SKILL 14
Stress Tolerance
Life is filled with stress. The sources of stress are plentiful and varied—being cut off (or flipped off!) in traffic, preparing a critical business proposal, making a presentation to the management team, preparing for a wedding, dealing with the death of a loved one, caring for a newborn child, moving to a new dream house, or getting that great new promotion. Paradoxically, stress is caused by both happy and sad situations. The stressors in our lives are inescapable.
Dealing with stress is not an if question, it’s a question of when and how often. When it happens, EQ can help one analyze the situation and resourcefully deal with his or her feelings. The problem we face is that our primary response to stress is fight or flight. In past eras, much of our stress was due to threats to our physical safety, such as being chased by a wild animal. Our bodies automatically geared up to deal with the situation, and we physically responded to the problem—stood and fought or ran like heck. When the crisis ended, our bodies returned to normal through a process called the “relaxation response.”
The stress we experience today does not usually require a physical response. However, our bodies and minds still instinctively respond to perceived threat as if a wild animal were involved. We automatically gear up with the fight or flight response, but must then suppress the impulse. We often experience the never-ending pressure of chronic stress, which includes ongoing pressure at work or home, persistent financial issues, or ongoing relationship problems. Doc Childre (1994, p. 3), founder of the HeartMath Institute, asserts, “Stress stimulates the perpetual release of the hormones adrenaline, noradrenalin, and cortisol, which eventually sear the body like a constant drizzle of acid. If left unchecked, chronic stress—along with attitudes like hostility, anger, and depression—can sicken and eventually kill us.”
Given the dramatic impact of unchecked stress, to remain healthy, we must expand our ability to tolerate and manage it—along with all its implications.
Bar-On defines stress tolerance as:
“The ability to withstand adverse events and stressful situations without ‘falling apart’ by actively and positively coping with stress. . . . This ability is based on (1) a capacity to choose courses of action for coping with stress (i.e., being resourceful and effective, being able to come up with suitable methods, and knowing what to do and how to do it), (2) an optimistic disposition toward new experiences and change in general and toward one’s ability to successfully overcome the specific problem at hand (i.e., a belief in one’s ability to face and handle these situations), and (3) a feeling that one can control or influence the stressful situation (i.e., keeping calm and maintaining control).” (2002, p. 17)
WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT STRESS TOLERANCE?
Are you kidding! The quality of one’s life is profoundly impacted by his or her ability to tolerate stress. If a person cannot tolerate stress, he or she cannot live well. Being constantly stressed out leads to physical and psychological damage and negatively impacts one’s effectiveness. Handling stress supports health and boosts effectiveness.
People who do not deal effectively with mounting stress often resort to self-medication—drug or alcohol abuse, tobacco use, abnormal eating patterns, or unhealthy lifestyles.
Stress increases heart attack risk. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Stress and anger may increase your risk of coronary artery disease . . . ” (www.MayoClinic.com). Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and School of Hygiene and Public Health followed a group of more than 1,055 men for thirty-two to forty-eight years to study their incidence of premature heart disease compared with anger responses to stress. Those who had the highest level of anger and reported experiencing irritability and expressed or concealed anger were more than three times as likely to develop premature heart disease and over six times more likely to have a heart attack by age fifty-five (Chang, Ford, Meoni, Wang, & Klag, 2002).
Bar-On and Handley (1999) emphasize the relationship between strengths in stress management and impulse control. When we control our impulses, we reduce potential stress factors. This is one of many links that can be made between effective stress control and enhancing other emotional intelligence factors.
HOW CAN WE BUILD STRESS TOLERANCE?
STRESS TOOLKIT—BE PREPARED
- Perfect techniques to manage the psychological and physiological impacts of stress, for example, structured breathing, visualization, and affirmations.
- Develop strategies for coping with stress so they are readily available in the heat of the situation, for example, “The next time I get a ‘snippy’ voicemail from Chris, I will do a brief meditation before responding.”
- Get more exercise!
Who does your client know who tolerates stress well? Have your client ask that role model for tips and pointers.
Stress tolerance and optimism present us with a classic “chicken and egg” conundrum—which came first? In reality, they are very symbiotic. Strength in one area contributes to mastery in the other. As Bar-On implies, optimism and stress tolerance are inexorably intertwined. You must maintain a positive outlook and have confidence that you will successfully ride the roller coaster ride of life.
Develop strategies and techniques for preventing and dealing with stress. Research what is available, identify what seems most interesting and doable to you, and then try it out. Available approaches include exercise, meditation, visualization, deep-breathing exercises, muscle relaxation techniques, biofeedback, and massage therapy. Apply these methods as you work with your clients to choose the most appropriate strategies for their situations.
Other methods of managing stress involve reprioritizing activities and involvement. Shift from stress-producing to stress-reducing activities, including exercise, recreational activities, or mini-vacations. Diet is another key ingredient in managing stress. Eating too many unhealthy foods and not enough healthy ones creates a drag on one’s body, which is saddled with processing junk and trying to maintain health with insufficient fuel.
One way to build stress tolerance is to enhance communication skills and muster some courage. Many times people avoid chronically stressful issues rather than resolve them with constructive discussion. You might urge your clients to improve their ability to talk about and resolve sensitive issues using openness and appropriate consideration while maintaining respect for themselves and others.
Finally, apply generous doses of humor. Maintain a sense of humor during difficult situations. It helps to regulate hormone levels and produces those much sought after endorphins!
Success breeds success. As one improves his or her ability to deal with stress and expands his or her portfolio of stress management strategies, confidence builds because the person knows he or she can handle it. As one’s confidence builds, so does one’s optimistic outlook regarding managing future stressful situations.
STAR PERFORMERTom Hanks shows up smiling, calm, gracious, and happy to support others in succeeding. He’s a gifted actor, winning the Academy Awards for best actor for Philadelphia Story and for Forrest Gump and for director and producer. He is quoted on The Internet Movie Database as saying, “My work is more fun than fun but, best of all, it’s still very scary. You are always walking some kind of high wire. I guess it’s like being a sportsman. When people ask great football stars or cricketers what they will miss most when the time comes to stop, they’ll tell you that it’s that moment when the ball comes to them. In that moment, there’s that wonderful anxiety, that feeling of ‘Please don’t let me screw this up.’ If I didn’t have the chance to do what I do, it’s that I would miss more than anything. That terror is what makes me feel alive. It’s a wonderful feeling, unlike anything else in the world.” What a great description of using stress tolerance to move forward but not let it become debilitating.
REEL PERFORMERPrecious was originally released as Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire and stars Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe as Precious Jones, a high-school girl struggling at a level that makes success seem impossible. She is pregnant with her father’s child—for the second time. She can’t read or write, and her schoolmates tease her for being quite overweight. Her home life is horrific, given the incest from her father and a tyrannical mother (Mo’Nique) who keeps her imprisoned at both a physical and emotional level. Out of this apparently dire situation, Precious rises to the glory of learning to read. After she is thrown out of school for her second pregnancy, Precious is referred to an alternative school, where she finally experiences someone caring for her. Precious is a young woman who—with creativity, humor, and ferocity—finds the strength to turn her life around. She does not let herself become sabotaged by the enormous stress in her life.