Stress for strength – understanding and using stress to build resilience
Stressed Out
“I am so stressed out … so much is going on … I can’t take it!” Unfortunately, that sentiment is being echoed more and more frequently by men, women, senior managers, office workers, teachers, students; it seems as though no one is immune from the experience. The experience of being “stressed out” is more prevalent than ever before. In a recent survey, 82% of Irish workers reported suffering increased stress levels at work (1) and both women and men have said that their stress has increased more than 40% over the past five years (2), which is universally seen to be bad for individuals and bad for business. So, a huge percentage of our population are experiencing stress and also feeling bad about the implications of it, further feeding the fire of our stress response. How can we manage this? Given that we are unable to change the pace of the world we live in, how can we change our experience of stress so that we CAN take it? Can we harness our stress response to provide us with a source of strength?
Stress Avoidance
Historically, we have demonised stress by replaying, time and again, the physical and emotional damage that it causes. We have been programmed to avoid stress and the situations that cause it. However, like the food pyramid, current research is challenging some of those embedded assumptions. Most of us can identify with the physical feeling of being “stressed out,” faster heart beat, shorter breathing, and a sense of tension or energy in our body. These physical responses happen unconsciously and automatically as our body sends information to our hypothalamus so it can determine if the situation warrants a fight or flight response to protect us. This sequence of physical events is called our “stress response.” In years gone by, this response was probably effective in protecting us against saber tooth tiger attacks, but in much of today’s world, this relay takes place even in quite benign settings, for example, in a meeting where our ideas are challenged this stress response can have a big impact on how we will respond to that challenge. We might leave the meeting with our palms sweaty and our breathing tight and recount to a confidante or co-worker how stressful the meeting was, and that we don't like going to them. We translate the physical discomfort into a statement about something that we do not like and want to avoid- even if the experience is serving a valuable purpose around helping us build resilience intellectually. For example, by going to that meeting where our ideas are challenged, triggering our stress response, and surviving the ordeal, we tell our system that we can handle it and so we are better prepared for that challenge the next time. Studies have also shown that these instances of temporary stress can boost memory, concentration and learning. So although our natural instinct is to avoid the circumstance that instigated the stress response, it can actually strengthen and sharpen us.
Stress Belief
In a challenging situation, our uncomfortable physical stress response is going to happen automatically and unconsciously, so the only aspect we do have control over is how we interpret those physical events and the story we choose to tell ourselves about them. Do we tell ourselves that a racing heart and sweaty palms are harmful or helpful? A study conducted by the University of Wisconsin (3) tracked 30,000 adults and their experience of stress over an eight-year period.
The study asked participants to self- rate the level of stress they had experienced over the last year and, also, if they viewed stress as harmful. The researchers found that individuals who reported having the highest levels of stress had a 43% higher chance of dying prematurely than any other group in the study- but only if they also believed stress was harmful for them. Participants who reported the highest stress experience, and who did not view stress as harmful had the lowest death rate of all groups in the study, even those who had the lowest levels of reported stress. This suggests that our belief about stress and its impact on us matters a great deal. In a related study at Harvard University (4), it was found that participants who were trained to view their physical stress response as a positive event (their body was healthy and doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing) actually maintained more relaxed and dilated blood vessels in their heart during their stress response, while those who had a negative mind- set of the stress response showed more constricted blood vessels, akin to what is seen in chronic cardiovascular disease. We can view our stress induced pounding heart and clammy hands as our body rising to the challenge in front of us, as opposed to a harmful reaction to a threatening situation, and our body believes us, which physically alters our stress response. Not only can this view promote health, it can create a powerful internal dialogue that says “my stress response is arming me to face a challenge- bring it on, I can do this!”
Stress and Emotional Intelligence
Along with all of the physical manifestations and implications, there is another layer to the stress response that relates to our interactions with people around us. Along with the pounding heart and clammy hands, hormones are released and pumped through the body as part of the stress response. One specific hormone, Oxytocin (also called the “love hormone”), serves a number of purposes in the body and has a few specific and interesting impacts during stress. As part of our stress response, Oxytocin acts as a natural anti- inflammatory that helps blood vessels stay relaxed during stress as well as help heart cells regenerate from any stress- induced damage. So it plays an important role in maintaining health during and after events where our stress response kicks in. Interestingly though, it also has an emotional impact during times of stress in that this hormone prompts us to seek out others, to strengthen relationships, to communicate, and to empathise. These responses mirror much of what we recognise as components of Emotional Intelligence and laud as effective communication or leadership - especially the ability to empathise and build relationships. So rather than assuming that our stress response will lead us to act defensively or make us look bad, we can view it as an enabler to be more effective communicators and leaders in challenging times. By holding this view, we can challenge any of our old habits or any default reactions to see what other responses are available to us in times of stress, trusting that constructive options are likely to surface if we give them a chance.
Stress as Strength
If our reaction to our stress response is “I can’t take this,” then there is a high probability that we are correct. By understanding how our system is helping us to face whatever formidable challenge is at hand, we can form a different starting point for ourselves. Allowing ourselves to experience and observe our stress response in a slightly removed manner means that we can look more closely at our stress inducing situation to understand more about it. We can weigh up the options more clearly and learn from the experience. This creates a more measured reflection of what is actually going on in our stress response. We can view our increased heart rate and sweaty palms as a comfort – a sense that our body is putting on a suit of armour to protect us in battle. We can look at how to let ourselves follow the pull that we experience towards others to become more concerted and proactive in communicating our challenge and, thereby, enlisting the help of others. In engaging with others on our challenge, we will be able to empathise with theirs making us feel more human, more complete. Our emotional intelligence encourages us to move from the “I can’t take it” mind- set to the “I can handle this- it won’t be perfect, and I can rise to the challenge.” This shift in thinking does not eliminate the stress response, because we need that sequence of physical events to happen to facilitate our well-being. The shift in thinking does provide a greater sense of confidence though, and potentially a healthier outcome. By viewing our stress not as a dark cloaked villain, but as a helpful source of strength we build our resilience for our next set of interesting challenges.
Mercer, article title: Mercer Finds 82% of Employees Face Increased Stress at Work September 2, 2015
American Psychological Association, Stress in America: Stress and Gender, 2010
Keller A, Litzelman K, Wisk LE, et al., Does the perception that stress affects health matter? Health Psychol. 2012
Jeremy P. Jamieson , Wendy Berry Mendes, and Matthew K. Nock, Improving Acute Stress Responses: The Power of Reappraisal, 2012
