Stress & Your Brain

This week I am sharing insights and strategies for managing stress and preventing burnout. We typically associate burnout with work fatigue but in a crisis like the one(s) we face today, many different sources of stress compound to put us at greater risk.

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Have you experienced any of the following in recent weeks?

• Waking up in the morning feeling like an elephant is sitting on your chest
• A sense of persistent dread, overwhelm or helplessness
• More cynicism, anger or irritability than usual, with less energy, patience and focus 

If so, I want you to know: It's not just you. In fact, you're in good company; most if not all of us are struggling with these natural manifestations of prolonged stress and uncertainty, myself included. So let's begin this week's series on stress with understanding this very normal response to a highly abnormal situation.  

You may already know that deep within our brain, our amygdala is constantly on guard, trying to keep us safe. When it is activated by a perceived threat, the amygdala “hijacks” the brain (taking over control from other, more rational centers like the prefrontal cortex) and floods the nervous system with adrenaline and cortisol, the stress hormone. We experience this as our fight-or-flight response: tight chest, heart racing, nervous belly, shallow breathing, anxious mind. 

Now let’s look at the five types of perceived threats (acronym: SCARF) that activate the amygdala, with examples of how these may be triggered during this crisis:

Status - our sense of being valued by others

• Reduced access to leader/manager
• Less frequent validation or recognition of work/value
• Concerns about job stability/security

Certainty - our need to know what will happen

• Inability to predict what next month - or next week, or tomorrow - will look like
• Feelings of overwhelm at the complexity of societal/health/economic issues 
• Realization that our understanding of the world is incomplete or inaccurate

Autonomy - our ability to control how we work and live

• Inability to work in usual ways
• Restricted ability to move through the world (travel, social life, etc.) as we would like
• Expectations to be “always on"

Relationship - our sense of connectedness and community with others

• Physical distance from people we care about and collaborate with
• Lack of spontaneous connection and diminished sense of mutual understanding
• Increased likelihood of exclusion if connections are not intentionally inclusive

Fairness - our sense of justice, of balanced decisions yielding equitable outcomes

• Loss of life/health from COVID-19 impacting some more than others, including health inequities by race, class, age, etc.
• Increased awareness of racism and racial injustice, on systemic as well as individual levels
• Loss of trust in established systems of authority and governance

This is only a partial list, and not all of it may apply to you, but it illustrates how profoundly this crisis is triggering our basic survival instincts. Is it any wonder we're feeling the strain?

And because the crisis is ongoing, our stress response is continuous. The brain is not getting the breaks it needs to recover and reset. This is where we really get into trouble. 

Over time, chronic stress actually increases the amygdala’s size and power, and the prefrontal cortex shrinks. As a result, we become more fearful, more reactive. Not only is our physical and mental health negatively affected, but so is our ability to think creatively, strategize and collaborate.

We need to disrupt the amygdala's reactive patterns and create new strategies for success, which is what we'll focus on in the days ahead.

Practices: Stress & My Brain

For Myself: The next time you feel that elephant sitting on your chest, see if you can take a deep breath in. Hold it for just a couple seconds and then exhale very slowly, all the way until no breath is left. Do this a few more times, paying attention to the sensations in the body — this simple exercise stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering blood pressure and quieting the amygdala's stress response. 

With My Team: Talk about the SCARF categories with your team and discuss:

• What new insights do I have about my stress response? 
• Which of these five needs feel particularly important to me, or especially vulnerable right now?
• How can we work together as a team to help one another feel valued, empowered and supported? Here are some "rewards" to balance out the SCARF threats:

Status: generously share appreciation and recognition

Certainty: focus on what we do know and what we can control

Autonomy: support one another working flexibly in the ways that make sense to us

Relationship: create time and space for meaningful and inclusive connection (for example, start meetings with a simple check-in: one word that describes how you're doing right now)

Fairness: offer context and open discussion around key issues, actively looking for ways to be more balanced in your views and decisions

Tomorrow: Working with Emotions - Personal resources to help us weather the storm