Worry Stress Anxiety

It would probably be an understatement to say the last few months have been challenging and difficult. Life at work and at home has been full of uncertainty, and it still is, not knowing what comes next and what the future holds. So how can we best deal with all that uncertainty? (tips at the end)

There's been a lot of talk about stress and anxiety and you're not alone if at times you've felt it, I know that I have. Although change can often hold great opportunities, it's not always a nice place to be when you are in the midst of it.

It's important to remember that stress is not always a bad thing, it motivates us to move. However when it's felt 24/7, when it feels like that the tiger is constantly waiting to pounce, then stress becomes negative and unhealthy.

But where does the stress come from? Is it a cause or an effect? Understanding how it happens gives us at least some chance of dealing with it. Stress, and anxiety, are effects, so trying to manage them may dull the sensation, however the most powerful solution is to deal with the cause.

It all starts with a thought. A thought about what a situation is, and significantly, what we believe it should be. That thought is 'worry', a very useful human adaptation that allows and motivates us to solve problems, but that can also drive us a little crazy. 

The extent of the worry comes from the size of the gap between how we see our current reality, and what we think it should be. Such as, I should be on the other side of the fence, and not in here with the tiger.

That thinking and worry create stress, a sensation or a desire for change, that starts in the limbic part of your brain; think fight, flight or freeze. Not a bad thing when a train is hurtling towards you, or a deadline is looming, or that the tiger is about to pounce.

However, when it is sustained day after day, it becomes unhealthy and unproductive. It can lead to anxiety and a whole bunch of other manifestations that don't feel particularly good.

Worry is exacerbated by a sense of loss of control, that things are out of our hands, that there is an external locus of control. This always generates a lot of discussion in our leadership workshops.

If you want to drive a human crazy make them feel like they have no control. And if you look at people who overcome adversity you will always see that they found a way to create an internal locus of control.

So what can we do?

• Knowing that it starts with thinking and worry, we can learn to watch for some of those worrying thoughts, catch them before they lead to stress. That's a concept that is beautifully captured in this 60-second video.

• We can also adjust our expectations of what should be, so that the gap between our current reality and the future is not so big, reducing the stress. In practice this means acknowledging that we live in a Covid world, and well, things are going to be different.

Inspiration or humour, perhaps both?

• Start doing something, making a start is always the hardest part! In the words of a friend who dealt with a lot of adversity, one thing at a time, one step at a time, one day at a time, find ways to move above the line. Find things that you can influence, small ways to move forward and start to create a sense of control.

• Find ways to laugh. It always struck me back when I was working in Fire and Rescue that after bad situations we would resort to humour, often quite dark, but still laughter to lift ourselves.
• Know that this is a shared experience. Yes, right now there are a lot of us in this boat together. You are not alone... it doesn't always feel like that, certainly there are moments when I stare at the four walls of my home office and wonder. We are in this together, and we will find a way past this together.