Too much stress in your life? Wrong question! It’s not the intensity of stress that matters, it’s the sustainability. Stress is not a mono-dimensional indicator; like a cash-flow statement, stress has two entries: burden or exposure on the negative side; and tolerance or resistance on the positive side.
Your stress sustainability is simply your net stress score (tolerance – burden). Knowing your burden and tolerance levels, generates precise stress tactics; knowing your net stress score, generates your stress strategy. It’s very actionable.

Take the following view on stress: on the vertical axes your stress burden on a scale of 1 to 100, which measures how much challenges life throws at you, i.e. the quantity of stress you are exposed to; on the horizontal axes your stress tolerance, again on a scale of 1 to 100, measuring your capacity to absorb and to be resistant to stress.

Say Agnes has a tolerance score of 70, and a burden score of 50, she will find herself in the stress zone we call ‘sustainable high intensity’, where her stress intensity is rather high, and her net stress score is positive of 20. That’s usually a very high productive position to be in.
On the other hand, imagine Dirk has a lower stress burden than Agnes, say 35, but a tolerance of only 25. Though the intensity is lower, his net stress score is negative of -10. Dirk is in the ‘unsustainable low intensity’ zone. 
The diagonal on the graph indicates a net stress score of 0 above which one enters the unsustainable zone. So where would you locate yourself on the graph and what can you do about it?

Identify your life and work stressors. Being able to identify your sources of stress gives ideas as to what you can act upon. What are your main stressors? The stressful nature of your job (e.g. unclear demands and expectations), some tense work relationships (e.g. confrontational clients), a huge workload impacting your personal life (e.g. regularly and unforeseen overtime)?  A paradigm shift in your finances (e.g. inability to repay your mortgage), a big challenge in your personal relationships (e.g. trouble with your in-laws), and/ or rather small changes in your personal life (e.g. change in eating habits)? Assessing your stress in life and your stress at work helps you identify your biggest stressors and allows you to focus your actions on mitigating them.

Enhance your stress defenses. Of course some stressors cannot be reduced by simply ‘acting upon them’. We know first-hand that when you have a (so far) incurable disease, you cannot say “I’ll just get rid of it”.  But we also know first-hand that, even with extremely high stress burden, it is possible to have a ‘positive net stress level’. Remember – your net stress level not only depends on your stress burden, but also on your stress tolerance. Here are a couple suggestions to increase your stress defenses.

  • Practice being positive: Rather than mourn about the things that are not going well in your professional or personal life, think with gratefulness about all the things that ARE present. It will provide you with a whole new perspective on reality. Actively seek for things that give you a smile, or that make you laugh. It’ll shift your mindset.
  • Strengthen your support networks: Identify people you can call upon when you are in need (and learn to call upon them when necessary). Friends you can call upon for emotional support, colleagues or acquaintances you can call upon for advice, acquaintances that can help you with a couple of chores…
  • Lead a healthier life: See sleep and relaxation as an investment for effectiveness: It’s proven over and over again that sleep and relaxation not only affect your stress tolerance, but also hugely impact how productive you are during your ‘awake time’. The same applies for healthy nutrition and exercise.
  • Develop your resilience: Take time to reflect how your setbacks and failures can be opportunities for growth. Events don’t mean anything themselves. It’s how you react to them that determines whether you’ll come out of the event as a ‘victor’ or as a ‘loser’.

 

If you would like to know more about this topic, develop your sustainability skills during our boost seminars, coaching programs and development trainings, contact us!