How to make Stress work for You

When we talk about stress, really, we are often talking about how stress affects us in body mind and spirit. Stress can be defined then as the reaction we have to difficult, demanding, or challenging events. Our bodies and minds have been designed with a 'fight or flight' reflex that helps to orient and become alert when we are faced with challenging or dangerous events. Our attention gets narrowed towards such events, and our brain instructs our bodies to prepare for possible physical action such as confronting the event physically (e.g., 'fight') or running away from the source of the danger (e.g., 'flight'). Muscular tension, increased heart rate, and higher concentrations of blood sugars and hormones are involved in this process.

When is it optimal? When it’s only moderately stressful. Good stress is transient—it’s not for nothing that you don’t have roller coaster rides going for three weeks! The stress also must be happening in a context that feels safe overall.

Good stress, or what psychologists refer to as ‘eustress’ is the type of stress we feel when we are excited. Our pulse quickens and our hormones surge, but there is no threat or fear. We feel this type of stress when we ride a roller coaster, compete for a promotion, or go on a first date. There are many triggers for this good stress, and it keeps us feeling alive and excited about life. Good stress has the following positive characteristics:

· Motivates, focuses energy.

· Is short-term.

· Is perceived as within our coping abilities.

· Feels exciting.

· Improves performance.

Stress is more likely to result in positive outcomes if you see it as a challenge or something you can strive to overcome. It can help motivate you to work hard. Positive stress can also lead to positive effects if you respond with healthy behaviours that improve your situation, it is when you perceive a stressful situation as an opportunity that will lead to a good outcome. This positive expectation contrasts with negative stress or distress when you perceive a stressor as a threat that will have a poor outcome.

Research shows that moderate, short-lived stress can improve alertness and performance and boost memory. Manageable stress increases alertness and performance. Moderate and short-lived stress—like an upcoming exam or preparing to deliver a speech in public—improves cognitive performance and memory.

We all experience stress at some point. Whether it’s daily chronic stress or occasional bumps in the road, stress can sneak up on us at any time. What you may not know about stress is that it’s not all bad. In fact, we can experience eustress, or positive stress, just as frequently as we do negative stress. We rarely hear people say, "I'm really feeling stressed. Isn't that great?" But if we didn't have some stress in our lives—the "good stress" variety—we'd feel rudderless and unhappy. If we define stress as anything that alters our homeostasis, then good stress, in its many forms, is vital for a healthy life. Bad stress can even turn into good stress, and vice versa.

Benefits of Good Stress

1. Increases creativity

Sometimes stress is the kick we need to push ourselves outside of the box and to do a little better than we did before. If you’re feeling stressed about a project, situation, or paper, it can give your creativity a boost and help you push through roadblocks you may be facing.

· Managed stress increases alertness and performance.

· Facilitates your learning something new every day, whether big or small.

· Emotionally, positive stress can result in positive feelings of contentment, inspiration, motivation, and flow.

· Pushes you outside of your comfort zone. This may mean taking on a new responsibility or developing a new skill.

· A work example of positive stress is taking on a new project that encourages you to leverage existing strengths (which can be incredibly energizing) and requires you to hone existing skills or learn new ones.

2. It motivates

When we experience stress, sometimes we feel like we may not be able to accomplish what we set our minds to. But your brain is wired to react in a way that makes you strive for success. Stress can move you in the right direction and provide you with a deep sense of accomplishment when you overcome your fears or worries.

· If you see your work as a challenge or something you can strive to overcome, it can help motivate you to work harder.

· Facilitates the setting of goals (personal and professional) that are challenging and realistic.

· Positive stress produces positive feelings of excitement, fulfilment, meaning, satisfaction, and well-being.

3. Increases your brain power

That’s right, stress might make you smarter. Not only does it give you the opportunity to find new ways of doing things to reach success, but biologically stress releases chemicals in the brain, known as neurotrophins, that can help improve your concentration and enable you to be more productive in the short term. Short-lived stress—like an upcoming exam or preparing to deliver a speech in public—improves cognitive performance and memory.

4. Can make you strong

We’re not talking strong as in being able to lift weights, but stress can make you more resilient. After you go through a period of stress and come out the other side, you’re bound to see how strong you are mentally. You will realize that you can get through things, and it can help you better prepare for next time.

· Physically, it helps us build our body (e.g., by completing a challenging workout).

· Psychologically, positive stress helps us build our self-efficacy, autonomy, and resilience.

5. May improve your immune system

Studies show that short-term periods of acute stress may help improve your immune system. According to the Stanford University School of Medicine, stress causes your body to release hormones that improve the function of cells that are vital to immunity response. Researchers believe this is connected to the fight-or-flight response that all humans inherently have, but it must be noted that this boost in immunity is only temporary. In fact, chronic stress can lead to more frequent illness and susceptibility to infection.

6. Examples of positive personal stress

· Receiving a promotion or raise at work.

· Starting a new job.

· Marriage.

· Buying a home.

· Having a child.

· Moving.

· Taking a vacation.

· Holiday seasons.

· Retiring.

· Taking educational classes or learning a new hobby.

Negative stress

Excessive workloads can negatively affect your health, productivity, and morale. As a manager, it's essential to realize the negative impact of excessive workloads on your team members, it's your responsibility to plan things ahead and distribute the workload evenly to reduce the burden on them and take the steps needed to reduce stress on the job. Negative stress is also called ‘distress’, is something we are all familiar with and has the following characteristics:

· Causes anxiety or concern.

· Can be short- or long-term.

· Is perceived as outside of our coping abilities.

· Feels unpleasant.

· Decreases performance.

· Can lead to mental and physical problems.

· Can leave us completely debilitated.

1. Examples of negative personal stress

· Repetitive negative thought patterns.

· Worrying about future events (e.g., waiting for medical test results or job restructuring).

· Unrealistic, perfectionist expectations.

· Overscheduling.

· Failing to be assertive.

· Procrastination and/or failing to plan.

· Fears: (e.g., fears of flying, heights, public speaking, chatting with strangers at a party).

· Filing for divorce.

· Losing contact with loved ones.

· The death of a family member or spouse.

· Hospitalization (oneself or a family member).

· Injury or illness (oneself or a family member).

· Being abused or neglected.

· Separation from a spouse or committed relationship partner.

· Conflict in interpersonal relationships.

· Bankruptcy/money problems.

· Unemployment.

· Sleep problems.

· Children's problems at school.

· Legal problems.

2. Examples of negative work stress

· You have a poor or inexperienced manager.

· You have an unmanaged workload.

· Having several assignments to complete at once.

· Meeting tight deadlines.

· Receiving too few resources to properly handle your responsibilities.

· Accepting too many tasks from managers or other employees.

· Understanding very little about a certain assignment.

· Feeling unsure about your work performance and what you can improve on.

· Market competition.

· Financial problems leading to working overtime.

· Competitive job market.

· Job insecurity.

· Excessive job demands.

· Conflicts with teammates and supervisors.

· Inadequate authority necessary to carry out tasks.

· Lack of training necessary to do the job.

· Making presentations in front of colleagues or clients.

· Unproductive and time-consuming meetings.

· Commuting and travel schedules.

What are the key causes of work stress?

· When your manager has a Traditional management style.

· Poor performing team members, inability to manage, motivate support.

· The rapid pace of business change.

· The rate of technological change.

· Being under lots of pressure, the pressure of artificial or unrealistic deadlines.

· Times of uncertainty, facing big changes, worrying about something.

· A mental disorder.

· Not having much or any control over the outcome of a situation.

· Having responsibilities that you're finding overwhelming.

· Being accountable for something you cannot control.

How I use scheduling to manage a stressful event

Stress is much less likely to be harmful if you have control over it when it occurs. A tight deadline is stressful but manageable if you have the ability to meet it. If not, if you feel helpless, and the stress is more likely to be harmful. Scheduling or time management methods involve finding ways to work more efficiently, to maximize your use of time. A variety of techniques and tools for list-making, task analysis scheduling, and task prioritization are typically used for this purpose. The basic process I use involves the following steps:

1. I acknowledge to myself that I am experiencing stress.

2. I identify the cause of the stress.

3. I accept that I must motivate myself to deal with it (as no one else will). Motivation is critically important to the process of resolving your stress, serving as both foundation and fuel. It is the wind that fills your sails, propelling you forward through the stages of stress resolution.

4. I immediately review my task list and prioritise the cause of my stress as priority one or two.

5. I develop a thorough understanding of all the various steps that must be performed to resolve the cause of the stress.

6. I then spend at least 15 minutes addressing the cause, this gives me the feeling that I am getting control of the cause and the stress. This usually results in creating another task list of what needs to be done. In other words, I am planning my way out of the stress.

7. I write the steps down and identify dependencies, in the order, they must be completed.

8. I then complete at least two actions from my task list to solve the problem.

9. I tick off the step or steps I have completed. (This action alone reduces my stress).

10. I then review my overall task list again and re-prioritise all my work advising others of changes as required, simply informing them that my number one priority has changed.

11. I then spend at least an hour working on the cause of the stress.

12. I continue as above until the cause has been dealt with. This may of course take several days but having a plan to address it I find dramatically reduces my stress.

If you perceive the cause of the stress as a challenge, the fear you would normally experience may turn into excitement and anticipation, or at least resolve. You can often make the shift in perception by:

· Focusing on the resources you have to meet the challenge.

· Seeing the potential benefits of a situation.

· Reminding yourself of your strengths.

· Having a positive mindset (getting into the habit of thinking like an optimist).

· As you practice looking at threats as challenges more often, it becomes more automatic, and you experience more good stress and less bad stress.

Coping With Stress

People try many ways, both positive and negative, to lessen their stress levels. Dysfunctional negative and unhealthy methods of coping include:

· Addictions (alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, etc.)

· Smoking

· Over-eating

· Being Perfectionistic

These methods are considered dysfunctional because, over time, they end up making the situation worse for people rather than making it better. Drinking as a means of stress reduction works in the short term because alcohol is a powerful muscle and attention relaxer. Repeated use of alcohol ends up causing 'tolerance' which means that people must drink more and more to get the same effect. The result is an addiction to alcohol (a very serious health and social risk) which only adds stress to the drinker's life.

There are many positive and 'functional' methods of coping with stress:

· Relaxation/Meditation - Cultivating interior stillness and calmness through meditation and relaxation techniques such as massage therapy, and progressive muscle relaxation.

· Exercise - Regular physical exertion of any intensity (a gentle 30-minute walk, a Yoga or Pilates class, an hour-long strenuous free-weight workout, etc.) helps discharge muscle tension and build strength, resilience and energy.

· Healthy Diet - Eating healthy whole foods and avoiding sugary and fattening treats helps keep the body's internal rhythms more balanced.

· Socialization And Supportive Conversation - Many people are able to relax and feel part of something larger than themselves by sharing their concerns with trusted others. This can take the form of talking with friends and family, psychotherapy or counselling, or prayer.

· Assertive Communication - Some stress is caused by not getting what you want from other people. Asking for what you want in a direct but polite way is the best method for getting what you want, thereby reducing stress.

· Time Management - Some stress is caused by poor organization. Learning how to manage appointments, to say 'no' to requests you can't get done, to organize records, and to use memory enhancement tools (like alarm clocks and 'palm pilots') can make a big difference.

· Asking For Assistance - Whatever it is that you are dealing with right now, other people have dealt with it before. Seeking out their counsel when you don't know what to do is often a good way to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Stages of Stress

Lastly, it is often possible to predict that particular events will be stressful, and then to use this knowledge intelligently so as to minimize their impact on the quality of your life. Scheduling stressful events to occur during times when you have fewer responsibilities and more attention to give them can lessen their negative impact.