Noted endocrinologist Hans Seyle describes stress as:“…an indicator of the body’s desire to return to the organism’s customary state of equilibrium. It results from the recognition that an individual’s current values, beliefs and behaviors stand in conflict with new data or a new situation.”This is an important concept to understand. Stress is what we feel when our experience of the world doesn’t match our understanding or expectations of how we think it should be or want it to be. There are plenty of examples: coping with the loss of a loved one, going through a divorce, being laid off, facing a life threatening disease, mounting bills and so on.
Typically, responses to stress fall into one or more of the following three categories.
Fight response is where we exert whatever control we can to reduce our discomfort and remove the perceived threat. We try to change or resolve the situation to conform to our value and belief systems.
Flight response is where we remove ourselves from the situation. If we can’t change it, we disengage. This “flight” can take a number of forms, from leaving a job or relationship to engaging in distracting activities (self-medication, gambling, television and so on).
Freeze response is where, through sensory overload (usually motivated by fear of doing something that might further jeopardize our interests or because we are unable to reconcile what is to what we think it should be), coupled with no acceptable way of disengaging, we become immobilized and indecisive.
So what happens to us physically when we experience stress?
Alarm stage. This is when we first realize there’s a changed situation. The body releases adrenaline, physiologically preparing us for a fight or flight response. We experience a heightened sense of awareness, focus and energy. The body also produces cortisol as it gears up for action, providing a quick burst of energy, heightened memory, increased immunity, a lower sensitivity to pain and a heightened ability to recover from injury.
Resistance stage. As we respond to the stressor, our body enters the resistance stage. The spike of the alarm stage fades and we begin to experience a decrease in our awareness, focus and energy as the body’s resources are gradually depleted. Our bodies begin to run in a lower gear, our resistance is slowly compromised and we fall below our pre-stress capabilities. If we continue to operate without resolving what’s stressing us, we’ll eventually enter the exhaustion stage.
Exhaustion stage. The body has exhausted its ability to cope and begins to collapse, often with dangerous and extreme physical reactions. Resistance to physical disorder, disease and psychological pressure is at its lowest. The body’s hormonal balance shifts as payback for an overdrawn stress account, and we begin to experience increased heart rate, sweating and increased respiration with an opposite effect of loss of energy, awareness and focus. If left unresolved, the physical impact manifests in constitutionally weak links in our personal histories and genetic inheritances (asthma attacks, heart problems, previous injuries in back, knees and shoulders reemerge, digestion issues and ulcers flare up) and our emotional and mental states begin to decompensate (depression, lethargy, anger).
Here are three strategies you can employ to help manage stressful situations and build your capacity to navigate future events.
Resiliency. The ability to cope is a function of skills and actions you can access during stressful times. Individual factors for action include a focus on health (nutrition, physical activity, meditation), flexibility (being comfortable with change), enhancing communication skills (listening and responding to others, communicating needs), celebrating uniqueness (self-esteem), finding humor, developing a sense of purpose (understanding what’s important, engaging in fulfilling activities), building a strong social network, pursuing competence (problem solving, goal setting, decision making, boundary setting) and engaging in creative activities.
By consciously engaging in these activities, you can expand your capacity and strengthen your coping abilities. They also help reduce the possibility of developing “resiliency fatigue,” which occurs when resiliency efforts aren’t enough to bolster coping abilities. In this situation, many of us typically respond by giving up our control, choices or personal power.
Purposeful action requires consciousness of choice. You get to choose how you respond to stimuli, how you show up in the world, how you interact with others and what you’re willing to pay attention to. It’s the one thing you control—no one else can choose for you.
Here are some questions you can use to help identify choice points and opportunities for exercising your power: Why is this important to me? What choices do I have? What are the consequences to any action I take? What will be different for me or for others? What message am I sending to myself and to others about what’s important to me? Identifying choices reinforces your ability to cope, and a third strategy begins to emerge.
Cognitive reframing is the ability to see or create a different perspective, belief or assumption to achieve a desired outcome. Stressful situations provide opportunities to develop a deeper understanding of yourself and your experience of the world. This self-reflection and assessment provides a chance to examine the story you’re telling yourself about a situation, acknowledging your part and personal accountability, as well as what part your beliefs, values or behaviors play in shaping that story. From there, you can build a new story.
Here are some questions that may help clarify and assist in reframing around a particular event or circumstance: What have I assumed to be a fact that may not be wholly true? What belief(s) do I have that stand in conflict with my current experience? What story have I been telling myself that contributes to this situation? What would be different if I retold this story, being explicit about my choices?
Building your resiliency, taking control through purposeful action and reframing your perspective will not only help you survive turbulent times but will help you thrive.
Stephen R. Thomas is principal of consulting firm Tickler & Thomas. You can reach him at (707) 696-1430, steve@ticklerandthomas.com or www.ticklerandthomas.com. This article was edited from its original content for the purpose of brevity.
