
Why we are STRESSED, FAT and want to QUIT!
What do chocolate bars, chardonnay and angry bosses all have in common?
Megan wants to quit her job!
She used to love it! She works in marketing and really enjoyed doing the social media plans that were going to bring the company lots of new business. New competition, and technology changes have made some of their products obsolete and recently the company has lost few really big contracts.
Lately, she has been struggling with anxiety, (something she had never had a problem with before) has gained 6kg (also new, and unwanted) and can only get to sleep if she has a few chardonnays. Even though this is her dream job, she is seriously thinking about leaving. WHY?
She is still getting paid, her workload hasn’t changed and she is needed more than ever to drive new business. Her job is safe. She is leaving because of stress. Her boss is being an arsehole, and is constantly berating her for things outside her control. The pats on the back for a job well done are a thing of the past and you could cut the air in the office with a knife. Stress has taken over the entire office.
Megan has become one of the 60% of people who leave their job because of their immediate superior. Or, more correctly, who leave because their immediate superior is not good at stress.
In this article we are going investigate the biology of stress and how stress “flows” around an organisation. Once you understand the “flow” of stress, it’s easy to understand its knock-on effects and how it can kill work culture. By understanding how stress works, good leaders can stop its “flow” and instead, harness its benefits and make the workplace happier and more productive.
Life in 2018 is full of stress! No-one is going to argue with that. Life in business has never been more complicated, change is the only constant and people are having to adapt quicker than ever before. That is stressful!. Combine that with social media constantly comparing your life to others and the immense pressure to succeed in an environment that is increasingly competitive (both socially and in business).
Stress is everywhere, and unfortunately, our ability to deal with stress is decreasing. We have more stress and we are getting WORSE at dealing with it.
Stress hormones make us uncomfortable! They are supposed to. Our fight or flight response is designed to be a call to action that will help us get away or defend us from a sabre-tooth tiger attack. Adrenaline and Cortisol (our primary stress hormones) make us alert and ready for action. If no running or punching-on is required, these hormones just tend to make us feel uncomfortable.
So I have a question for you?
What’s your goto stress relief? How do you get comfortable after a stressful interaction?
For some people, it’s meditation and breathing, while others enjoy yoga, or trimming bonsai trees. Sex, exercise and stamp collecting can also decrease stress.
These practices all make sense and they definitely have a calming effect on your stress hormones. They are all DELIBERATE ways to decrease the stress in your system. They work, but only if you are self-aware enough to acknowledge you are stressed and actually do them.
What about the non-deliberate ways to decrease stress?
There are some obvious ones: chocolate bars and Megan’s post work Chardonnays spring to mind. Both of these fire up your dopamine (feel good) receptors in the brain and create a temporary distraction that momentarily decrease the discomfort of the stress response. You feel better after a kit-kat! The problem with using dopamine to feel better is that it doesn’t last long and you have to do it again (another chardy anyone?)
Stanford professor and stress expert Robert Sapolsky has discovered another way to decrease stress that has been happening for millions of years. In his studies of primates, Dr Sapolsky discovered that when a high ranking male primate, let’s call him Bob, is picked on by the alpha male, he gets stressed. So,what does Bob do? He gets away from the bullying alpha (flight) but the stress hormones are still making him uncomfortable. Chocolate and chardonnay aren’t an option for Bob, so what does he do?
The answer: He picks on a smaller monkey (fight)!
Sapolsky actually measured stress hormones in bonobo monkeys and discovered that picking on a lower ranking member of the tribe caused a profound and instant decrease in the levels of cortisol in the system.
Bob felt better by making someone else feel worse.
In his book “Behave” Sapolsky revealed something that really struck a cord:
“The best way to avoid getting a stress related ulcer is to give someone else one”
So how does this help Megan, her tighter fitting jeans, angry boss and growing concerns that wine is the only way she will ever to sleep?
She needs to get better at stress. She needs to make stress short term and become Stress Teflon.
The three foundations of Stress Teflon are:

The safety of a tribe.
Pride from contribution.
and
Honest self-awareness.
To make stress non-stick, you need these three things. Megan doesn’t have these at work. She doesn’t feel safe (her boss is being an arsehole), her contributions aren’t helping (the company is struggling) and her lack of self-awareness has seen her embrace the instant-gratification of chocolate and alcohol to feel better about being stressed. The stress is sticking to Megan.
What does she do?
The first thing she needs to understand is that it is not her fault the company is struggling. She can’t change the way her boss is acting, but she can change the way SHE deals with his temper tantrums and attempts to offload HIS stress. By understanding what her boss is going through, Megan can stop her feelings of animosity towards him and replace it with empathy. This decreases the feelings of being a victim and in turn decreases the stress and the flight (leave the job) response.
Monitoring her reactions to the situation is the key for Megan. The stress is flowing down the line and she must ensure that she acknowledges it and deals with it correctly. If she doesn’t, the results could be a dodgy liver, bigger jeans and worse still, sending the stress further down hill to her family and friends.
The flow of stress in any organisation is dictated by its leaders. Understanding stress, and how they react to it, will enable leaders to catch themselves before acting like a baboon and sending that toxic stress further down the line.
Chocolate, booze and yelling at the cleaner are all forms of instant-gratification. They may decrease your stress levels and make you feel slightly better in the moment, but don’t help your long term happiness. Self-awareness is the key to recognising instant-gratification. Once you are aware of what you are doing, you can choose a path that is more deliberate and less reactive.
For Megan, acknowledging that she is feeling stressed before reaching for the kit-kat will help her make better decisions and avoid instant gratification. For her boss: He needs to get better at STRESS.
Get your copy of Stress Teflon at www.stressteflon.com
