Stress cannot and should not be eliminated from your life entirely. This lesson dispels some of the myths surrounding stress as well as reinforces some of the truths. You'll also learn how the LifePACT model can help you manage stressful situations.
The myths and facts of stress management
You now know that stress can be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on the situation and your ability to cope with it. Stress cannot and should not be eliminated from your life entirely. By first recognizing the external hassle and then analyzing the anatomy, or structure, of the stressful event, you'll soon be able to regulate your behavior so that you don't overreact. The key to this trick is managing and matching your stress response to the demands of the situation, a skill that can only be sharpened with practice.
In today's lesson you'll be introduced to the LifePACT model. Understanding all of the basic techniques of managing stress that are incorporated into this model will help you define your principles for lifestyle management, enabling you to maximize the benefits of stress while mitigating its costs.
Myths
First, let's take time to dispel the myths surrounding stress management before reinforcing some relevant facts.
Myth #1: only high-level executives, law enforcement personnel, and air traffic controllers experience high levels of stress
Although this is untrue, some professions are accompanied by more stressful demands than other professions. I know a person who's been knocked unconscious on the job three times. On several occasions he has had injuries to his back serious enough to require medical attention. He's had his ribs broken three different times. Generally, his body is covered with bruises. What do you think he does for a living? Do you think he's a rodeo rider, stuntman, or wrestler? No, he's a self-defense instructor who teaches women how to protect themselves against physical assault.
Every profession carries its own burden of stress. Even in high-pressure jobs, it's surprising what people find stressful. For instance, you'd think the most stressful aspect of being an air traffic controller is keeping airplanes from crashing. But that's not the case. Surveys with these professionals have revealed that what they find most stressful are mundane things like dealing with management and bureaucracy.
And I know from the work I've done with emergency room nurses, who negotiate life-and-death issues every day, that what stresses them is not keeping the patient alive. They feel quite confident in that arena. The things driving them crazy are the conflicts they're having with another nurse or a particular surgeon. As you can see, every job presents its own set of stressful demands and no occupation is exempt.
Myth #2: stress is inescapable
This is also not entirely true. Some stressors are indeed inescapable. We saw earlier the wide variety of hassles that you and everyone else faces each and every day. While you can't get rid of all of these, you might be able to eliminate some of them. You could, for instance, quit a job that is overly demanding. You could end a friendship that you feel is no longer bringing you any joy. Or you could confront a colleague who's rubbing you the wrong way.
It's a good idea to try and eliminate stressors from your life. But trying to eliminate all stressors from your life is futile, and could become the biggest stressor of them all. A better approach is to learn to moderate your response to different stressors. You don't have to allow the intensity of your stress reaction go unchecked. In this sense stress, although inescapable, is manageable.
Myth #3: it is never a good idea to use drugs to deal with stress
Although it is never a good idea to misuse or abuse drugs, the above is not true. Getting high and getting drunk, making yourself comfortably numb -- these are not constructive ways of coping with stress. On the other hand, there are many people performing quite effectively in society who owe their ability to face life to prescribed medications.
The problem of drug abuse has preoccupied our society for decades. It's no wonder that many people distrust drugs. Because of this, they hold off seeking the support they might gain from prescribed medications. Extreme shyness, anxiety, depression, and other disorders due to chemical imbalances in the brain respond very well to drugs.
In fact, millions of people are able to function professionally and find fulfillment in their lives because they take prescription medication. While some people develop a dependency on prescription drugs, the majority of people on medication are not abusing the drugs they take. Don't rule out chemical intervention. It may be the responsible thing for you to do, even if only for a short period of time.
Facts
And now, some facts about stress.
Fact #1: work stress can affect your home life
This is very true. Wouldn't it be great if you could walk out of your office, get in your car, and drive home to your family and loved ones without carrying any baggage from your work day? It's the rare person who can leave the office behind. You may take home an empty briefcase on occasion, but your mind and your heart are full of the day's events. Memories of these events echo in your mind as you go back and forth between the domain of your work life to your personal life.
Stress contamination can work in the other direction as well. You can take the stress you have at home into your business life. Right before putting your child on the school bus, she throws a tantrum over her tennis shoes. Or someone pulls up next to your car and yells an obscenity or slur at you. These events can cause stressful feelings that linger with you through the workday. Keeping the stress from one domain of life from infiltrating another domain is a skill that we will discuss more fully later in the course.
Fact #2: stress can radically affect your behavior
This is also true. I teach a course on anger management for people charged with misdemeanor assault. I know from the stories I hear that the stress of anger can drive people to outrageous extremes of behavior. The story of one participant in that class stands out in my mind. He lost his temper with another player in a pool game. Eight different times he went to the cue stick rack, grabbed a cue stick and broke it over the head of the other person. Eight times! That's a lot of cue sticks.
It's a sad commentary on our times that workplace violence is becoming a regular occurrence. Violence has moved into our schools, as we all witnessed in the Columbine High School tragedy. These are examples of people driven to desperation by high levels of stress.
Intense stress can be directed to acts of heroism as well. You may have read of superhuman feats of strength performed by people in crisis situations. A mother was working in her kitchen when she heard the crash of her son's car slipping off the jack, pinning her son under the car. Remarkably, she was able to lift the back of the car high enough to allow her son to squirm out. She saved her son's life. More precisely, stress energized her to save her son's life.
Always keep in mind that stress is a powerful force that can be directed to acts of evil or great gestures of benevolence.
Fact #3: stress management is a learnable skill
No matter how much stress you are under today, no matter how long you have struggled with anger, depression, worry or other forms of stress, you can learn to take charge of your stress. Managing stress does not mean eliminating stress. Stress can be a good thing. It becomes a bad thing when you have too much of it, when it's too intense, or when it lasts too long.
Take home just the work, not the stress
Reduce your work stress by getting out of the office. With a high performance HP notebook PC, you can avoid those long hours at work by getting some of it done at home.
Beginning to manage your stress
The advice found in stress management books can generally be summarized into five basic categories. During this discussion, think about which technique or combination of techniques has the potential to manage your stress response the most effectively.
1. Get away
These methods of stress management involve removing yourself from the circumstances that are causing you stress. You can do this in a number of ways. You can leave the scene for a while (nap, take a walk, take a breather, take a day off) or end a relationship. You can even change jobs, schools, or where you live. The decision is entirely up to you.
2. Change how you relate to the stressor
If you can't get away from what's stressing you out, there is an array of things you can do to manipulate your initial response. Learn more effective behaviors through professional counseling. Become more assertive. Be more honest and candid, and learn to say no. Increase your understanding and empathy by being less critical of yourself and others. Change negative self-talk. Stop irrational patterns of thought like catastrophizing, jumping to conclusions, or thinking in black-and-white terms. Set realistic goals for yourself.
3. Change the stressor
This approach to dealing with stress amounts to approaching the problem by asking yourself, "Do I have any control over the situation?" If the answer is yes, do what you can to change the situation. It may be that what you thought was out of your control may not be. Or perhaps you can't change the entire situation but you can change some parts of it.
4. Accept the stressor
This is a powerful philosophical technique. Essentially it involves resigning yourself to the fact that some things cannot be changed. Life is not always fair. Even the difficult things in life have value as opportunities for developing a greater tolerance for frustration.
5. Work on building stress tolerance
The point of this fifth category of stress management is building up stress stamina. Such techniques are particularly useful when you're faced with a stressor that won't go away and that you can't change. Your goal is to build your emotional and physiological resilience. Here are some things that can help do that: Get enough sleep and exercise, set aside a time for daily relaxation, talk out your problems, develop tolerance and patience, maintain a strong support group of family and friends, and watch what you eat.
By stepping back and taking stock of all these techniques, you will likely realize that you are not alone in facing the stresses of life. Everyone deals with stressful situations in their own way, and only you can decide which method works best for you. Right now, I want you to make a pact with yourself to take charge of your life. And, in order to help you achieve that goal, I would like to introduce you to LifePACT, a method that has proven to reduce unhealthy levels of stress.
Finding the right combination
Now you know that there are five different ways individuals can respond to stress. Which technique or combination of techniques has proven to work best for you in the past? Which technique or techniques have led to more problems or confusion in your life? Why? Go to the Message Board and discuss your answers with your classmates.
Introducing LifePACT
The acronym PACT represents all you need to know and do in order to master the management of stress. The four principles in the LifePACT model encompass all the stress-management techniques listed above. In addition, the model presents these to you in a user-friendly way that makes understanding each principle much easier. It also narrows your choices so that you'll actually apply the principles to stress you encounter rather than just thinking about it. I will briefly introduce here each principle and then elaborate on them in the next four lessons.
1. The P stands for perspective
Perspective is the skill of managing your head. By mastering the habits of constructive thinking, you'll find that you can size up situations in a much more rational way. This principle will also allow you to determine, for each hassle you encounter, which technique or combination of techniques has the potential to manage your stress response the most effectively.
2. The A stands for autonomy
Autonomy is the skill of "managing your hands." To manage your hands is to be judicious in what habits you pick up, what responsibilities you take on, and what thoughts or emotions you hold on to. Most importantly, autonomy allows you to let go of whatever's bothering you.
3. The C stands for connectedness
Connectedness is the skill of managing your heart. We are all related. We have survived to this point in our evolutionary history primarily because we have banded together as individuals. To manage your heart is to manage your place in the community of fellow humans with whom you live out your life.
4. The T stands for tone Tone is the skill of managing body and spirit. To manage your body is to cultivate habits of care and attention to your physiological makeup. To manage your spirit is to nurture your soul.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Stress Management for Executives - Part 1 of 8
A Courtesy of HP
Stress is a normal, life-preserving instinct that has allowed human beings to survive for thousands of years. But too much of anything is harmful. You can't escape stress, but you can learn to harness it. In this course you'll learn the LifePACT -- four practical principles that can help you replace old habits, inoculate yourself against stress and take charge of your life.
Lesson 1: Stress: you can't live without it
At times, stress can be your guardian angel, and at other times it's your worst enemy. But there's no magic bullet for eliminating stress. In this lesson, you'll come to understand the attributes and impact of stress, including how to acquire habits that moderate its effects.
What is Stress?
Stress saved a client's grandpa's life (Story told by the client)
He lived on a farm in a home without an indoor toilet. One night, he put on his slippers and set out through the darkness for the outhouse, which was some 10 yards from the house. As he fumbled with the latch on the outhouse door, he felt what he thought was the tail of one of the many housecats brushing back and forth against his bare leg. Then something totally unexpected happened. The cat's tail started to rattle. Grandpa was standing on the head of a rattlesnake! But not for long, believe you me.
In an instant, his entire body was three feet off the ground. When he came back down, he sprang back up a second time and many more times until he was all the way back in the safety of his bedroom. Being bit by a rattler at that hour in that remote part of Texas would probably have been fatal. But stress energized my grandfather, saving his life by sending him leaping through the darkness.
Chances are that stress has also saved your life a time or two. But then again, it may also be killing you.
That's the paradox of stress. Sometimes, it can save a life. As when some careless driver cuts across your lane and you slam on your brakes. Or when your three-year-old daughter loses her balance on the monkey bars and you dive under her to break the fall. At moments like this, stress is your guardian angel. But at other times it's your worst enemy. When it takes over too often, when it stays too long, when it is too intense, stress can be an overwhelmingly destructive force.
A fact of life
There's no magic bullet for eliminating stress. There's no patch you can wear, no tonic you can drink, and no shot you can take. In other words, you can't live without it. On the other hand, you can't live very comfortably when it's your constant companion. The key to dealing with stress is learning to live life in the middle -- to acquire the habits of moderating stress.
This course will teach you to harness the positive attributes of stress so that it can actually become a dependable friend, one that will never turn on you. Also, in the next five lessons, you will learn about the LifePACT model: a system that helps you define your principles for lifestyle management so you can maximize the benefits of stress while mitigating its costs. By managing your mind, hands, and heart, you'll achieve a honed body and spirit that act as one, enabling you to master your emotions. In Lessons 7 and 8, we'll see how to put everything we've learned in this course together and apply stress management techniques to everyday situations.
Now let's look at some of the symptoms and behaviors that accompany excessive stress.
You know you're stressed out when . . .
Your behavior will tell you when you're overly stressed. You might notice the quality or quantity of your work starting to slide. Perhaps you find yourself unwilling to deal constructively with conflict, or withdrawing from social contact. You might notice yourself displaying an apathetic attitude, or backbiting, or nitpicking. You may also find your personal grooming starting to slip as well.
Your emotions can also tell you when you're too stressed. You might have feelings of bitterness, depression, gloom, anxiety, guilt, or worthlessness. Or you might just feel empty emotionally.
Your body will let you know with headaches, backaches, upset stomachs, or a sense of disorientation. You'll notice weariness, tiredness, irritability, and a loss of energy.
And your thoughts will let you know. You might find yourself thinking, "I hate this job" or "I hate my boss"
"What's the use? I don't care anyway. People are so stupid, uncaring, and hypocritical." "What's wrong with me? Am I having a nervous breakdown? I can't relax. Something bad is going to happen. The future is so hopeless. Nobody appreciates me." Or simply: "This is terrible. I can't stand it anymore."
The story of stress is composed of both an inside and an outside part. As we'll see next, the outside part of stress is all the hassles in our little world that upset us.
Stress from the outside
The classes of hassles
It is literally impossible to get through even a single day without encountering one or more of the endless varieties of hassles.
As you read through the following list, think about an average day and how these hassles, commonly called stressors, may be reducing your enjoyment of life.
Emotional hassles
This category includes the fears and anxieties we struggle with. For example: Can we prevent nuclear war? What if I run out of gas? How am I going to pay the light bill?
Family hassles
Interactions with family members can be stressful: The striving of teenagers for independence, a spouse who drinks too much, in-laws visiting.
Social hassles
Our interaction with other people: Asking a person for a date, expressing anger at another's behavior, giving or going to a party.
Change hassles
There's a limit to the amount of change we can comfortably sustain before something becomes a hassle: Leaving a job, buying a house, moving to a new city. You may be able to handle one or even two changes at once, but the third could send you spinning.
Work hassles
Whether you work in an office or from home, you'll experience work-related stresses like asking for a raise, rushing to meet deadlines, or cleaning tracked-in mud off the floor for the fourth time in one day.
Commuting hassles
This is the category of unpleasant life events like the stress of discourteous or reckless drivers that occurs in rush hour traffic. It also includes the hassles of air, bus, or train travel.
Decision hassles
Making decisions, especially regarding important issues or when there is no perfect solution to a problem, can drive you bananas: Should I have the surgical procedure now or wait? Should my aged parent be institutionalized? Should I get a divorce?
Pain hassles
Pain stressors are the aches and pains of new and old injuries, or of ongoing medical conditions like a sore tooth, migraine headaches, and PMS. Chronic pain and discomfort can lead to social isolation and depression.
Environmental hassles
This category of stressors includes aspects of our surroundings that are often unavoidable: Smoke-filled rooms, cramped offices, the glare of the sun, or the cold of winter.
The first step toward managing your stress is to identify the external events that set you off. And now that you can recognize the day-to-day categories of life's hassles and that you're not alone in combating them, let's peer into the inner part of the story of stress. This discussion will give you a better understanding of why stress affects you in the way it does.
How you react to stress
Our society rewards people who deal with stress by working harder and faster to produce more in a shorter time. But all of us respond to stress differently, and many of us are incapable of handling it productively. Go to the Message Board and discuss with your classmates some of the methods you've used to combat stress in the past. Which one worked best? Which one or ones didn't work? Why?
Your tool to less hassle
One of the greatest stressors is feeling like we have to remember a million pieces of information. Take the pressure off yourself by storing your contacts, calendar, and to-do list in your HP handheld PC
The inside story
What happens within you as your body copes with these external hassles is indeed the inside story of stress. When my grandfather performed his gazelle imitation all the way back to the farmhouse, it wasn't a well-thought-out plan. Rationality wasn't involved at all. Something very primitive intervened. Another side of his humanness stepped forward and said, "I'll handle this." Immediately, a series of changes was set in motion: an instinctive process that started in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus mobilized glands and immediately affected respiration and muscle groups. In an instant his entire body reacted to the danger of the rattlesnake.
This marvelous capacity for self-preservation comes at a price. I once saw a bumper sticker that read "I brake for the heck of it." That's a good way to wear out a perfectly good set of brakes. In the same way, getting stressed too often is a good way to wear your body out. Preparing to fight when somebody in front of you has one too many items for the grocery express lane, or allowing your blood pressure to skyrocket because you can't stand the thought of facing another day at work -- these are misuses of a perfectly good survival instinct.
Next, let's lay the foundation for the LifePACT model I mentioned earlier by taking a look at the anatomy of stress.
The anatomy of stress
Imagine this:
It's 2:00 in the morning on a Sunday. The police have just delivered one of your children to your doorstep. There was a car accident. The driver, your child's friend, was drunk and the police found several bottles of liquor in the car as well as some drugs. The police have just left the house. Since no one was seriously injured and it was a first offense, the police agree to take no legal action . . . this time. Now that they have left, the only thing left for you and your child to do is "have a talk."
This situation is full of stress, plain and simple. If you have ever been in a situation like this as a parent, you may recall how confused you were by your feelings, thoughts, and impulses to act. You wanted to do something; you felt compelled to take some kind of action. But the decision of what to do had gone to some type of internal committee, and the members of that committee couldn't agree.
Your body wanted to take action now. Your emotions were bouncing from feelings of relief to feelings of betrayal to feelings of shame and guilt and back to anger, round and round, over and over again. And above this fray, there was the voice of rationality saying, "Take it easy. No one got hurt. Stay calm. Do the right thing." Who's in charge here, anyway? A fundamental aspect of learning to deal with stress is by understanding its components. So let's now disassemble this real-life drama and see if we can identify the separate pieces.
How would you react?
The difference between sympathy and empathy is infinitesimal yet immense. Can you relate to all aspects of the incidents on this page? On a scale of 1 to 10, how upset would you be if you were the parent? How upset would you be if you were the child? How would you feel if you were the police officer? Bringing your sympathy as close to empathy as possible will enable you to improve your ability to manage stress.
The structure of stress episodes
While all stress episodes are unique in their particular circumstances, they all have a similar structure. For instance, every episode of stress begins with a trigger. In the above incident, the trigger is the arrival at your doorstep of a member of the local police department. That event sets in motion a chain of other events. Things happen very fast when you're in a stressful situation. Although it's difficult to ferret out the sequence of what follows, most experts say that the trigger then stimulates the resident translator in your mind.
The resident translator looks at the details of the trigger, quickly sizes them up, and interprets what is happening as crisis, non-crisis, or somewhere in between. How the translator labels the situation determines the intensity of stress or, more precisely, the extent of physiological changes in your body triggered by the event. Your stress reactions can range from "not upset" to "mildly upset" to "totally blown away." The intensity of the physiological changes determines what happens in yet another link in the sequence of events: behavior.
Your behavior is the action you take to discharge the stress brought about by the translator's labeling of the trigger, which happens in an instant. Before you know it, you find yourself completely confused. Your heart is pounding, and you don't know what to do. You can avoid this confusion by recognizing that an episode of stress is composed of these separate pieces. Knowing this, you are able to tinker with each of the separate pieces until you can take charge of the stressful situation.
Considering the trigger
For instance, consider the trigger. Are there any steps you can take to undo the policeman-on-the-porch problem? No. He's there, and so is your child. But what about the spin you are putting on this situation? Your first take might be, "My God, this is the end of the world. My kid is an addict! I can't believe she would betray me like this! After all I've . . ." In other words, you send the message to the rest of you, "Catastrophe! Major train wreck!" And in an instant your entire body is mobilized for a panicked reaction.
But there is another course things could take. What if, in mid-sentence, you intercepted your initial translator and interjected a less extreme perception on the situation? What if you had developed the capacity to think, "Slow down, everyone, let's get our responses together. Let's get some facts first." Now the message to your body is not full mobilization but a more reasonable "Stand by."
What if, in addition to moderating your thoughts, you also had the presence of mind to take three slow deep breaths? Slow, deep breathing goes directly to the core of the stress and puts the brakes on runaway feelings. The trigger itself hasn't gone away, but the situation no longer seems like a total emergency. In addition to this, the bodily reactions (stress) have been tempered with relaxing breathing. You were on your way to a 10 on the stress barometer but, by taking charge of your thoughts and feelings, now you're only at a 6 or 7. You're not indifferent -- you are still upset. But you're not overwhelmed by the situation. You have managed the situation by managing yourself.
Let's now add one more element to the mix. Imagine saying to the officer in a calm steady voice, "I am so relieved to see no one is hurt. Thank you, Officer." It doesn't matter that you don't feel calm. Acting calm sends yet another message to the primitive side of you that things are under control.
Moving forward
No one is an expert at taking charge of runaway thoughts, feelings, and behavior. It is absolutely normal to muddle your way through all the ups and downs that come your way. It is important to understand that managing stress does not mean eliminating stress. You can't do that -- nor should you even want to. Stress can be your ally. Stress is nature's way of sheltering you from the unpredictable mishaps of life. By understanding the anatomy of a stress reaction, you can see more clearly the choices available to you.
Your successful completion of this course will not result in the total eradication of stress from your life. You will see that success is achieved by regulating your behavior so that you're not overreacting to certain situations. The key is matching your stress response to the demands of the situation, a skill that you can sharpen with practice. In the next lesson, we'll take a more in-depth look at managing stress, including an introduction and discussion of the LifePACT model of stress management.
Stress is a normal, life-preserving instinct that has allowed human beings to survive for thousands of years. But too much of anything is harmful. You can't escape stress, but you can learn to harness it. In this course you'll learn the LifePACT -- four practical principles that can help you replace old habits, inoculate yourself against stress and take charge of your life.
Lesson 1: Stress: you can't live without it
At times, stress can be your guardian angel, and at other times it's your worst enemy. But there's no magic bullet for eliminating stress. In this lesson, you'll come to understand the attributes and impact of stress, including how to acquire habits that moderate its effects.
What is Stress?
Stress saved a client's grandpa's life (Story told by the client)
He lived on a farm in a home without an indoor toilet. One night, he put on his slippers and set out through the darkness for the outhouse, which was some 10 yards from the house. As he fumbled with the latch on the outhouse door, he felt what he thought was the tail of one of the many housecats brushing back and forth against his bare leg. Then something totally unexpected happened. The cat's tail started to rattle. Grandpa was standing on the head of a rattlesnake! But not for long, believe you me.
In an instant, his entire body was three feet off the ground. When he came back down, he sprang back up a second time and many more times until he was all the way back in the safety of his bedroom. Being bit by a rattler at that hour in that remote part of Texas would probably have been fatal. But stress energized my grandfather, saving his life by sending him leaping through the darkness.
Chances are that stress has also saved your life a time or two. But then again, it may also be killing you.
That's the paradox of stress. Sometimes, it can save a life. As when some careless driver cuts across your lane and you slam on your brakes. Or when your three-year-old daughter loses her balance on the monkey bars and you dive under her to break the fall. At moments like this, stress is your guardian angel. But at other times it's your worst enemy. When it takes over too often, when it stays too long, when it is too intense, stress can be an overwhelmingly destructive force.
A fact of life
There's no magic bullet for eliminating stress. There's no patch you can wear, no tonic you can drink, and no shot you can take. In other words, you can't live without it. On the other hand, you can't live very comfortably when it's your constant companion. The key to dealing with stress is learning to live life in the middle -- to acquire the habits of moderating stress.
This course will teach you to harness the positive attributes of stress so that it can actually become a dependable friend, one that will never turn on you. Also, in the next five lessons, you will learn about the LifePACT model: a system that helps you define your principles for lifestyle management so you can maximize the benefits of stress while mitigating its costs. By managing your mind, hands, and heart, you'll achieve a honed body and spirit that act as one, enabling you to master your emotions. In Lessons 7 and 8, we'll see how to put everything we've learned in this course together and apply stress management techniques to everyday situations.
Now let's look at some of the symptoms and behaviors that accompany excessive stress.
You know you're stressed out when . . .
Your behavior will tell you when you're overly stressed. You might notice the quality or quantity of your work starting to slide. Perhaps you find yourself unwilling to deal constructively with conflict, or withdrawing from social contact. You might notice yourself displaying an apathetic attitude, or backbiting, or nitpicking. You may also find your personal grooming starting to slip as well.
Your emotions can also tell you when you're too stressed. You might have feelings of bitterness, depression, gloom, anxiety, guilt, or worthlessness. Or you might just feel empty emotionally.
Your body will let you know with headaches, backaches, upset stomachs, or a sense of disorientation. You'll notice weariness, tiredness, irritability, and a loss of energy.
And your thoughts will let you know. You might find yourself thinking, "I hate this job" or "I hate my boss"
"What's the use? I don't care anyway. People are so stupid, uncaring, and hypocritical." "What's wrong with me? Am I having a nervous breakdown? I can't relax. Something bad is going to happen. The future is so hopeless. Nobody appreciates me." Or simply: "This is terrible. I can't stand it anymore."
The story of stress is composed of both an inside and an outside part. As we'll see next, the outside part of stress is all the hassles in our little world that upset us.
Stress from the outside
The classes of hassles
It is literally impossible to get through even a single day without encountering one or more of the endless varieties of hassles.
As you read through the following list, think about an average day and how these hassles, commonly called stressors, may be reducing your enjoyment of life.
Emotional hassles
This category includes the fears and anxieties we struggle with. For example: Can we prevent nuclear war? What if I run out of gas? How am I going to pay the light bill?
Family hassles
Interactions with family members can be stressful: The striving of teenagers for independence, a spouse who drinks too much, in-laws visiting.
Social hassles
Our interaction with other people: Asking a person for a date, expressing anger at another's behavior, giving or going to a party.
Change hassles
There's a limit to the amount of change we can comfortably sustain before something becomes a hassle: Leaving a job, buying a house, moving to a new city. You may be able to handle one or even two changes at once, but the third could send you spinning.
Work hassles
Whether you work in an office or from home, you'll experience work-related stresses like asking for a raise, rushing to meet deadlines, or cleaning tracked-in mud off the floor for the fourth time in one day.
Commuting hassles
This is the category of unpleasant life events like the stress of discourteous or reckless drivers that occurs in rush hour traffic. It also includes the hassles of air, bus, or train travel.
Decision hassles
Making decisions, especially regarding important issues or when there is no perfect solution to a problem, can drive you bananas: Should I have the surgical procedure now or wait? Should my aged parent be institutionalized? Should I get a divorce?
Pain hassles
Pain stressors are the aches and pains of new and old injuries, or of ongoing medical conditions like a sore tooth, migraine headaches, and PMS. Chronic pain and discomfort can lead to social isolation and depression.
Environmental hassles
This category of stressors includes aspects of our surroundings that are often unavoidable: Smoke-filled rooms, cramped offices, the glare of the sun, or the cold of winter.
The first step toward managing your stress is to identify the external events that set you off. And now that you can recognize the day-to-day categories of life's hassles and that you're not alone in combating them, let's peer into the inner part of the story of stress. This discussion will give you a better understanding of why stress affects you in the way it does.
How you react to stress
Our society rewards people who deal with stress by working harder and faster to produce more in a shorter time. But all of us respond to stress differently, and many of us are incapable of handling it productively. Go to the Message Board and discuss with your classmates some of the methods you've used to combat stress in the past. Which one worked best? Which one or ones didn't work? Why?
Your tool to less hassle
One of the greatest stressors is feeling like we have to remember a million pieces of information. Take the pressure off yourself by storing your contacts, calendar, and to-do list in your HP handheld PC
The inside story
What happens within you as your body copes with these external hassles is indeed the inside story of stress. When my grandfather performed his gazelle imitation all the way back to the farmhouse, it wasn't a well-thought-out plan. Rationality wasn't involved at all. Something very primitive intervened. Another side of his humanness stepped forward and said, "I'll handle this." Immediately, a series of changes was set in motion: an instinctive process that started in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus mobilized glands and immediately affected respiration and muscle groups. In an instant his entire body reacted to the danger of the rattlesnake.
This marvelous capacity for self-preservation comes at a price. I once saw a bumper sticker that read "I brake for the heck of it." That's a good way to wear out a perfectly good set of brakes. In the same way, getting stressed too often is a good way to wear your body out. Preparing to fight when somebody in front of you has one too many items for the grocery express lane, or allowing your blood pressure to skyrocket because you can't stand the thought of facing another day at work -- these are misuses of a perfectly good survival instinct.
Next, let's lay the foundation for the LifePACT model I mentioned earlier by taking a look at the anatomy of stress.
The anatomy of stress
Imagine this:
It's 2:00 in the morning on a Sunday. The police have just delivered one of your children to your doorstep. There was a car accident. The driver, your child's friend, was drunk and the police found several bottles of liquor in the car as well as some drugs. The police have just left the house. Since no one was seriously injured and it was a first offense, the police agree to take no legal action . . . this time. Now that they have left, the only thing left for you and your child to do is "have a talk."
This situation is full of stress, plain and simple. If you have ever been in a situation like this as a parent, you may recall how confused you were by your feelings, thoughts, and impulses to act. You wanted to do something; you felt compelled to take some kind of action. But the decision of what to do had gone to some type of internal committee, and the members of that committee couldn't agree.
Your body wanted to take action now. Your emotions were bouncing from feelings of relief to feelings of betrayal to feelings of shame and guilt and back to anger, round and round, over and over again. And above this fray, there was the voice of rationality saying, "Take it easy. No one got hurt. Stay calm. Do the right thing." Who's in charge here, anyway? A fundamental aspect of learning to deal with stress is by understanding its components. So let's now disassemble this real-life drama and see if we can identify the separate pieces.
How would you react?
The difference between sympathy and empathy is infinitesimal yet immense. Can you relate to all aspects of the incidents on this page? On a scale of 1 to 10, how upset would you be if you were the parent? How upset would you be if you were the child? How would you feel if you were the police officer? Bringing your sympathy as close to empathy as possible will enable you to improve your ability to manage stress.
The structure of stress episodes
While all stress episodes are unique in their particular circumstances, they all have a similar structure. For instance, every episode of stress begins with a trigger. In the above incident, the trigger is the arrival at your doorstep of a member of the local police department. That event sets in motion a chain of other events. Things happen very fast when you're in a stressful situation. Although it's difficult to ferret out the sequence of what follows, most experts say that the trigger then stimulates the resident translator in your mind.
The resident translator looks at the details of the trigger, quickly sizes them up, and interprets what is happening as crisis, non-crisis, or somewhere in between. How the translator labels the situation determines the intensity of stress or, more precisely, the extent of physiological changes in your body triggered by the event. Your stress reactions can range from "not upset" to "mildly upset" to "totally blown away." The intensity of the physiological changes determines what happens in yet another link in the sequence of events: behavior.
Your behavior is the action you take to discharge the stress brought about by the translator's labeling of the trigger, which happens in an instant. Before you know it, you find yourself completely confused. Your heart is pounding, and you don't know what to do. You can avoid this confusion by recognizing that an episode of stress is composed of these separate pieces. Knowing this, you are able to tinker with each of the separate pieces until you can take charge of the stressful situation.
Considering the trigger
For instance, consider the trigger. Are there any steps you can take to undo the policeman-on-the-porch problem? No. He's there, and so is your child. But what about the spin you are putting on this situation? Your first take might be, "My God, this is the end of the world. My kid is an addict! I can't believe she would betray me like this! After all I've . . ." In other words, you send the message to the rest of you, "Catastrophe! Major train wreck!" And in an instant your entire body is mobilized for a panicked reaction.
But there is another course things could take. What if, in mid-sentence, you intercepted your initial translator and interjected a less extreme perception on the situation? What if you had developed the capacity to think, "Slow down, everyone, let's get our responses together. Let's get some facts first." Now the message to your body is not full mobilization but a more reasonable "Stand by."
What if, in addition to moderating your thoughts, you also had the presence of mind to take three slow deep breaths? Slow, deep breathing goes directly to the core of the stress and puts the brakes on runaway feelings. The trigger itself hasn't gone away, but the situation no longer seems like a total emergency. In addition to this, the bodily reactions (stress) have been tempered with relaxing breathing. You were on your way to a 10 on the stress barometer but, by taking charge of your thoughts and feelings, now you're only at a 6 or 7. You're not indifferent -- you are still upset. But you're not overwhelmed by the situation. You have managed the situation by managing yourself.
Let's now add one more element to the mix. Imagine saying to the officer in a calm steady voice, "I am so relieved to see no one is hurt. Thank you, Officer." It doesn't matter that you don't feel calm. Acting calm sends yet another message to the primitive side of you that things are under control.
Moving forward
No one is an expert at taking charge of runaway thoughts, feelings, and behavior. It is absolutely normal to muddle your way through all the ups and downs that come your way. It is important to understand that managing stress does not mean eliminating stress. You can't do that -- nor should you even want to. Stress can be your ally. Stress is nature's way of sheltering you from the unpredictable mishaps of life. By understanding the anatomy of a stress reaction, you can see more clearly the choices available to you.
Your successful completion of this course will not result in the total eradication of stress from your life. You will see that success is achieved by regulating your behavior so that you're not overreacting to certain situations. The key is matching your stress response to the demands of the situation, a skill that you can sharpen with practice. In the next lesson, we'll take a more in-depth look at managing stress, including an introduction and discussion of the LifePACT model of stress management.
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