My guest this week is Dr. Alice Boyes, back on the podcast for the third time for our series on managing stress. I wanted to talk with Alice because she has a phenomenal new book called Stress-Free Productivity (affiliate link), and she shares lots of great advice for how to get things done without stressing yourself out. We also talked about how trauma can affect our stress reactions, and how to be more self-compassionate toward ourselves when we’re struggling. Alice is a good friend and a real expert in her field, so I’m happy to share her latest thinking with you.

Issues we discussed included:

• Why stress and productivity often go together
• The stress of being productive or unproductive
• What led my guest to join productivity and stress reduction
• Productivity through the lens of mental health
• Being more human, rather than more robotic
• Harnessing difficult emotions for productivity
• Treating ourselves with self-compassion
• How trauma can amplify our reactions to stress
• Alice’s trauma from the birth of her first child
• Understanding experiences that can explain current behavior
• Issues of gender and race in productivity recommendations
• Limited models of what productivity looks like
• Thinking styles that can affect our stress levels:
  • Catastrophizing
  • Personalizing
• Practical strategies for dealing with stress
• Mindful positive reunions

Check out Alice’s articles on Harvard Business Review and her blog on Psychology Today. These are two of her most recent posts, here and here, which we discussed in this episode.

Alice Boyes, PhD, was a clinical psychologist before making a career switch to writing.

She is the author of the bestselling book, The Anxiety Toolkit, The Healthy Mind Toolkit, and the new, Stress-Free Productivity: A Personalized Toolkit to Become Your Most Efficient and Creative Self.

She blogs for Psychology Today where her articles have over 23 million views, and also writes for Harvard Business Review.

Find Alice online at her website and follow her on Twitter for more great tips for stress-free productivity.