Strategies do not reduce stress, your body does.

As I visited the HR fair in Zurich, it was gladly impressed by the importance that organisational health has gained. Among them, stress management strategies were a big topic. Yet I was concerned to see the predominance of strategical approach to reducing stress in companies. One interlocutor presented a booklet aiming to help analyse stressful situations we experience and develop rational strategies to deal with them. In my view and experience, such approach misses a crucial point: stress is not confined to your head and you will not find the answer to it there.

Stress is a natural physiological response.

Stress starts in our body. From an external stimuli or stressor that we perceive through one or several of our 5 senses, our body immediately reacts by going into the fight & flight mode. The amygdala in the brain recognises the danger or stressful situation, the sympathetic nervous system is activated and releases cortisol and noradrenaline in our body, muscles contract so we can run away or fight, heartbeat goes up and cognitive faculties increase so we can process information faster. To that point - and this happens in the flip of a switch - stress is a purely physical manifestation. It is this precise and complex chain of reaction on the physiological level which results in a change of our emotional state (we start feeling a specific way: tense, alert, nervous). Only then do we start to think and act accordingly, to rationalise and make sense about what is actually happening to us (psychological level).

Attempting to turn out stress by use of mental power alone is close to scratching the surface of our desk in the hope to find groundwater.

Why strategies limited to thinking are not the answer.

Because the reaction process of stress operates on all levels, from the physical, to the emotional and finally psychological levels, attempting to turn out stress by use of mental power alone is close to scratching the surface of our desk in the hope to find groundwater. As you would guess by now, in order to work on stress and learn to manage it effectively, thinking is not enough. You have to dig deeper. This can be done effectively by using your body rather than your head. The body has valuable resources to calm down and switch off the fight & flight mode. Breathing is one of them. Specific body positions as well have a direct impact and allow you to reverse the process. It is indeed by using your body and breathing, working on the physiological level first, that you will be able to switch off stress and trade it for another physiological state, such as relaxation.

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