How is Stress Affecting your Quality of Life?Stress is a recognized cause of 80% of today’s illnesses – so what are you doing to mitigate the risk of chronic stress in your life? If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. Marcus Aurelius The choices we make, how we define success and how we relate to stressful situations affect our physical and mental health,
our performance and our personal satisfaction.
Stress Response We each have a particular carrying capacity – or load we can bear without straining our reserves. That carrying capacity is affected by a complex set of factors and conditions that change over the course of our lives, increasing or decreasing our risk. When our carrying capacity is exceeded, our body’s physical and mental alarm bells go off. Life and workplace stressors affect different people in different ways. In a 2004 study on psychological stress and human immune function, Psychologists Suzanne Segerstrom, Ph.D., and Gregory Miller, Ph.D. found that:
So, What is stress? Our experience of our body’s fight or flight response to stimuli whether internal (feelings, perceptions, beliefs) or external (temperature, sound, aggression)is how we understand stress. Primary stress mobilizes the body’s energies and you experience an instantaneous surge in:
Secondary stress can be experienced as good and is often experienced in response to a situation you’ve chosen like a performance, sales presentation, wedding or an important job interview. While healthy and producing some anxiety, good stress can:
If bad stressors persist over time your body will release and consume sugars and fats, negatively affecting your immune system which can compromise your physical and mental well-being. Psychologically, you may experience:
Physical symptoms may include:
Stress and Gender Research on women’s responses to stressors suggests that women experience a wider range of life events (e.g., those happening to friends) as stressful as compared with men who react to a more limited range of stressful events, specifically those affecting themselves or close family members. Studies show that women tend to react more to chronic life stressors like:
while men are more affected by work-related stressors like
Highly-stressed men are twice as likely to suffer symptoms as men who are not while stressed out women, are five times as likely.
Chronic Stress Costs Everyone If stressors persist and situational demands continue to exceed available capacity and energy supply, chronic stress will lead to burnout. In this state of mental and emotional depletion, the body is prone to develop serious physical and mental health conditions that compromise the immune system further, compound effects of arthritis and make pain worse. One study with 10,000 participants over the course of 14 years found that increased work stress was linked to higher chances of developing symptoms of poor metabolic health including:
Employee stress and difficulties in balancing work, health and family, costs Canada $2.7 billion annually. Source:
Conference Board of Canada.
The Life-Work Balance Challenge The facts on life-work balance clarifies the challenge:
Employees with families, surveyed in a 2003 US study, report significantly higher levels of interference between their jobs and their family lives than employees, with men and women spending much less time on themselves, than 25 years ago. Ironically, the study revealed that those experiencing the greatest work spillover into their private lives rely most heavily on communications technology to help them keep in touch with friends and family. Finding the right approach to achieve life-work balance can result in higher levels of motivation, energy and performance according to Perspectives on People, a recent report by Towers Perrin. Change starts with Choice Clearly, people need help with drawing boundaries, setting terms and conditions and defining who they are, not by their workload but by discovering their purpose and aligning their actions with their values. Capacity to innovate is a function of effective thinking, compromised by chronic job stress. A stressful situation may be just the opportunity you need to:
Stopping and deciding to take charge of your life is the first step.
Assess your life satisfaction.
Transform Stress into Creative New Opportunities Stress has multiple contributing causes, and so must have multiple solutions. Understanding how to balance the demands of your life, no matter how many diverse roles you play or how well you play them, becomes critical to managing your responsibilities and achieving sustainable success. How we look at the events in our lives, the attitude we bring to the situation shapes our perception and our experience. Our
self esteem,
self confidence, personal resilience,
emotional intelligence
and social support systems help us develop our coping mechanisms. The good news is that these fluid factors can be developed throughout our entire lives, so there’s always hope and we’re here to help.
Our coaching programs
Coaching works and fast! See what our clients say. Speak with Us Based in Toronto, Canada, KAIZEN Lifestyle Management works with executives, project managers, entrepreneurs, independent professionals, business owners, artists and other creative individuals who are compelled to contribute toward developing a more sustainable world without forsaking themselves in the process. To learn more about how you can benefit from coaching programs and wellness services please contact us at 416 686 6463 for a offer a free no obligation consultation or Contact Us online.
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