As per United Nation reported
before saying that stress is one of the top two modern killers. This is not
something new as the majority of us hear about the stress and its effects but
more from negative points of view-harmful to our life and health. So, what is
stress? Stress is about your respond (body and mind) against the keep on the changing
environment and how we react to the stress really matter most. The thing that stresses
you out might not cause the same effect to others. As a matter of fact, stress
does create a positive impact on our life too as it pushes us out of the comfort
zone to do more than we think we can or maybe change the way of doing the
(same) things. One example is if you are
in danger, the environment (stress) will trigger you to run away or ask for
help. In this situation, stress actually is helping. The good or bad effect of stress
is depended on how you think about it.
My teacher told me before that
he used to set higher expectation (let say expect 10-20% more) to each member
of his student (of course based on what his own understanding about each of
them), then each team member will try to fight to complete it as per expected.
When come to result, he will accept whatever level of outcome done by his team
after reviewing about it. If he did not set the higher expectation to each of
them, most people only did whatever they think they can, some just “simply do”
it and some even give the outcome that even lower than what he or she can
do. So, stress can make you stretch,
serious about it and do more than you can.
As per picture below, this is
about the relationship between performance (personal or job) and the level of
stress we faced.
I am sure you will feel bored
(feel being ignored, not important) if you are being given a routine and not
challenging job at all, that why we all need a certain level of stress which leads
to higher performance and you will feel excited, focused and energized about
what you going to face. Of course, the optimum level of stress varies among us
other so we must know clearly what is our limit-stress symptoms. Too much of
stress make you feel “overloaded” and it will cause a negative impact to the performance
and personal ill health. I have a friend who nearly ended his life due to the
worry of not able to complete the degree final year project, of course, unable
to graduate. He told me that even by continue working on it 24x7 for 3-4
months, it is impossible to complete it, the supervisor was too much.
Sometimes, we do not realize
that we are overloaded with stress and even the doctor also cannot find the
reason behind some sickness like a headache, stomachache and etc. Actually,
there are few symptoms that will help to know whether we are in an
over-stressed boundary, which are listed below:
(a) Feeling of anxiety, depression, tension, frustration and
mood swing
(b) Abnormal of heart beat, high blood pressure, slow body metabolism
and digest
(c) Poor concentration and short-term memory capacity
(e) Eating/Sleeping less, increasing intake of caffeine, alcohol, and cigarettes disrupted
sleep patterns, absenteeism, and reduced work performance.
I had
a constant headache
for nearly 1 week when I started to accept a senior position in one MNC company
before. The new position not only with high expectation but also need to pick
up in a very short time, more and more tasks being loaded in and the working
culture also was really different from my previous one. I need to continue
taking the painkiller to cure the headache as a temporary fix and I also took “MC”
twice in the same month. Finally, I managed to cope (familiar) with it after a
while.
Today, maintaining a life and supporting a family is tougher than
before, and I am sure that most of us face a certain level of stress now or in
the past 1-2 years. Allow me to share one TED video about stress and this can
save your life by changing your mindset about the stress. Kelly
McGonigal is a health psychologist who shared on “how to make stress
your friend” in the TED Talk worth watching. It will totally overturn
our mind that we used to treat the stress as harmful and enemy. Let me
summarize for you as follow:
·
a) People
who experienced a lot of stress but did not view stress
as harmful
were
no likely to die.
· b) Those
who learned to view the stress response (body) as helpful; they were less
stressed out, less anxious and more confident-biology of courage. Their blood vessels
stayed relaxed even their heart was still pounding, but this is a much
healthier cardiovascular profile-like what happens in moments of joy and
courage.
·
c) When you choose to connect
with others under stress,
you
can create resilience against stress.
· d) For
every major stressful life experience, like financial
difficulties or family crisis, that increased the risk
of dying by 30 percent but those who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress-related
increase in dying.
Caring
created stress resilience.
There is another important tip which I find is very useful by Kerwin Rae on his video on how to overcome the stress. According to Science, stress’s hormone “Cortisol” can reduce our IQ performance by 40-50% and of course bad effect to our health but by practicing grateful (hindsight and count your blessings) toward the thing that stresses us out will create DHEA (Antidote to Cortisol) which can eliminate the Cortisol and its effect to our body. We should practice grateful in every moment of our life not just too over the stress but it is a very powerful and positive energy that can attract wealth, abundance, and wellness into your life.
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