While workplace stress isn’t new, our approach to stress often misses the mark.
1. What is the main cause of stress?
When you evaluate a situation, you make a quick judgement based on three things:
- How it will affect you
- How important it is to you
- Do you have the capability/resources to overcome the difficulty?
Psychologists call this process cognitive appraisal.
Suppose the situation is important to you, but you doubt your capability/resources. In that case, that can cause you to feel more stressed. Stress is perceived. It is not a situation that causes stress, rather your interpretation of it that counts.
Realising that your interpretation of events rather than the event itself causes stress is the start of a transformation for many people I’ve coached and trained.
2. Stress can be a good thing
Stress is an innate, instinctual response that is hardwired into us from a biological standpoint. When we feel threatened or perceive a danger, our bodies undergo a series of changes to prepare us to deal with the situation at hand.
This response is a vital tool that we as humans have developed to navigate the world around us, and when understood and used properly, it can be incredibly effective. Rather than being seen as a hindrance or obstacle, stress can be harnessed and interpreted as a wake-up call to our body, allowing us to be better prepared to perform at our best.
It can provide the motivation and focus we need to tackle a task that we might otherwise shy away from and is a crucial component in the oft-cited “fight or flight” response that we humans possess.
3. Or, the stress might be so debilitating that you freeze or run away from the job in hand
These reactions are ingrained in us by nature and evolution to protect us from short term (usually) physical danger. Prolonged stress can be harmful to our thinking, health and overall wellbeing. Many people are experiencing prolonged stress at the moment. Quietly, under the surface. Behind the scenes.
READY TO BUILD YOUR RESILEINCE?
4. We already know the common causes of stress in the workplace
There is plenty of research out there, it’s not new, and it’s conclusive. The significant factors are:
- Heavy workload
- Poor management
- Poor culture
Although it doesn’t stop there. Work is only one dimension of life. Add to that other pressures in our lives:
- Redundancy
- Relationships
- Conflict within a family
- Rising expectations of society
- Media and marketing
Wait, did I say media and marketing?
Yes, I did. Marketing teams will talk in terms of targeting a customer’s needs and fulfilling that need. Another way to look at it is that marketing’s task is to create anxiety in you that can only be relieved by making a purchase.
These are just a couple of examples of situations that people can perceive as stressful. However, everyone is different according to their mindset, emotional awareness and experiences.
You might look at the lists above and feel the stress start to creep in just by looking at them. The very thought of it may fill you with dread. For others, what bothers you would not bother them.
5. Mismanaging stress over time can lead to burnout, anxiety, depression, and ill-health
Most of us know that stress and wellbeing are connected. Mismanaging stress in the moment impacts performance. Stress speeds things up or slows them down. It is an accelerator or debilitating. It pushes you forward or backwards, dependent on your interpretation of the event.
With the rights set of skills, emotional and mental resources, stress can be your friend, accelerating you towards your goals and aspirations.
At any given time, you exist in a performance and wellbeing environment. The two are not mutually exclusive. It’s challenging to perform if you are unwell, and it isn’t easy to be well if you are continually performing without rest and recovery. This simple truth makes stress a boardroom agenda item. If it’s not on yours yet, I’d suggest it should be.
6. Circumstantial stress vs Chronic stress
So stress can be motivating or debilitating. I am probably telling you something you already know, although getting you to stop and think can make a huge difference.
But stress can also be circumstantial or chronic. Stress often occurs in response to circumstances, and so the stress is short term resolving when the circumstances change. However if:
- those circumstances continue OR
- the feelings of stress continue after the circumstances have changed OR
- you feel stressed at the smallest circumstances;
These are signs of chronic stress. Do you recognise any in yourself if you stop for a moment and think about it? Are you starting to recognise it in the people you support?
7. Stress can be a gentle fizz rather than an overt, explosive reaction
If I asked you to draw or describe someone stressed, you would probably draw someone pulling their hair out or clenched up and tight—a little like the picture opposite.
But stress can be a gentle fizz, ongoing under the surface and never going away. I think of stress like a can of soft drink. On the exterior, everything looks calm, but if I agitated and shuck it up, would you want to open the ring pull?
8. Stress Management in the workplace tends to focus on mitigating the symptoms rather than addressing the causes
Think of the current wellbeing programmes that your organisation offers.
Are they focusing on providing short term relief from stress, or do they focus on changing the circumstances? Unfortunately, most tend to focus on the temporary relief (and there is nothing wrong with that) but is not removing the causes of stress. Instead, they provide comfort from the symptoms, failing to address the underlying issue. The danger of this approach is two-fold.
- The cumulative effect over time turns circumstantial stress into chronic stress.
- It places the emphasis away from the employer to the employee. It potentially sends a message that you can be stress-free as long as you work hard enough to benefit from the packages on offer.
Are these the outcomes you were hoping for?
READY TO BUILD YOUR RESILEINCE?
9. Not All Knowledge Is The Same
Rather than practising new skills, we tend to build up an ever-increasing database of declarative knowledge rather than procedural knowledge. We know what we need to do but not necessarily how to do it.
Many organisational training programmes give people information and build up declarative knowledge which doesn’t translate into procedural knowledge. These programmes measure success in terms of “happy sheets” with no focus on return on investment. Because in reality, they have only measured declarative improvements and not procedural.
Click here for much more detail on Declarative Knowledge Overload.
10. Mental Health First Aid And The Stress Container
I’m a big fan of anything that supports people, and I’m a mental health advocate, so when I say what I am about to say next, please bear that in mind.
Mental health first aid is just that. Designed to help people when they need it and help smash the stigma of poor mental health. It is why the “stress container” metaphor used in mental health first aid emphasises finding relief from circumstantial stress. If you have not come across the stress bucket model before here is a quick summary.
- Imagine you have a container you carry around with you that gradually fills up as you experience stress.
- If you are experiencing high amounts of stress, the container will fill quickly.
- The size of the container varies from person to person and can change daily.
- As stress fills our container if we do not do anything to relieve that stress the container overflows.
- The stress container has a tap at its base. The tap represents ways to relieve stress to stop the container from overflowing. Finding ways to relieve stress is essential.
Again, this approach supports an approach that looks for immediate relief of circumstantial stress. Rightly so, as it is first aid. Chronic stress is dealt with by professional support. Assuming it is available without a long waiting list.
11. Broad well-meaning advice is precisely that
Stress, wellbeing and performance are at the fore due to a worldwide pandemic and many people working from home. Resilience is the buzzword and “thought leadership” on the subject seems to be abundant on placed like Linkedin, management communities and HR communities.
Let me attempt to sum up:
Don’t
- Think of stress as a crisis
- Overthink
- Dwell on things
Do
- Embrace stress, see it as your friend
- Be motivated and inspired with my inspirational story of how I overcame adversity
- Take comfort and inspiration in some of these famous quotes
- Follow these simple productivity hacks
- Remind yourself it is ok not to be ok
- Reframe the issue
- Learn relaxation techniques
- Meditate
- Yoga
- Play games or take a course
- Practice gratitude
- Eat well
- Sleep well
- Hydrate
- Get exercise
- Meet people
Can you spot the overarching picture? They all either focus on circumstantial stress or do not tell you how. They assume you have the know-how.
But when were you taught to reframe your thoughts?
When were you shown how to avoid overthinking?
When were you shown the many ways we dis-engage, how to spot them and address them.
You get the picture. Most of the information out there focuses on what you should be doing but doesn’t tell you how.
You see if there is one thing I'd like you to know it is this
If people do not have the essential skills of resilience, then they only really have four strategies when it comes to stress:
- Put up (and become sick)
- Shut up (and become ill, dis-engaged)
- Give up (leave)
- Step up (and change)
The question to ask is not “Am I not resilient?” The question is, “do we have the skills we need to be resilient and create the conditions where we people thrive?”
If you do not have those skills, expect people to pursue strategies 1-3 as stepping up is not an option. Let me remind you of strategies 1-3:
- Put up (and become sick)
- Shut up (and become sick, dis-engaged)
- Give up (leave)
I’ll leave you with a few questions to consider:
- Do you see circumstantial stress or chronic stress developing in others?
- Are your wellbeing programmes providing relief from the symptoms of stress in the workplace or giving people the skills to tackle the root cause?
- Do you see circumstantial stress or chronic stress in yourself?
- What are you doing to build your resilience?
