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Introduction
There seems to be a lot of confusion and loose
thinking about stress in popular journals and books.
How else can you explain terms like "good stress"
and concepts like "A certain amount of stress is
good for you," or advice like "Stress is
unavoidable." Once you understand the meaning of
stress, you'll realize that stress is always
harmful, that there is no "safe" level of stress,
and that you can deflect stress if you know how.
Let's start by straightening out the definition of
stress: stress is not a mental or emotional state,
and it's certainly not a moral or metaphysical
issue. Stress is a physiological and medical
condition, produced by prolonged feelings of
insecurity and anxiety.
Physical and Mental
Symptoms
The
Japanese word, "karoshi" means, approximately,
"death by stress," and it's a significant source of
mortality among Japanese workers, especially
middle-aged white collar men. Stress kills them
either directly, by causing their bodies to break
down, or indirectly, through depression and suicide.
In either case, stress is bad news and it's no
exaggeration to say that your life is at stake in a
stressful situation. Chronic stress has been linked
to degenerative diseases of the heart, brain,
intestines, skin, liver, pancreas, kidneys, and
immune system. There is virtually no system or organ
of your body that isn't at risk from stress.
Our Biological
Inheritance
If
stress is so harmful, why in the world are we so
susceptible to it? Wouldn't you think that evolution
would have eliminated it? In a sense, stress was
invented millions of years ago, long before we
became human, as an adaptation to living in a
dangerous world. To explain this paradox, let's
imagine one of our long-ago ancestors on the plains
of Africa who suddenly looks up and sees a leopard
on the branch over his head. In much less than half
a second, without any conscious thought, his brain
registers the picture of the leopard and classifies
it as a life-threatening danger. Then the brain
starts to mobilize the body either to run away or
for defense.
Fight or Flight?
When the brain perceives the leopard in the tree and
decides that it is dangerous, it sends a signal to
the adrenal glands, which sit on top of your
kidneys. In response, the adrenal glands produce two
hormones: first adrenaline and later cortisol.
Adrenaline acts very quickly on almost every part of
your body. Your heart begins to beat more quickly
and strongly, the small blood vessels in your skin
contract (that's why you look "white as a sheet"
after you're scared), your stomach stops digesting
food, and your vision narrows to a "tunnel". All of
these changes make you, for a little while, stronger
and quicker than you normally are - ready to run
away from the leopard.
As
you're running away from the leopard, the adrenal
glands start to produce a hormone called cortisol.
Cortisol acts to increase the amount of sugar in
your blood for quick energy, and if you have to flee
for days and days without food, cortisol helps your
body convert muscle and bone into energy.
The
combined effect of adrenaline and cortisol is to
give us the energy we need to deal with dangerous
situations - and that's why we evolved the
fight/flight response in the first place.
Where Does the Stress
Come In?
As
long as your body is reacting to a leopard in a
tree, everything is fine: you run away and the
stress hormones start to disappear after an hour or
so. But if you can neither run away from the danger
nor fight it, then the levels of stress hormones
never go down. The adrenaline keeps on making your
heart beat hard, and the cortisol keeps breaking
down muscle and bone to keep your blood sugar high.
If this goes on for days at a time, you will start
to feel the effects: changes in your sleep and
eating patterns, tunnel vision, abnormal tiredness,
and a general anxiety and uneasiness. What we
commonly call stress is your perception of your
body's physical reactions to elevated hormones.
Why Does Work Cause
Stress?
"Well," you might ask, "That's all very nice about
reacting to the leopard in the tree, but why does my
work trigger a stress reaction - I haven't noticed
any leopards about." It seems that the brain is not
very sophisticated about recognizing danger: it
reacts to an angry boss, or an upcoming deadline, or
an office bully in just the way it would react to
the leopard: it starts to mobilize the stress
hormones to either fight or run away. But in the
office you can't do either one - you can't punch
people in the nose and you have to come back
tomorrow, even if you don't want to. This
combination of perceiving danger and not being able
to do anything about it triggers job stress, and it
won't stop until you can either fight or flee.
More Control Means
Less Stress
If
lack of control makes stress worse, then it follows
that being in control counters stress. "Being in
control" means different things to different people.
For some workers, it just means getting to decide
when they take their breaks, and to have some
flexibility in scheduling. For others, it means
getting to decide how to get the job done: what
order to machine the parts or how to process the
forms most efficiently. But for all workers, getting
to make decisions about how and when to do their job
reduces the feeling of danger, lowers stress and
improves health.
Learning Conquers
Stress
Many, many studies show that one of the best things
you can do to reduce your stress level is to start
learning something new. Ideally, it should be
something new at work, but that's not necessary. If
you're feeling stress at work, taking an evening
course, or even listening to books on tape helps put
you back in control of your life and, as we've seen,
more control produces less stress.
Social Support Helps
Fight Stress
The
last big thing that you can do to reduce your stress
level is to build up a set of friends to support
you. Studies show that, when assembly line workers
are allowed to talk and socialize at their work
stations, their level of stress goes down and the
quality and speed of their work goes up. Similarly,
if you can walk down the hall and drop in on a
friend for a five-minute conversation, the social
contact will start to reduce your anxiety and the
stress associated with it.
What Does this All
Mean for You?
We
started out with the fuzzy thinking that produces
notions like "good stress," and we learned that
stress is inherently bad for you - very bad. We
discovered that stress is not just in your head -
it's making changes in your entire body. And we
learned why we have stress in the first place - it's
a leftover reaction to perceived danger, that gets
triggered by modern-day situations like toxic work
environments. And we learned at least three ways to
reduce your stress level - take more control, start
learning new skills, and develop a social support
network. The bottom line is this: you need to take
job stress seriously, because it can kill you; and
there are actions you can take right now, on your
own, to start lowering your stress.
Bruce Taylor is the owner and principal of Unison
Coaching, and helps people deal with difficult tasks
and decisions in their lives. Bruce specializes in
helping workers cope with stressful jobs, toxic job
environments, and workplace bullying. He can be
reached at
bruce_taylor@unisoncoaching.com.
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