Stress
Big Costs, Little (but effective) Remedies
*I later changed the title as you will see to:The natural life of stress: a history

I am a pilgrim
I’m no expert. I’m learning along with you.

May I have your permission to...

change the title?

The natural life of stress: A history

Stress
When you chose this workshop, why did you choose it?

Stress is natural
● We need stress.
● Stress arises from positive and negative expectations, goals, dreams.
● Both the presence and absence of stress may be harmful.
● The question is: What do we do with it?

Why structures fail...
An article in Discover Magazine years ago

On stress and mechanical failure...
● “We prefer stiff materials--metals, ceramics, dry wood, and the like--that keep their shape.”
● “For nature, flexibility is a marvelously nuanced, versatile business--no simple softness, but a multidimensional world of opportunities for designing structures that change shape in highly useful ways.”
“Better Bent Than Broken” Steven Vogel Discover
Magazine, May 1, 1995.

Can stress hurt you?
The Holmes-Rahe Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS,
1967) asked if any of these (plus 43 more) had occurred in the past year?

Events (what do you see?)
● Divorce - 73
● Pregnancy - 40
● Sex difficulties - 39
● Outstanding personal
Achievement - 28
● Death of a close family member - 63
● Trouble with boss - 23
● In-law trouble - 29
● Begin/end school - 26
● Personal injury or illness - 53
● Mortgage>142.5k* - 31
* Converted from 1967 data to 2014 value
>300 = at risk of illness
>150 = above less 30%

Definition of stress
Mechanical - Stress is a measure of the internal forces in a body between its particles.[2] These internal forces are a reaction to the external forces applied on the body that cause it to separate, compress or slide.[2]
Biological - Physiological or biological stress is an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition or a stimulus. Stress is a body's method of reacting to a challenge.

What are these guys doing, anyway?

It’s the Team America Rocketry Challenge
(2007)

The Challenge
1. Launch a raw egg as high as possible
2. It must land on the ground without cracking
3. Launchers are stressed with developing and winning the competition.
4. And the spectators are stressed: Who will win?

Photo courtesy: By
English: Cherie A.
Thurlby [Public domain], via Wikimedia
Commons
Some eggs crack, some survive! It depends on design and planning.

Stressful events will occur (good and bad).
● They are external
● They require a reaction (even if it’s the choice not to react)
● The impact of the event, small or large, often lies with us

This is your brain on stress
By Dick Mudde (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By Polygon data were generated by Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS)[2].
(Polygon data are from BodyParts3D[1]) [CC-BY-SA-2.1-jp
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

This is your brain on stress
Survival Mode:
● Protective biochemistry
● Decreases immunity
● Reduces future orientation
(parasympathetic nervous system)
● Fight, flight, freeze or fawn
By Polygon data were generated by Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS)[2].
(Polygon data are from BodyParts3D[1]) [CC-BY-SA-2.1-jp
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

This is your brain on stress
Connected with:
● Depression
● Anxiety
● Damaged DNA reproduction
● Chronic pain syndromes
● Increased illness
● Reduces critical thinking
By Polygon data were generated by Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS)[2].
(Polygon data are from BodyParts3D[1]) [CC-BY-SA-2.1-jp
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

How we think wears a pathway into our brain structure

The natural life of stress: your brain
Travelled often enough, our brain develops common patterns of thinking (neural pathways). We begin to turn to them more often to interpret our world e.g. no
one cares; I failed again;
I’ll never find love.
By Wojsyl (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

We move from...
Positive
● Love
● Happiness
● Success
● Comfort
● Hope
● Community
● Resources
● Creativity
Negative
● Conflict
● Defeat
● Failure
● Pain
● Despair
● Isolation and loneliness
● Deprivation
● Limitation

We need stress to survive.
We need:
● Goals
● Responsibilities
● Accomplishment
● A feeling of success
By Sarah Connors (_ERI6264 Uploaded by Dolovis) [CC-BY-2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia
Commons

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
( Quote : Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning)
It’s not about events.

Imagining our relationship to stress.

Stress’s Sweet Spot
Learning to balance responsibility and competence:
Not too much stress and not too little; neither ignoring competence nor obsessing about it.

Stress… How am I doing?
● Are you able to enjoy satisfying personal relationships?
● Are emotional symptoms having physical fallout?
● Hopelessness, worthlessness, anxiety or worry?
● Persistent lack of anger (or it’s opposite?)
● Do you regularly participate in self-chosen, identifiable pleasurable activities and goals
● Regular successes
● Regular (and intentional) opportunities for healing
● Do you regularly get a full night’s sleep?

Keeping Stress in the Sweet Spot
Commitment and Function

RE: Compliance-oriented management
● Embeds stress more deeply,
● Encourages function from the fight, flight, freeze or fawn areas of the brain making employees: o
Less productive, o
Less responsible, o
Less engaged.
● Good management uses both the Positive Emotional
Attractor and the Negative Emotional Attractor
(McKee, Boyatzis, Johnston Becoming a Resonant
Leader)

A better way to manage
● Good management balances both the Positive
Emotional Attractor and the Negative Emotional
Attractor (McKee, Boyatzis, Johnston Becoming a
Resonant Leader - excellent book!)
● This balanced approach enhances engagement, productivity and ownership.
● And - oh, yeah! - it reduces stress!

Back to our egg and mechanical failure
● We need rigidity (or, compliance)
● We need flexibility (rigid systems can sometimes break more easily)
● We need resilience: the ability to exercise flexibility and return to health when stress is encountered
● Would people say that you tend to be more rigid or
flexible? Which people? Those you work with, live with or both?

Things you can do now.
● Activities of pleasure and accomplishment are challenging for mind and body
● Mindfulness meditation
(retraining the reptile brain)
●
Tiny Habits ®
● Intentional gratitude and compassion practices
● Take walks
● Keep a pet near you
●
Boundaries
● Exercise - yes, I hate exercise, but I have to do it!
● Intimacy
● Meaningful, supportive personal relationships
● Alive and well Bucket List (shortand long-term)
● Sleep - at least 7 hours very, very regularly. Missed sleep has profound insidious health effects.

Photo courtesy: By
English: Cherie A.
Thurlby [Public domain], via Wikimedia
Commons
The egg has to be treated delicately with cushioning for all the experiences of flight

Your life...
Has to be treated just as more gently than that egg!