“By boosting your sense of self and taking care of how you relate to yourself, you won’t burn out as quickly”
Luck has played a huge part in the career decisions taken by Ariane Orosz. With a doctorate in neuroscience, today she juggles three different jobs and relishes the variety this gives her. As an expert in stress management, she is best placed to advise people on how to protect themselves from burnout.
Ariane Orosz, what did you dream of doing when you were younger?
ARIANE OROSZ: When I was at primary school, I dreamt of becoming a vet or an actress. Later at high school, I got my best grades in drawing and biology. After leaving school, I would really have liked to have done preliminary studies in design in Lausanne, but I didn't get a grant so wasn't able to pursue this option which would probably not have brought me any money – my parents had fled to Switzerland from Hungary; I had no choice but to fund my own studies. So I enrolled for a course in biology at the University of Zurich.
Was that a good choice?
It was a bit of an endurance test. I felt that everything was very anonymous and theoretical and I suffered accordingly, but at the same time I was aware that I had to be grateful for the opportunity to study at all. Alongside my course, I held down a number of jobs, for example, I got up early to monitor media for a major bank. After I had completed the foundation course, I switched to ETH where I studied neuroscience. There were just about 20 of us on the course so we enjoyed a kind of team spirit. I was also fascinated by the imaging method which allowed us to better understand brain activities.
When you graduated, did you know what kind of job you wanted?
No, all I knew was that I couldn't see myself going into the pharmaceutical industry and selling medicines in the field like some of the others. I was rather shy and so I felt more at home in research. But I was bothered by the fact that neuroscience involves so much testing on animals – mice were being killed so that we could study their spleens, rats had to have their spinal cords removed and countless fish didn't survive our experiments. I asked one professor in behavioural neurobiology whether research without animal testing was possible – and that it how I stumbled across the subject for my dissertation where I examined associative learning in schizophrenic patients. Then I kind of fell into a PhD project.
It doesn't exactly sound like detailed career planning.
No, luck actually had a huge role to play in a lot of it. Then when I was well over 30 and started looking for a job away from research, I was openly rejected because I wasn't able to demonstrate any experience in industry. Again luck came into play. I met my PhD supervisor at a party and she asked me whether I would be interested in appraising the effectiveness of the burnout treatment concept at the Centre for Stress-Related Disorders at Sanatorium Kilchberg. And that is how I have spent the last 10 years working almost exclusively on the topic of stress.
“Many people forget or ignore the fact that they need to look after themselves, instead attempting to achieve a lot and function well at all times. ”Ariane Orosz
You are currently juggling three jobs: you organise stress management groups at Sanatorium Kilchberg, you work on a 20% basis undertaking research for ETH and are also a self-employed coach, speaker and course instructor. Does this combination not cause you a fair degree of stress?
All types of work come with their positives and negatives. I like the variety and versatility this brings. Working on a 60% basis at Sanatorium Kilchberg has allowed me to continually expand my range of work: I started working with a team to carry out the effectiveness study and supported the burnout patients. Later on, I took on a group of patients and further developed the group programme in stress management. I also set up a range of biofeedback services.
How did you end up being self-employed on a part-time basis?
That was luck too. During a job interview, the interviewer casually mentioned that he was a coach as well. This comment got me thinking. I did a lot of research into this field, that was all brand new to me, and I became aware of the training course at the IBP Institute in Winterthur. I liked the integrative, body-oriented therapy approach – for natural scientists in particular it is often not at all easy to really get hands-on experience and not just restrict oneself to the theoretical side. I think that when I registered for the 3.5-year part-time training course it was actually the first time that I had consciously taken control of my career.
The shyness you mentioned previously appears to have fallen by the wayside as you now regularly give lectures in stress management.
Over the last few years, I have certainly grown into a new role. I have brought together my experiences from neuroscience, working with the burnout patients and the approach to coaching based on integrative body psychotherapy and produced my own training concept. This gave me the opportunity to publish a book entitled “Stress ganzheitlich verstehen und managen” (“An integrated approach to understanding and managing stress”) with Hogrefe, which has resulted in many requests for talks and workshops. I love this mix of scientifically examining a topic in depth and transferring it into people’s everyday lives in an easily comprehensible way.
What should ordinary people know about stress?
Many people forget or ignore the fact that they need to look after themselves, instead attempting to achieve a lot and function well at all times. So it’s important to promote a sense of self – and that includes a physical awareness as well as being aware of your emotions. By boosting your self-esteem and taking care of how you relate to yourself, you won’t burn out as quickly. Unfortunately, many people have a more pronounced awareness of their own shortcomings and the expectations of society that what they need to feel good in themselves. Depending on how you have been shaped by your upbringing, you may then continually feel that you need to give a lot in order to get something back. The greater your sense of self, the better you are at looking after yourself.
Do you have any good tips for managing stress?
There are a huge number of things you can do – but the best approach is to see what works for you. Some people find that meditation calms them while others find it an ordeal. Personally, I find exercise great. I enjoy physical activity that isn’t too demanding, like dancing. A second approach is consciously maintaining relationships. You may find that you meet up with some people out of habit or consciously spend time with people who are good for you. And looking after yourself also includes understanding your own characteristics and drivers and learning to appreciate them. If as a child I learnt to always please everyone, it is beneficial if as an adult I allow myself to do things that make me feel good about myself – regardless of whether anyone applauds me for it or not.
Bio box:
Ariane Orosz (42) studied neuroscience at ETH and obtained a PhD in the subject. She has been working with burnout patients at the Centre for Stress-Related Disorders at Sanatorium Kilchberg for more than ten years. In 2016 she completed her training as an integrative coach/advisor at the IBP Institute for Body Psychotherapy and since then has worked part-time as a self-employed coach; she is a highly sought-after speaker on stress and stress management.
Kontakt:
Changing careers
This is the fifth interview in a series of six portraits in the coming months. We interview ETH alumni and alumnae who have dared to change careers. Mathias Morgenthaler asked them what drives them to take completely new paths professionally. Morgenthaler is a coach, operator of the platform external page beruf-berufung.ch and author of the books "Aussteigen - Umsteigen" and "Out of the Box".