4 Ways to Tame the Stress Monster
Stress isn’t a germ you catch from an uncovered sneeze.
Stress isn’t a thing. Scientists examine the results of stress, but they can’t examine stress itself.
Stress is a monster that rises inside you.
4 ways to tame the stress monster:
#1. Understand stress.
Stress is deadly because it’s cumulative.
A friend of mine in banking notices that people are losing it more quickly these days. When you’re stressed about politics, racism, job security, and a pandemic, small things light you up.
You’re stressed because you:
- Care but aren’t sure what to do.
- Feel responsible but powerless. If you feel relaxed when the house is on fire, its probably not your house.
- Try to control things beyond your control.
Stress is inside you, not out there.
#2. Find your power.
Feeling weak is stressful.
Stress is about what you CAN’T do. Power is about what you CAN do.
The ability to choose is at the heart of feeling powerful.
The most important choices are about attitude and response. There are always choices.
#3. Choose how to show up.
Stress is your powerless self saying, “I can’t.”
Show up to care. What does your caring self tell you to do next?
Show up with empathy. How might you show empathy to others? You might be surprised to know that empathy for others lowers stress in you.
#4. Choose to connect.
Stress hates it when you connect with others. I’m learning to seek advice from many sources when the stress monster grips my thinking.
The problem with advice – when you’re stressed – is it usually sounds stupid.
Stress makes you stupid. While stressed, the creative part of your brain shuts down. The best you have are fight, flight, or freeze.
Pay attention when trusted advisors say, “You don’t want to do that.”
Stress invites you to matter less.
What stresses you out?
What suggestions might you offer for taming the stress monster?
Bonus material:
8 Tips for Dealing with the Stress of Leadership (CCL)
10 Ways Strong Leaders Manage Stress (ManagerSkills)
How Chronic Stress Changes the Brain – and What you can do to Reverse the Damage (TheConversation)
What suggestions might you offer for taming the stress monster? I’ve found I just need to step back try to remove the thoughts or inputs that are causing stress. Don’t listen to the news, listen to some good music, sing with the music, pick up a book and go lay down and read. If the stress is your work load, prioritize what you need to do, what you can delegate and what you can just put off. Set it up so that you control the work load and you control the stress inputs. It will take practice but I’ve found you can do it in any circumstance.
Thanks Roger. Your strategy of listening to music has been useful to me during this pandemic. I’ve spent more time with my headphones on while I work. It seems to help. 🙂 Be well
Stress can be all-consuming, occupying all our thoughts – we ruminate, replay and just can’t get the stressor out of our heads. My wife (a therapist) taught me that what can be really helpful is to reframe and gain perspective. Easy to say, hard to do. I’m one of those “give me some tools” kinda people, so the tool she gave me is:
– what this issue that’s stressing you going to look like 5 minutes from now?
– 5 hours from now?
– 5 days from now?
– 5 weeks from now?
– 5 months from now?
I’ve found that helps me gain perspective on issues I’ve made really “big” that are actually much smaller in the scheme of things. And, just the process of thinking through these steps allows me to shift my thinking from the stress of this moment to the future when the stress will have abated.
I’ve found that by getting into the habit of going through this process when stressors pop up, I’m already thinking this way from the outset … and it’s helped me build up stress resistance overall.
And … don’t get me wrong, there are still times when the stress sends me spinning – but it’s helpful to have a tool ready to use.
Thanks for a great tool, Officer Canada. It seems that stress and perspective go together. Taming stress includes expanding our view and extending the timeline.
Stressors that remain unresolved (unrelieved) accumulate, as you say, into strain …i.e. the Acute / short-term Stress creates Chronic / long-term Strain.
Structurally speaking, stress can deform a thing;
Constant strain can allow the unaddressed deformation to progress to full structural failure.
Confident/Optimistic people usually overestimate their bearing capacity; Fearful/Negative people usually underestimate their bearing capacity.
Either way, left unchecked
(getting things into their proper perspective as to scale and proportion),
unmitigated strain usually catalyzes into burnout.
Stress got me to retire 3 years early. 2 doctors told me I would not live 3 more years if I didn’t. A day does not go by that I wish I had not tried to do everything. Have friends that told me that they had been trying to get me to learn this for 10 years. One told me he was sure I would be dead or fired by now. Stress is what you cant do?? hmm not sure 100% on that. Sometimes its about how much you have left to put into it.
Is it possible that stress can be addictive for some people? I know some people who seem to seek stress, creating it if necessary. These people are not easy to live with or work with.
Some people, mea culpa, overrun stress with adrenalin … which is, in fact, addictive – in that you need more and more to maintain it’s effects,
and if you never come down (the higher you get the further you fall) the eventual crash can be catastrophic.
Some managers/leaders/companies intentionally induce it while taking public positions of “plausible deniability.”
And yes, it is endemic in throughout the intelligence, political and tech communities, just the way that sounds.
And they ask us why we drink, 😎
I took a business admin course many years ago called Organizational Stress Coping Strategies. The first premise was that we need a certain amount of stress – even just to get out of bed in the morning. The problems come from too much negative stress. First, identify the stressor. Second, depending on the type of stress (physical, emotional, psychological, organizational…) employ an appropriate stress coping strategy. Exercise, social support groups, therapy, meditation, yoga, music … some use alcohol, but that is a whole other discussion.
Stress is the most potent productivity killer. Sometimes, you may feel that there is nothing that you can do about the stress you’re going through, but remember that there is always a better way.
Hi Dan!
Are you the author of the quote above about the house on fire?
Hi Jill. Yes, I’m the author. Thanks for asking.