Stress - is it a positive or negative influence on your life?

Think back to your school days. You’re given an assignment on Monday. It’s due Friday morning! You remember what usually happened. You might have thought about it, talked about it, maybe you even did some work on it. But for most of you, if you’re willing to admit it, you usually became very smart and very motivated some time late on Thursday!

"Deadline Dynamics" I call it.

Stress can be a good thing. Without it we could perhaps miss the joy of success through having to give an "extra push". Think of Sports Champions. No one ever won a medal by getting rid of stress. Medals are won by those who learn to manage stress.

Not everyone is stimulated by deadlines. For some it’s the challenge. For others a deep satisfaction for carefully doing a job well. This is positive stress. But within these same challenges there can be negative stress.

When does stress change from a stepping stone to a stone wall? Here are a few examples of out of control stress situations.

First there’s George.

He loves highly stressed situations. Deadlines are challenges to him. He thrives on challenges and competition. Loves his work. BUT – he has a problem. His life is becoming all work and no play. This was manageable when he was single. He is now married with two young children. There’s not enough time for family and friends. Can’t seem to relax, even on the golf course. He’s moved into the ‘bad stress area".

Next let’s look at Joanne.

Obviously good at her job and recognized for her efficiency. BUT – she can’t say "NO!" easily. She’s taking on more and more work. So far she’s not taking work home on the week-ends, but it is getting to that point. She can’t seem to relax or unwind. Weekends don’t help as that’s when headaches and colds seem to happen.

Finally there is Bob.

He thinks he doesn’t have any stress problems. He says, "I don’t have stress – I give it to other people." BUT – those ‘other people’ are starting to fight back. At work his co-workers only co-operate with him when absolutely necessary. At home his family starts making plans for activities when they know he won’t be able to be there. He isn’t giving away his stress. He is keeping it.

Stress is a bit like aging. It can creep up on you if you don’t actively fight it. To fight it you need to know some of the warning signals, and learn how to get things back under control.

First let us look at some warning signals. Then we will look at what you can do to get that bad stress back in control.

• Stress can literally be a ‘pain in the neck’. Think of the last time you felt physical pain at the end of a trying meeting or a hard day’s work. You may feel it in the neck, the back, or your head.
• Stress can make you less creative. You may find it harder to come up with different solutions to problems or be so impatient you just "go along" with the last suggestion instead of helping find an even better way.
• You start making more mistakes. I remember reading once that on average 60% of work done in an office is work that is being re-done. Bad stress can make you careless. It can make you stop listening effectively when you are discussing work to be done.
• In short – bad stress can make you unproductive, unreasonable, unsatisfied, unreliable, and unsuccessful.

Here are some activities I’ve found helpful to get stress back to a manageable level.

Before you start butting your head against that "stone wall" you need to first write a Hit List. What symptoms do you feel that signal unhealthy stress? Once you have that written down, try some of these ‘Stress Capsules" to quicken the cure.

FEELING STRESSED AT THE OFFICE TRY THES EXERCISES.

• Sit with both feet on the floor; hands hanging at your sides. Take in a deep breath.
  As you slowly exhale let your head fall forward as far as it will without forcing it.
  Take a second breath – let the head drop lower as you exhale.
  Take a third breath and repeat.
  Breathe deeply and exhale three times.
  Then slowly straighten up rolling up from the base of your spine while you mentally think – AH Yes – that’s better!"
• Learn from the Japanese.
  Schedules breaks from looking at your computer hour after hour.
  Invest in a timer. When it go off, stop what you are doing, lift up your head, turn in another direction – hopefully towards a window – and look out for a minute.
• Take a stretch break. Stand up and slowly try to touch your toes. Or if that’s too much of a stretch, stretch your arms out from your sides and tense then release the tension – first in your right hand then your left.
Your stress control doesn’t have to be huge.
• I have friend who bought a blow-up figure which she keeps in her office. When she gets stressed over someone, she takes a few whacks at the vinyl dummy. Works for her!
  
  You don’t need a dummy.
  Just think of someone you’d like to ‘give it to’, clench those fists and punch
  twenty times as hard as you can.
  You can transfer that boxing energy into positive ‘anti-negative-stress’ energy.
  The point is to break the tension.
• Recently I read, in First Magazine, about a research project undertaken at the Northumbria University in Newcastle, England. They found that while subjecting participants to a barrage of grueling memory and attention tests, those who had been given gum to chew performed up to 36% better than the non-chewers. Maybe that’s why so many sports people chew – it helps reduces stress.
• Recently I read, in First Magazine, about a research project undertaken at the Northumbria University in Newcastle, England. They found that while subjecting participants to a barrage of grueling memory and attention tests, those who had been given gum to chew performed up to 36% better than the non-chewers. Maybe that’s why so many sports people chew – it helps reduces stress.

Remember, everyone has a different ‘stress point’. That time when good stress starts to turn ugly. Get to know yours. Then you can step back to your safety zone instead of piling up the stress and dumping on your family, your friends, your co-workers or the next person who comes in contact with you.

• If you are driving, remember the person who cuts in front of you will only get to the corner a fraction of a second faster. So who cares!

Change can be a basic cause of much of our negative stress. However, change is also a basic ingredient of life. What you cannot change you learn to control .That includes learning to control the negative stress and using the good stress.

As you move through your life your stress situations will change. You may be changing jobs, changing not only the house you live it but where you live. These changes occur. You need to watch for the negative stress warning signals.

Not too long ago I had to move from a home my late husband and our family had lived in for a long time. It was a very stressful time. People asked me how I managed. I share it with you as I shared with them. Moving from ones home IS difficult.

However it really is a space that holds your memories. Those memories are still with me, in my heart, in my head, in the pictures I kept, the particular pieces of furniture I still use.

I decided I became the "house" and take the memories with me. You cannot change circumstances, you can only change the way you act and react to those circumstances

Do I miss the "house? Our home? Of course I do. I also know a needy family now has some comfortable beds to sleep in, a chesterfield that wouldn’t fit in my condo, but did fit in their home. What I couldn’t take, or give away, went into a garage sale. The proceeds went into a church fund to enlarge our small neighborhood church. And that was a good thing!

To be fore-warned is to be fore-armed as the saying goes. Certainly such things as the loss of a loved one or suddenly losing your position brings on heavy negative stress very quickly. But most of the time it just creeps up. So practice by managing the small stresses.

That is when you can keep control better. Watch for the little bites. It’s the mosquitoes that will bite you more often than a shark will enter you life. So manage those "Mosquitoes". Get control at that level and then you can say, "Stress – I know I can handle you. I know how to tell the difference from Good and not-so-good stress. Just don’t ever leave me! Don’t leave me; just remember I’m steering this wagon! "