervous system: In an environment of stimulation - sirens and lights at all hours, endless places to go - giving your senses a break is a meaningful if not necessary experience. Quieting down allows us to notice thoughts and feelings that we might otherwise be distracted from.
Daily stressors and demands can put us in a constant fight-or-flight reaction. When our body is chronically exposed to cortisol and stress hormones, it impacts a number of our body’s systems and puts us at increased risk of both physical and mental health issues. It’s crucial to learn ways to cope with life stressors.
“I sometimes work with clients to consider what needs they might be trying to fulfill in working so much and so hard.”
“Identifying our emotions and thoughts can feel overwhelming at times. Therapy offers a safe space to explore our inner worlds with a trusted other,” offers Menna. In sessions, you learn to slow down, process your experience, and ground in your body. You also identify and integrate coping skills outside of sessions.
All of us only have a finite amount of energy - physical, emotional, psychological and otherwise. By slowing down and becoming aware of your experience, you are taking care of yourself and attuning to your needs.
No matter whether you are newly arrived to the city, a grizzled 20 year veteran of our mean streets or a native New Yorker, we could all use a moment or two to find space, balance and a moment of respite.
If you find yourself looking for greater balance and healthier boundaries, a space and time that is your own, and an opportunity to slow down and tune in, you might consider therapy. Reach out today to get help in finding a therapist that feels like the right match to help you on this journey.