Surviving Work Stress
Overall, the last several months have been stressful for people for several reasons. Pandemics, politics, and so many other things banging on our fragile shells. But, I want to talk to you today about work stress. Because those of us lucky enough to still have jobs are still expected to work.
This came to mind because last week I had a very stressful week. I had executive engagements that I was responsible for setting up, preparing for, delivering and facilitating. At the same time I had customers that were on fire for various reasons and unhappy. On top of that I had internal organizational expectations.
Any of these things wouldn’t be enough to knock me out of my comfort zone, but all together in the same week they rung up a significant amount of stress. In the process of the week, I had to deploy extraordinary strategies and tactics to stay afloat.
I went through a range of emotions. Fear, uncertainty, doubt, resignation, exhaustion, cynicism, and, ultimately commitment and acceptance. I got through it. There are some things I could have done better. There are some things I could have done worse. I chose a line and stuck to it through to the end.
At one point I was wondering why I even bother with working. Why not just walk away?
So, let’s talk through what work stress is all about and some strategies to deploy when you find yourself in the thick of it.
First, what’s going on with work stress? Work stress is the manifestation of your fight or flight response. As humans, on a basic level we see these things, the big meeting, the angry customer, as threats. Our bodies prepare to fight or flee. The chemistry in our body’s changes. Hormones are secreted, heart rate increases, that stress brings heightened awareness and a ready state.
Unfortunately, we rarely need to actually fight anyone or flee at work – even though we sometimes want to. All the extra stress hormones can help us get things done in the short term but lead to burnout. It’s like running your engine at a high RPM for too long. I know when I looked in the mirror mid-week I could see the stress in the bags under my eyes.
There are physical and mental repercussions of work stress. Physically you feel exhausted, but you may have trouble sleeping. Mentally, you may feel overworked, unsafe and have anxiety. This leads to an inability to focus and reduces your ability to think clearly and to be creative.
Eventually chronic stress leads to depression.
How do we adapt to these stress periods at work?
The first thing I find useful is to be able to contextualize. Not every week is loaded like this. I knew it was coming so I was able to do some preparation. I also know from experience that for every high-stress week there is probably a corresponding low-stress week.
Just like in a long race, you have to take the long view and understand that at times it will get hard, but you will get through.
Anything you can do to plan ahead for these events or periods that you know are going to be stressors gives you the upper hand by putting you in control. Anything you can do to take the stress events out of your dinosaur brain and into your thinking brain will help you contextualize.
When you feel yourself falling into a stressful period try to be aware. Step back and notice what’s happening in your brain and your body. Even take a minute to write it down. I feel X when I am confronted by Y. Just by elevating into your conscious and out of your subconscious much of the stress may go away.
My stressful periods tend to come in waves. That helps me put it in context and deal with it. It’s a short sprint. If you have the opposite, where it’s constant and consistent you may need to engineer in your own breaks. These could be actual days off or simply walking the dog outside for 20 minutes after that hard call with the customer to let your brins settle.
One of the things that stresses me out is open loops. Open loops are when I know I have things that I haven’t finished. I have an overhang of tasks or deliverables. These open loops get my brain playing a Tetris game that can’t be solved.
There are two main strategies you can deploy when you have more tasks than you can accomplish, leading to open loops. Frist is to become good a tactically managing and prioritizing the tasks. Efficient task management won’t solve the problem but can help quantify and prioritize. This puts you back in control and allows you to make decisions around what to do next and what not to do.
The second strategy is simply to realize that you are not perfect. You are not going to get everything done every day. Have good guardrails and know when to lay down your tools and walk away for your own mental health. Cut yourself some slack. Do the best you can in the time you have. Let the rest go.
I walked into a internal meeting this week and had to say, “I’m sorry, I did not get anything done on this project because I had the week from hell.” Because at the end of the day part of what makes you valuable is your ability to choose what is more important. Make those decisions. Because if you don’t you fail at everything. Choose what you’re not going to do.
Next thing I want to give you is the importance of leadership. I’ve said this a lot in the last year. You can’t always choose what’s happening, but you can choose how you show up.
When you go into these stressful events, understand that the people on the other end of the Zoom camera are probably just as stressed as you are. Have empathy, be present and think ‘how am I going to lead?’
Many people like to turn their cameras off because they don’t like to look at themselves. I leave it one so I can see my posture and my body language. I always take these hard meeting standing up. I can use physical triggers to change my state. If I see I’m slouching or looking like a kicked dog I can change that. I straighten up, pull back my shoulders, take a deep slow breath and look into the camera.
I think how can I be a leader here? How can I be present? How can I have empathy? Just by noticing what’s going on, reading body language and being present you are being a positive leader. You can switch from just being able to survive the call to leaning in and trying to help.
How you behave when you’re stressed out is important. When we feel anxious we are more likely to behave badly. To snap and cut people off. To engage in gossip and gripe sessions. None of that does you any good. Recognize it for what it is and do the opposite.
Of course, all the classic mindfulness practices can help. Physical relaxions techniques and exercise can help. I let relaxing music play in the background in these calls. They can’t hear it, but I can and it helps define my state.
Finally build a support network. This may be people your work with, it may be you family, but if you’re going to talks about stressful work issues you probably want to avoid co-workers and family. Build a network of 3rd party friends who you can trust. It helps to talk it out and get ideas.
When you do talk to your co-workers, be kind, be empathetic. Ask them how they are doing. Ask if you can help.
It’s a struggle sometimes but you can get through it unscathed with a little flexibility and practice.