Consequences of Stress and Ways to Manage It

Up to a point, stress is motivating and may even create a push for short- term productivity. However, after that point, it can have serious consequences on the organization as well as on the individual, including sometimes costly problems:

• Organizational problems ”absenteeism, turnover , lower productivity, more mistakes and accidents, lower morale

• Medical problems ”heart, digestive tract , and respiratory illnesses; headaches ; lowered immune system

• Behavioral problems ”alcohol and drug abuse, violence

• Psychological problems ”depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances

Stress, while it is a natural consequence of work life and life in general, can be a dangerous force. However, it can be managed. Table 22 outlines the three main strategies, which are then described in more detail.

1. Change the situation

   • Reduce the causes of the stress

   • Apply systematic problem solving

   • Develop a plan

   • Negotiate demands

   • Assert your needs

   • Manage time

2. Change your perception of the situation

   • Reframe

   • Let go, accept

   • Stop the thought

   • Get counseling

3. Activate your relaxation response

   • Use Jacobson's Progressive Relaxation technique (see pp. 231 “232)

   • Practice meditation, deep breathing , visualization

   • Increase exercise, improve nutrition

   • Seek support

   • Use biofeedback

   • Take a break

   • Use affirmations

Strategy 1: Change the Situation

One set of strategies involves addressing the sources of stress. Use your problem-solving skills to help reduce or eliminate the root causes of the stress. Develop a plan for turning things around. Team members can handle a lot more stress if they believe they have a plan that will deliver them from their current chaotic situation. If the source is coming from work overload or from the lack of role clarity, can you and others negotiate with management to establish more appropriate expectations? Working in a team can feel overwhelming, especially during times of change. Individuals and teams may benefit from a more systematic approach to time management. Is meeting time being used efficiently ? Are members dedicating more time to tasks that are of higher priority rather than on tasks they may be more comfortable with? Peter Drucker suggests that truly effective managers do not add time-consuming efforts to all the work they are already doing, but rather figure out how to drop one activity for each one they add. What are you and your team doing to figure out your priorities to produce a more effective organization? Is the added work truly a short-term burden that will get smaller over time? When should you feel the shift in that burden ?

Strategy 2: Change Your Perception of the Situation

When you find yourself overreacting to a situation, maybe you just need a different perspective. Have you noticed that you now deal with situations in a calm manner and yet know that you would have been very anxious in the same situations when you were less experienced ? Norman Vincent Peale said, "Change your thoughts and you change your world." Experience seems to help. Perhaps at one point in your life, work was everything. Now you have kids to think about or maybe you have had a loved one die or maybe you have gotten involved in some community projects. Now you still care about doing great work but you know there is more to life than work. You have a new way to frame what is going on in the situation. You may be more able to accept imperfection without giving up on the goals of significant improvement. You no longer obsess or worry excessively. You are able to stop the thoughts that used to freeze you up.

Strategy 3: Activate Your Relaxation Response

Sometimes you can't do much about the situation and you and your teammates are looking at it realistically . The third strategy for dealing with stress entails activating your relaxation response. You can build up your relaxation response as you would a muscle. The more you exercise that muscle, the more capable you are of using it. Under stress, your heart rate increases and your breathing becomes more shallow . Inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly actually makes you more capable of relaxing under pressure. Meditation and visualization techniques help further this practice. If you exercise regularly and vigorously, your body is better prepared to activate its relaxation response. A diet of coffee, candy , and cola does not constitute good nutrition. Eating a balanced diet will make you more capable of relaxing.

Another terrific relaxation response technique is the "Progressive Relaxation" technique developed by Edmund Jacobson (1974). It is called "progressive" because with it you systematically progress the relaxation response from muscle group to muscle group throughout your body. Jacobson found that the sensations of relaxation are enhanced by contrasting tension with relaxation in each muscle group . Following a simple six-week program, you can train your body to bring about deep levels of relaxation at will. Activating your relaxation response is something you should be able to do for yourself. If you don't take care of yourself, you will not be as effective in your efforts to help others.

In the first two weeks of the Jacobson technique, you isolate your efforts to contrast tension and relaxation in small muscles groups. You start by tensing your fists and forearms for ten to fifteen seconds. You concentrate all your energy by focusing on the sensations of tension. Then you relax your fists and forearms for twenty to thirty seconds, focusing on the contrast between tension and relaxation and letting relaxation take over where the tension was. You work up your arms, one small muscle group at a time, and proceed to progress through all the muscle groups, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. In all cases, you tense each muscle group for ten to fifteen seconds and then release it for twenty to thirty seconds.

You may want to make your own relaxation tape using this tool. However, it is actually best if you just do the exercise with your eyes closed all by yourself. In the first two weeks it will take you about twenty minutes a day. You need to do the long form of the exercise to build responses throughout your body. During the last four weeks, you do the short form, which takes only ten minutes a day. Aren't you worth it? I strongly advise that you find the time during the next six weeks and train your body to achieve this very deep level of relaxation. Detailed instructions are provided in appendix B.