WORKPLACE WELLNESS
Accelerated culture creating stress junkies
Attitude important as
environment Of all the people I know, my friend Elliot (not his real name) experiences the highest level of stress. At its peak, he experiences neck
and shoulder tension, grinds his teeth, is irritable, has digestive problems and becomes verbally abusive. He used to blame his partner for this condition, but when they broke up the stress in his life did not. Elliot is definitely a
Type-A personality. As the owner of three companies, he usually juggles many projects at once. He gets up at dawn, goes all day, and often works through the
night. Now in his late 40s he still does not know how to chill out unless he is on vacation. With Elliot, the switch is either on or off. He is addicted to
stress; this may be a strange notion to some, but the adrenaline gives him a sense of being alive. “Why relax when you can rush?” he likes to say. High
stress provokes the fight or flight response, an evolutionary leftover, so useful in times of real danger. For most of us, however, the high demands of our lives trigger these biochemical responses many times each day in the absence of
life threatening danger. For example, the adrenal glands gush adrenaline as we watch the news or while we sit in a traffic jam. It requires much internal discipline to remain calm in the midst of all the stimulations, velocity and
demands of contemporary living. In the view of Chinese medicine, continued stress causes depletion of kidney energy, and such damage is believed to be a cause of immune deficiency, low vitality and sexual impotence.
According to a Health Canada Report done in 2000, “toxic stress in the workplace has emerged as a major health and safety issue” and the Canadian Health Association
says workplace-stress-and-related issues cost the economy $5 billion per year. For both employers and employees, taking a pro-active approach to stress management not only makes health sense, it makes economic sense. A shift in attitude
is required for a down-sizing, two-incoming, over-timing culture. Stress is an integral part of life. An ideal solution to stress-management is to observe
our responses to external events as a way to become aware of our limits. An elastic band stretches only so far until it breaks; to keep it from snapping, the
tension must be relaxed. High performance comes not by eliminating stress, but by enhancing our ability to cope with it. In a preventive approach to wellbeing, one should cultivate an inner awareness able to recognize the optimum balance
between activity and rest. Identifying the cause of stress, and our reaction to it, gives us a chance to disengage the automatic response and tune in with to
eye of the storm. The signs of stress can be obvious or subtle. A high stress level can be manifest in feelings of anxiety, fear, irritability or depression
and in behavioral and physiological signs such as compulsive-obsessive behavior (addiction to legal or illegal drugs, coffee, food, sex, work), increased heart rate, trembling, headaches, PMS and sleeping disorder.
It is also useful to identify external causes of stress. These can include the physical environment in which you live or work, social interaction, major life events (birth, death, marriage, divorce). Your
reaction to these circumstances is what is important. That being said, everyone reacts to conditions differently; what may be stressful for me, say climbing to the peak of the West Lion, is a source of pleasure for others.
From the moment my friend Elliot realized that he was the author of his own stress, he created the possibility for change. He is a high achiever and he wants to
continue to be one for a long time. His self-respect and enthusiasm give him the drive to accept the discomfort of change and to look at new ways of doing things with more ease and relaxation. Chilling out in the middle of the day is not
so bad after all. If you wish to learn more about stress management, I’ve posted a number of simple exercises on my website designed to reduce stress. |
