HOW TO MANAGE TENSION

There are many ways to cope with tension. Some ways are healthy , some are dysfunctional , while other ways can be dangerous. Avoiding tension through the use of anesthesia is an overwhelmingly simple, accessible and eventually pointless process. Numbing oneself with the anesthetics of illegal or prescription drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, shopping, eating , exercise, work or other activities delays the process of experiencing genuine and authentic feelings and ultimately complicates resolution. In the long run the continued use of anesthesia makes tension much worse as the system begins to consider the anesthesia as normal and requires more to maintain the status quo. There is no such thing as "the first one is free" because the long- term costs prohibit the value of the first dose. Dependency leads to addiction and addiction is not a tension antidote.

The most remarkable antidote for managing tension is to not resist it. What you resist, persists. In its earliest phases anxiety is simple tension. If you can just go ahead and feel the tension and do some minor adjustments it often just goes away. Tension that increases or turns to anxiety may be something other than tension.

There is a phrase that is useful in psychology that lets the therapist know if it a simple event or a more complicated incident: "If it is Hysterical It may be Historical." What that means is that if the feelings go beyond a normal range of experience into bigger and bigger emotions it is likely that it has tapped into some old belief system, bad experience, trauma or memory stored in the brain. Regular daily grind tension should dissolve rapidly with a few deep breaths, a coffee break, a walk around the block, a phone call to a support person, a minor complaining, or a yoga sun-salutation. In other words, normal tension is normal. Try first to get creative with your own tension and turn it into an ally. Find out first about yourself and your style of taking care of tension. Let the energy of tension rise and fall like a wave in the ocean. If it continues rising and rising like a tsunami tidal wave, it may not be tension. This is also true for your employees . You can help them "ride the waves" or pay attention to see if they are falling off their surfboards and drowning. Translate the idea of tension into a metaphor of surf waves of energy. Then you may be able to try one of the following techniques to "play" with the energy of tension at work:

• During a high-tension project invite everyone to wear Hawaiian shirts to work

• Laugh at tension and sweep it out of your mind

• Give tension a first name or character image

• Take your tension out for ice cream or sugar free yogurt

• Have an Annual Tension At Work Day in your office with awards

• Come dressed as your favorite fantasy Drama Triangle character

• Have a Biggest and Smallest Tension of the Week Bulletin Board (that spider, the power outage , the day 49 people called in with the flu, current events, broken vending machine)

• Play with your tension. Buy it a toy. Buy it a blanket . Make it a paper hat!

• Hire Tension Experts to give Anti-Tension trainings

• Create a Tension Support Group

• Delegate someone on your "anti-tension team" to come up with a Tension Motto, Logo, or Mascot (put small bungee cords on name tags on "Fight-the-Tension day," make a poster depicting a room filled with long-tailed cats and rocking chairs)

• Create a never-ending collection or list of things that demand tension, such as:

  rubber bands	tympani drums
  dramatic theater	waiting for the envelope to be opened at Oscars
  April 15th	a cat hunting a bird
  muscle groups	trampolines
  elections	Stephen Spielberg, Steven King, Alfred Hitchcock