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STRESS (Is Yours a Life of Quiet Desperation?)

Guest post by: James Ladd

Article Overview: If you are old enough to remember but not so old as to forget, there was a time not so long ago we were led to believe that with the advent of new technology, in particular the computer, our lives would be so much simpler, that we would have more leisure time to enjoy a much fuller life. I didn’t get the new memo, what happened? I mean come on; we haven’t gone to a simpler, gentler, more leisure filled life. Just the opposite has occurred; the velocity of our lives has reached breakneck speed!

STRESS (Is Yours a Life of Quiet Desperation?)

If you are old enough to remember but not so old as to forget, there was a time not so long ago we were led to believe that with the advent of new technology, in particular the computer, our lives would be so much simpler, that we would have more leisure time to enjoy a much fuller life.

I didn’t get the new memo, what happened?

I mean come on; we haven’t gone to a simpler, gentler, more leisure filled life. Just the opposite has occurred; the velocity of our lives has reached breakneck speed! The new technology\'s overloading us. It\'s accessible everywhere, we have e-mails, cell phones that can contact us in every part of our lives, facebook, linkedin, tweets, seven days a week, in a fully awake twenty-four hour society. Time is no longer viewed the same way. Oh, we still have the same number of hours in a day but the expectations around what should or can be accomplished have gone through the roof and we are paying a heavy price in terms of the quality and even length of our lives. Translation, our lives are full of:

‘Stress’

Tell me are you feeling your life has become one of quiet desperation?

If so you are in good company, just take a look at some of the latest statistics.

In the 2010 Canadian Community Health Survey which was released a few months ago, 65,000 people were interviewed across Canada and the findings are quite disturbing;

· 17% of respondents aged 12 and over said they had been diagnosed with high blood pressure, a rate by the way that has steadily increased over the past decade. Men and women are now reporting the same rate of hypertension. Prior to this time women led this category.

· 24% of respondents aged 15 and over said that most days are extremely or quite stressful, up from 22% in 2008. Women were more likely to report stress. Interestingly, one-quarter of women reported that most days were quite or extremely stressful, compared with 22% of males.

· The 35 to 50 age group appears particularly vulnerable. Daily stress rates were highest in this age group, with 30% reporting stress.

· 21% of the population aged 12 and over reported smoking either every day or occasionally.

An incredibly staggering figure found through the survey was that when you combined overweight with obese more than half or 52% of the population is in this classification according to the BMI (Body Mass Index).

In another related study examining the ever increasing prevalence of sleep depravation, it is known that sleeplessness has been implicated in a long list of afflictions, including; hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, memory loss, bipolar disorder, reduced immunity, mood swings, impaired carbohydrate metabolism and increased heart rate variability. Not to forget depression and substance abuse and the impairment of memory self-expression and the ability to read emotions in others (not good for those who pride themselves in their emotional intelligence). Finally, guess what is responsible for one hundred thousand car accidents a year!

Further and from other sources, it is estimated that at least one half of all workers are at the very least unhappy in their jobs. This is astounding!

It’s pretty safe to conclude then, that we have never been fatter, more out of shape, tired and unhappy in our lives than we are right now.

WHAT IS STRESS?

First of all stress is a highly subjective phenomenon, different for everyone, making it very difficult to define. But in saying that if you can’t define it how can you possibly measure it? So, let’s go to the man who was considered the father of stress research. The term \"stress\", as it was initially used by Hans Selye in 1936, was defined as \"the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change\". He later redefined stress as; \"The rate of wear and tear on the body.”

Any definition of stress should also include good stress, or what Selye called eustress. The bad stress he called distress. For example; winning a race or an election can be just as stressful as losing, or more so. A passionate kiss and contemplating what might follow is stressful, but hardly the same as having a root canal procedure. So stress is good and bad and sometimes neither one. A definition that I like is; “Stress is the body\'s reaction to a change that requires a physical, mental or emotional adjustment or response.”

Following this definition let’s focus on what each of us perceives as stressful and how we respond to it. Our reactions to stress are killing more of us than ever before. I mean what do you suppose our reasons are for eating to much, sleeping to little and being unhappy in our jobs? These are responses to what we perceive as distress or negative stress. They of course are maladaptive ways of coping and further compound our stress.

One of the best and immediate indicators of how well we are doing in our lives on a day-to-day basis is to measure our stress symptoms and the level at which we are experiencing them at any particular time (see stress symptoms questionnaires on my website). The greater the level of stress experienced; physically, cognitively and/or behaviourally, the greater the likelihood that we are not living in congruence with who we are and what we need in our lives.

This could be the result of circumstances we find ourselves in, over which we may or may not have control or because we have so little self awareness that we have no idea of who we are, what we believe in or need. We are disconnected from the essential essence of our being because of ignorance or because of deliberate yet mis-guided decisions.

CONTROL

Without a doubt the single most significant stressor that we all face and that impacts on our health is a lack of control or ‘perceived’ lack of control in our personal and/or professional lives. Whether control at work, control in our everyday life or even control of our destiny it stands out from all others.

Using work as an example, let’s look at a well known and ongoing study; The Whitehall Studies of British Civil Servants which has shown that it is not the high-powered executives sitting in their big offices, shouting orders and jumping on jets who drop dead, it is the people below them. These are the ones who have been told what to do, and they have little leeway in deciding how to do it.

In two other streams of study both in the United States and in Sweden they have found that people who have demanding jobs and little latitude in dealing with those demands also have the highest rates of disease.

So you can see when we attempt to assess the effect of job status on our health understand that it is not stress per se that is having an adverse effect on health or life expectancy. Rather it is working in a job where there are typically high demands accompanied by a lack of control. Lack of control in a job often translates into a person having considerable responsibility but not the necessary power and/or authority to carry it out. People in high demand jobs who had influence and control were found to show no correlation between stress and health.

Fear

\"Fear is the emotional response to the perception of an alternating loss of control and regaining of control.” (David R. Saliba)

I previously mentioned a perceived lack of control and a few words are necessary to explain a lack of control and the fear that sometimes surrounds our inability to act!

When our perceptions tell us that we do not have control sometimes it is outright fear that gets in the way of actually seeing the reality of our situation and how much control we really do have if we choose to take it.

For example; you are in an untenable job which brings with it a domineering boss, unreasonable demands, long hours, and you just cannot get a

handle on any of it. I am sure you know what kind of job I am talking about, most of you have been there or are there right now (50%)! Feeling as if you have no control overwhelms you but wait. You just might have more control then you realize. You can quit and find another job. But fear overtakes you and prevents you from making what could be the most rational and best decision. “What if I can’t find a job, how will I survive without a paycheck, I will be seen as a failure, what if leaving turns out to be a mistake?” Self doubt creeps in and you begin to feel hopeless. You are paralyzed by fear and unable to act in your best interests, according to your values and needs.

Values & Needs

My repeated experiences with coaching stress management over the years led me to exploring the subtly of stress in more depth, and what I discovered was “congruence” or rather a lack of it and something called; “need tension.” When the cause of a stress symptom jumps up and hits you in the face like a 2-by-4, (i.e. loss of a loved one), you know what you are dealing with and accordingly, can act to address it. But what if it relates to not living your life congruently with what it is you value, and/or not living your life according to your personality style and finally, perhaps not being able to meet your “perceived” needs at any particular point in time? What then?

Just what is it you value and if you do not know, how do you find out? Do you know what your personality style is and how it affects your daily living? What about your needs, are they different than wants? Do they change over time or are they the same no matter what? If there are symptoms of stress creeping into you life and you feel a ‘dis-ease’ with yourself, can you flag the reason(s) for it?

If you cannot, than perhaps you need to find out what anchors you, what you live for, believe in and would even die for, in other words your life purpose. Then determine why you get up each day and go out into the world and do what you do? If you are successful you may be surprised at what you find and how much control you really can have.

Over a life time full of experiences I have learned valuable lessons about congruence with values, need tension and personality, and can share them with you, with the objective of supporting you in your efforts to develop a strategic approach to managing or eliminating your stress. “Tell me, is it something that you think or feel you might need and see of value in your life?”

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Article Tags: distress, eustress, fear, loss of control, needs, stress, unhappy, values



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