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Issue #42: January 12, 2005
To our readers:
Here is a great way to enter your New Year with gusto: Implement one or two techniques for reducing your feelings of stress. Poorly managed stress is known to result in physiological effects such as headaches, backaches, and some stomach disorders, and can lead to reduced productivity, increased absenteeism and turnover, and poor morale. These are costly for business.
Also costly for business is the loss of soft skills among workers overwhelmed by feelings of stress. How many times have you thought about a coworker, “if he’d relax a little he’d be much easier to work with.” How often have you had your head figuratively bitten off by someone who was too stressed out to take a moment to be decent? When was the last time you wanted to say to a colleague or your boss, “Take it easy!” or “Chill out!” How often have your colleagues wanted to tie you to your chair and force you to take a deep breath and relax? These kinds of irritations can interfere with cooperation and teamwork, reduce productivity, and damage morale.
A certain amount of stress is positive; it means something matters to you, and it powers your performance. Like other good things – cake, parties, time with small children – in large enough doses it can become more than your body or psyche is meant to handle.
If you’re too stressed to take the time to learn how to better manage your stress, you’ve come up against the “Gotcha In A Headlock” Rule. This rule states, “Whenever you are stuck with a problem you believe you cannot address precisely because you’re stuck with the problem, the first thing you must do is address that problem.” You’ve gotten yourself into the equivalent of a headlock, and you’re telling yourself you can’t get out of the headlock because you’re in the headlock. The good news is, when the headlock is stress, there are quick-and-easy ways to begin to extricate yourself.
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Three Tips for Stress-free De-stressing
1. Take a walk outside for 10 to 30 minutes.
One business owner we know will squeeze in a brisk 10-minute walk whenever he feels the pressure getting to him, and says he returns to the office invigorated and able to address his challenges with a fresh perspective. If you can’t get outside, walk wherever you can inside. Take the stairs instead of the elevator; walk a message down the hall rather than e-mailing it; retrieve your own mail from the mail room.
“Any movement helps get rid of stress,” according to Bob Losyk, author of Get a Grip! and a speaker on stress (http://www.boblosyk.com/). “When you sit all day long everything tightens up,” he says, and suggests that you move in any way and at any time you can. Be creative, for example take those meetings usually spent sitting around the conference table and turn them into walking meetings.
According to Jane Clark, Fitness Director at the Millberry Recreation and Fitness Center at the Medical School at the University of California at San Francisco, even small additions of walking, such as dividing your laundry, groceries, or camping gear into several smaller loads requiring more trips to and from the kitchen or car, will help your physical and emotional well-being.
2. Slow down your breathing for several minutes.
Slow, measured breathing forces your body to relax. A study described in the December 22-29, 2001 British Medical Journal concluded that “rhythm formulas that involve breathing at six breaths per minute induce favourable psychological and possibly physiological effects” (Effect of rosary prayer and yoga mantras on autonomic or cardiovascular rhythms: comparative study). And further, “slow respiration may reduce the deleterious effects of myocardial ischaemia, and, in addition, it increases calmness and wellbeing.”
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To achieve six breaths a minute (the rate of respiration experienced during yoga breathing exercises), breathe in while counting four seconds (“one one-thousand, two one-thousand, etc.”); hold the breath for a count of two; breathe out while counting four seconds. Focus on your breathing during this exercise. Your body relaxes and your mind takes a break from what is worrying and pressuring you.
3. Write about it.
Writing down your thoughts and feelings about stressful experiences can reduce the effects of those stressors, according to Stephen J. Lepore, Ph.D., Professor of Health Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Joshua M. Smyth, Ph.D., of the Department of Psychology at Syracuse University, editors of The Writing Cure: How Expressive Writing Promotes Health and Emotional Well-being. People who write about stressful experiences “report fewer medical symptoms, greater well-being, and less use of health care services,” according to the authors. “When people put their emotional upheavals into words their physical and mental health seems to improve markedly. There is something remarkable about their expressing themselves in words,” according to Dr. Smyth.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your responsibilities at work or elsewhere, sit down at your home computer (or pull out pen and paper) and describe the pressures and how you feel and what you think about them. Don’t worry about grammar, punctuation, or sentence structure; just write what comes to you. You can save your writings or toss them, whichever you prefer. If you record thoughts and feelings that might be considered insulting to others, you might want to make sure you delete them. In any case, don’t write about your stressors while at work; that could lead to a whole different type of stress.
It’s helpful to remember that stress is toxic only in excessive amounts. You can take steps to limit your experience of stress to a level that works for you.
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