Stress

Stress is difficult for scientists to define because it is a subjective sensation associated with varied symptoms that differ for each of us. In addition, stress is not always a synonym for distress. Situations like a steep roller coaster ride that cause fear and anxiety for some can prove highly pleasurable for others. Winning a race or election may be more stressful than losing but this is good stress.

Increased stress increases productivity – up to a point, after which things rapidly deteriorate, and that level also differs for each of us. It’s much like the stress or tension on a violin string. Not enough produces a dull raspy sound and too much an irritating screech or snaps the string – but just the correct degree of stress creates a beautiful tone.

Similarly, we all have to find the right amount of stress that permits us to make pleasant music in our daily lives. You can learn how to utilize and transform stress so that it will make you more productive and less self-destructive.

Stress? “a situation where demands on a person exceed that person’s resources or ability to cope”.

The UK’s government agency the Health and Safety Executive says there is a convincing link between stress and ill health. Its research with Personnel Today Magazine recently showed that over 105 million days are lost to stress each year– costing UK employers £1.24 billion. The research is based on responses from almost 700 senior HR practitioners and almost 2,000 employees.

Other findings are:

11% of absence is attributed to stress
52% say stress is increasing
60% claim stress is damaging staff retention
83% think stress is harming productivity

Pressure itself is not bad. In fact, many thrive on it. But when those pressures exceed a person’s ability to cope, then that is when the problems start. It follows, therefore, that we can tackle stress either by reducing pressures or by increasing coping resources – or a combination of the two.

Stress is caused by two things. Primarily it is down to whether you think situations around you are worthy of anxiety. And then it's down to how your body reacts to your thought processes. This instinctive stress response to unexpected events is known as 'fight or flight'.

Fight or Flight

The fight or flight response was first noted by one of the early pioneers in stress research, Walter Cannon. In 1932 he established that when an organism experiences a shock or perceives a threat, it quickly releases hormones that help it to survive.

In humans, as in other animals, these hormones help us to run faster and fight harder. They increase heart rate and blood pressure, delivering more oxygen and blood sugar to power important muscles. They increase sweating in an effort to cool these muscles, and help them stay efficient. They divert blood away from the skin to the core of our bodies, reducing blood loss if we are damaged. As well as this, these hormones focus our attention on the threat, to the exclusion of everything else. All of this significantly improves our ability to survive life-threatening events.

Life-threatening events are not the only ones to trigger this reaction. We experience it almost any time we come across something unexpected or something that frustrates our goals. When the threat is small, our response is small and we often do not notice it among the many other distractions of a stressful situation.

Everyone is programmed to recognise stress, and respond with ‘fight or flight’. But does that really do us any harm? Is it really worth worrying about?

If severe stress is allowed to go unchecked in the longer term, performance will ultimately decline. Not only that, the constant bombardment by stress related chemicals and stimulation will weaken a person's body. And ultimately that leads to degenerating health.

GN coaching says 'Yes'. Study after study shows that prolonged severe stress has a negative impact on health. It implicated in everything from high blood pressure to infertility.

Links between stress and poor health include:

Allergies \ Skin Conditions
Asthma
Constipation
Depression
Heart Attack
High Blood Pressure
Indigestion
Menstrual Difficulties
Migraine
Overactive Thyroid Gland
Peptic Ulcers
Rheumatoid Arthritis
ME\Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Remember it is physically impossible to be anxious and relaxed at the same time.

I teach people techniques which help them deal with stress using techniques of hypnosis, coaching, EFT (emotional freedom technique) NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). I teach them to recognise there inner self talk and change negative or destructive patterns they may have.

I am a firm believer that being proactive is the best policy and in my experience this is very true when it comes to stress both in the workplace and as an individual.

You may have heard of emotional intelligence one definition that resonates with me:

“An interrelated set of abilities that allow an individual to recognise, use and regulate emotion in an effective and productive manner, thereby allowing effective dealing with the environment"

I believe that a similar approach should be taken with how we deal with stress in our lives, some stress reactions in our lives are perfectly natural and has been created to react immediately to a threat in order for us to survive, and a commonly used term for this is fight or flight.

But even though this is a natural and very useful system to have, in modern society because more emergency reactions are needed based on the information that our thoughts are passing to our brain. In modern times with the stresses of bills to pay, house work or house repairs, traffic jams, tense work situations, meeting expectation and relationships at work and home. These could possibly signal our brain to react as if we are in physical danger.

Businesses are seriously affected due to the lack of stress intelligence; money is wasted through extra training, absenteeism, low staff retention, silly mistakes, poor productivity and motivation. All of these things above can have a dramatic impact on the performance of the business and its profits.

More money is spent on damage control using a reactive mindset in educating staff on stress management and stress awareness courses.

There has been a survey done that with every £1 spent on staff well-being, the benefits are worth £4 in productivity and motivation.

At GN Coaching I understand the importance of creating a workforce with an effective stress intelligence allowing you to concentrate on increasing your profits. After all, your staff’s stress transfers to you (the business owner, senior management, team leaders) which will affect your performance and health. Or you can increase your performance and profitability with some simple steps to help your staff become more motivated, empowered, happier and healthier.

I also hold open workshops to help individuals learn how to manage stress in their life.