Steps To Killing Stress And Getting Stuff Done

It goes without saying that stress is a killer.

Not only can it hurt our performance on the job or in school, but it can also kill our relationships and damage our health. So much attention is given to stress and anxiety in the medical community, for example, because many serious illnesses are thought to stem from or be worsened by stress and stressful conditions.

For that reason, it’s important that leaders of all types develop strategies for dealing with stress that benefits from the data.

Self-distancing Whether it’s from the thing you’re stressed about, or from the person who’s driving you crazy, researches have found one of the most powerful ways to reduce stress is to step away.

In other words, back away from the situation and assume you’re a fly on the wall, observing someone else. The key then is to ignore your would-be, gut reaction: which is to internalize the stress, strike back (if the source is a person) and lose control.

Instead, the researchers advise, you should not dwell on why you feel as you feel but rather, get it away from you. That will give you clarity on whether you’re behaving as you should and whether you are about to react as you should.

The point to remember is that stress can cause internal violence, even if you don’t take any outward action. This is why stress can be so destructive psychologically and physically.

Doing it badly. Chesterton suggested that one of the reasons for anxiety is our aim to do things perfectly. Recognizing perfection is often a tall task—and that our abilities to achieve it might be limited—we become stressed and anxious.

Chesterton suggests that, instead, we resolve that “anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” In other words, we take ourselves off the hook by allowing imperfection and error. In reviewing the literature on anxiety, the researchers not only found support for Chesterton’s wisdom but that such a strategy could dramatically reduce anxiety in experiments.

Undoubtedly, part of what happens in our heads when we do this is giving ourselves the promise that we can come back, if necessary, and make whatever we did badly more perfect later. In any case, it’s unlikely what we do in most professional settings requires absolute perfection on its first draft.

More attention is typically given to getting it done. When stress clears, we usually find this to be the case.

Embrace a “stress-is-enhancing” mindset. A Stanford University study of Navy SEAL candidates found that would-SEALs who donned a “stress-is-enhancing” mindset, performed significantly better than peers.

They showed greater persistence, recorded faster training times, and had higher evaluations. Thus, viewing stress as fuel for performance can be helpful, something first-time, public speakers are often told: “If you’re feeling stressed, that’s good. It means you’ll do well.” At the same time, this can be taken too far.

In the same study, researchers found that SEAL candidates who took a “failure-is-enhancing” mindset or an “unlimited willpower” mindset, actually underperformed and received negative evaluations from others.

Hence, while a mild stress reframing as positive can work wonders, the no-pain, no-gain, I can do anything mantras may actually undermine what you aim to achieve.

Stress is a complicated condition that is not merely psychological.

For that reason, there is a myriad of things we can do—and should do—to manage it, on both a short-term and long-term basis.

The above list, however, offers us some “emergency” remedies, based on science, for addressing and stemming stress when we need to get things done.

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