Healthy vs Toxic Stress?

Have you ever noticed that the word “stress” means different things to different people depending on their beliefs about what stress is? Those beliefs will be influenced, as all beliefs are, by their own experience, the influence of the people around them and the environment they operate in.

So the question is: what are your own beliefs about stress? Stress is bad? Stress is wrong? Stress is avoidable? Stress leads to mental and physical health issues? Stress is helpful? Stress is necessary? Stress can make the difference between success and failure?

The truth is that all these things are true according to whether we are dealing with healthy or toxic stress and the key is to recognise each of these, so we can deal with them appropriately.

The healthy sort of stress is the stress which enables us to perform as our best selves. It's the balance of just enough pressure and support which means the difference between success and non-success. Some people call it being "in the flow" and I'm sure you can think of times when you've felt this? Times when you felt that you can rule the world and still make it home in time for tea? And don't those times feel absolutely brilliant?

Toxic stress however, is the sort of stress that leads to obstacles, feeling crap and making mistakes. This type of stress is the one that can result in mental and/or physical distress.

Just to confuse things, there is a third category which is the “not enough stress” category which can end up with making mistakes, procrastination and lack of self-esteem. Almost as bad as toxic stress in terms of the way it can affect performance and well-being.

So, how do we recognise when we are pushing ourselves enough, too much or not enough? Well, research suggests that we can make more mistakes when we have a stress imbalance than if we are in that magical "flow zone". The difference between the type of mistakes we make when we don't have enough stress compared to when we have too much is that, in the former case, those mistakes are likely to be ones of OMISSION whereas, in the latter, they are likely to be ones of COMMISSION.

For example, you might find you've forgotten to finish a task on time or you've missed an important element out of it. You may have missed a birthday or to pay a bill, This is potentially a sign that you don’t have enough stress in your life and you might want to think about making yourselves a schedule with tight deadlines and consequences if you fail to hit them. It’s also a good idea to look at finding a coach or accountability partner to help you form and stick to a plan.

An instance where too much stress may be an issue might be where you've accidentally copied the wrong person into an email and the world and his wife finds out that you voted Monster Raving Looney Party in the last election or that you hate your boss with an unhealthy passion! Are you trying to do too many things at once? Are you having an adverse reaction to pressure at the moment? What steps can you take to manage that pressure? Identify whether better sleep, improved nutrition, more water, head-management, more exercise or something else will help support you through that blip in stress load.

The key thing is to catch yourself when you make these errors and, as well as learning from them for future reference, also question what might be at the root of them and then doing something about the situation. You’re in charge!