Relax, Your Tax Returns Don’t Bite

Tax season is a stressful time, and not just for your busy tax professional. It’s the time of year when the U.S. Department of the Treasury forces us to take a close look at the biggest stressor in the lives of three out of every four Americans and a topic most of us would rather avoid thinking about—our money. As we gather up, review and organize our W-2s, 1099s, bank and credit card statements, medical receipts and charitable donations, we stare our financial life straight in the face. While often a stressful experience, it can be exponentially more difficult in a year plagued with pay reductions, job loss and declining property values.

Stress, by definition, is any change to which we must adapt. As such, whether it’s tax season or a traffic jam, stress is an unavoidable, everyday fact of life. While moderate amounts of stress actually improve our ability to perform at our best, too much negative stress can overwhelm us, decrease our effectiveness, and increase our risk of illness and premature death. When we feel overwhelmed, we are much more vulnerable to unhealthy behaviors, such as making poor dietary choices, smoking, drinking to excess, remaining inactive, or overspending. Many of these behaviors offer a temporary distraction but leave us in much worse shape in the end.

When we face a real or imagined danger or threat, our body responds with biochemical changes designed to assure our survival. Our brain sounds an emergency alarm and releases adrenaline and other chemicals into our blood stream, which are designed to give us a quick burst of energy to cope with the situation.

There are times when this stress response helps us, such as when our ancestors were being chased by a saber-toothed tiger or when we are being threatened by a growling dog. However, our bodies alone cannot tell the difference between life threatening stressors and those that are not life threatening, such as our bank statements or tax returns. When stress hormones course through our veins on a chronic basis, they can damage almost every major system in our body, leaving us with fatigue, respiratory problems, adult onset diabetes, depression and inhibition of our immune and tissue repair systems. So how can we deal with negative stress?

The key to whether we experience stress as positive or negative lies in how we think about the challenges we face. What do we say to ourselves about it all? If we tell ourselves we do not have what it takes to cope with the challenge, we will feel overwhelmed, which may result in panicking or shutting down. If we believe we have what it takes to meet the challenge, including knowing where and how to seek help, we can feel energized and motivated. How we think about challenging situations determines how they will impact us.

Integrating positive activities into our daily lives will also enhance our ability to cope with stress. This can be done by taking a few deep breaths, watching a beautiful sunset, enjoying some time with family or friends, exercising, engaging in optimistic thinking, seeking help if we are overwhelmed, or playing with our kids. Doing so will reverse your emergency response system, induce a sense of relaxation and help you deal with your concerns about money. In fact, your body can fully reverse its stress response in just three minutes after your brain has decided you are not in any actual danger. While your tax return may seem daunting at first, it is important to remind yourself that it won’t bite.