Stress is contagious: how can we get a grip?

No one can deny that the past few months have been scary. Whether it’s worries about your health, your business or your family (or all three) that are keeping you awake at night, there seems to be more than ever to be afraid of right now.

Did you know that fear is directly related to stress? ‘Stress’ had become part of our lives and daily conversations even before COVID but the pandemic/lockdown has taken stress to whole new level. No one, not one of us can honestly say they we are not stressed right now, which is pretty incredible when you think about it.

Working from home around for the last three months has led many people to admit for the first time that they are stressed. We’ve been constrained at home and bombarded with information about the world’s woes. Without the opportunity to engage in our normal distraction techniques (e.g. going to the gym, going to the pub, going on holiday) we have been forced to feel the effects of change, including the stress associated with our ‘new normal’.

People are now broadcasting their stress through their reactions, energies, words and social media posts. What’s more, the momentum of stress is carrying people along with it: it has become ‘contagious’. We’re all dealing with it, with many people everyone feeling that they “just have to get on with it” because we’re all in the same boat. This is a dangerous trap to fall into.

Stress is the root cause of so many personal, family, health, workplace and social problems. Stress can become so habit-forming that it numbs your brain to the urgency of addressing it and can make you oblivious to the obvious. Over time, stress reduces our resilience, confidence and self-esteem. It should never be ignored.

Time to change

There is something we can all do about stress. It requires action and most likely action that focuses directly on tackling your fears. Emily Adams (a recent guest on my Money Talk interview show) is a great example of someone becoming aware of their fears and harnessing the stress energy they generate. This technique not only reduces stress in your body, it also strengthens your confidence and self-esteem.

Most of us have heard about ways to cope with stress – e.g. eating nutritious foods, drinking less alcohol and coffee, stopping smoking, exercise, meditation, yoga, taking breaks, spending time with friends and doing fun things. However, the majority of us rarely get around to actually following this advice or doing something about our rising stress levels.

Unfortunately, changing our habits is not an easy thing to do. It’s inconvenient, especially if you get pleasure out of eating sugar, fatty foods, carbs or feel less stressed when you drink coffee, have a cigarette or drink alcohol. People are moving so fast on the treadmill that they cannot see how they can afford the luxury of exercise or enough relaxation time to make a difference. Time is at a premium right now - there is never enough to go round.

In his 2018 book Dying For A Paycheck (HarperCollins) Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer explores the primary drivers of what he calls “workplace exposures” that negatively impact human health. These include working long hours in a week (e.g., more than forty hours), facing family-to-work and work-to-family conflicts, having relatively low control over one’s job and job environment, and facing high job demands such as pressure to work fast. Of these, long working hours is the most dangerous: “In a perverse twist, longer work hours have become a status symbol—a marker of how important, indeed indispensable, someone is,” writes Pfeffer.

Last year, the CIPD’s annual survey reported the lowest-ever average employee absence rate (5.9 days per employee per year) in the history of the survey. While this could partly be the result of a strong framework to support people’s well-being, other findings suggest that a low sickness-absence level is not always the sign of a healthy workplace. For example, the vast majority of respondents (89%) observed ‘presenteeism’ (people working when unwell) in their organisation over the last 12 months and over a quarter (27%) say it has increased. People working when ill are not adding value to their organisation and could be exposing themselves and those around them to more serious health issues.

73% of respondents observed some form of ‘leaveism’, such as employees working when on annual leave or working outside contracted hours, over the past 12 months. It’s no surprise, therefore, that nearly two-fifths (37%) have seen an increase in stress-related absence over the last year, while three-fifths (60%) report an increase in common mental health conditions. The UK workforce is working some of the longest hours in Europe, but we’re not reaping any rewards in terms of health, quality of work and productivity.

Stress is a superpower

It is easy to forget that stress is the body’s warning signal that something is out of whack – a bit like Spider-Man’s ‘spider sense’! When it ‘tingles’ it’s time to pay attention to it - and fast!

We shouldn’t accept stress and exhaustion as the new normal. Leaders and line managers need support to deliver well-being strategies for their teams. Managers need training and guidance, giving them the confidence to deal with often difficult and personal health conversations.

The biggest costs of stress to businesses are the reduction in productivity, unnecessary mistakes, strained relationships and lack of decision making. The ability to make good rational decisions is key to the success of any business.

Years of research have shown that the best way to address stress is through the ‘heart’, but nobody is prepared to go there until it is too late. Getting overwhelmed and run-down too many times or having the bottom fall out of some area of life is what finally sends most people to their heart, screaming. Only then, do they start evaluating what is important to them and how to improve their quality of life. 

Why wait until it is too late or when your health suffers. As a founder, owner or manager of the business you can tackle stress now, today. You can make a difference to your own life, to the lives of your team and ultimately to the success of your business. Why not engage and manage from you heart? Research has shown that managers who engage their heart in business are more relaxed, spot more opportunities and make better logical decisions.

At Symetize we support people to optimize the people process (managing your stress) and optimize the business processes. For more information on how to manage from your heart and reduce stress contact me on [email protected]