Day 20 - Coping with Stress

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Day 20 - Coping with stress

29 April 2020

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What is stress?

When you perceive a threat or a major challenge, chemicals and hormones surge throughout your body. This is called stress. It is basically a survival mechanism of our body. 

There is good stress (eustress), bad stress (acute stress) and chronic stressEustress is the type of stress when we feel excited e.g. when riding a roller coaster or when competing for a promotion etc.

Acute stress is a short term stress because of some stressors e.g. stuck in a traffic jam when we are late for a meeting, an argument with your spouse, an unkind criticism from your boss etc. 

Chronic stress is a long term stress brought on by continual acute stresses when we repeatedly face stressors. This condition gives a feeling of helplessness and a feeling of being put in inescapable state. Chronic stress causes many physical and mental health related issues e.g. heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide.

My learning for the day

Symptoms of stress

The American Institute of Stress lists 50 common symptoms of stress.

Listing only a few of the 50 symptoms here so that you are not unnecessarily stressed😆 - 

• Unexplained or frequent allergy attacks
• Depression, frequent or wild mood swings
• Forgetfulness, disorganization, confusion
• Feelings of loneliness or worthlessness
• Weight gain or loss without diet

Main causes of workplace stress

• Workload - 46% (Should we learn to do better work planning? Should we learn to say ‘No’ for additional work?)
• People issues - 28% (Can improving our interpersonal skills help?)
• Juggling work and personal life - 20% (Will prioritisation and giving equal importance to work-life and personal life help? Will regular ‘no-excuse’ physical and mental exercise regime help?)
• Lack of job security 6% (Can we learn to love the job that we have? Can we do at least one task a day that will amaze us?) 

Holmes-Rahe stress inventory

Psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe conducted a study in 1967 and listed down 43 stressful life events that can contribute to illness.

• Stress related to deaths appears thrice in the list (death of spouse, death of close family member, death of a close friend) (Could we create/ collect moments/ memories of togetherness in a planned manner so that we don’t have a feeling of guilt when the person is no more?) 
• Stress related to relationship with spouse appears 9 times (divorce, separation, marital reconciliation, sexual difficulties, trouble with in-laws, pregnancy, major holiday, event of marriage, spouse starts or stop work) (Could we assign a fixed time in our calendars to nurture this relationship?) 
• Stress related to work appears 7 times (dismissal from work, retirement, change to different line of work, change in responsibilities at work, outstanding achievement, trouble with boss, change in working hours/ conditions) (Could we learn to use the workplace for personal growth/ a career gym? I found a good site that talks about career workout that consists of Career Fitness, Career Wellbeing and Career Branding)

Wish you success in mastering the art of coping with stress. 

How to improve your coping skills?

Set a goal to become a go-to person by mastering the art and science of coping with stress. 

Follow the LAST model to build your personal brand as a Guru of stress management. 

1. Learn - Invest time in learning different frameworks/ models/ techniques of coping with stress 
2. Apply - 
• Identify a model suitable to you
• Create a template to document the flow of the process
• Find opportunities to use the selected method/ template
• Maintain record/ process flow of every important activities you did to cope with stress
• Maintain notes of your thoughts/ insights/ failures/ challenges…. to be used for sharing/ training others
3. Share - Share the insights captured in step 2 above in a planned manner (social media posts, blogs, videos, study notes…)
4. Train - Generate opportunities to train your peers and team members so that, over time, your organization benefits from your efforts

Purpose of this document

I took a 66 day challenge to study Life Skills last year (10 April 2019). To my astonishment, I succeeded in studying for 66 days one skill a day. 

My objectives of learning these skills were - To strengthen my mind to face life’s challenges with ease, To use these skills in my worklife for a better performance, To use these skills in my personal life for enriching my relationships, To open new possibilities to surprise myself. 

This is my next 66 day challenge (from 10 April 2020) - To share my Life Skills learning with my social media friends. 

I pray that my toil helps you in your success journey.

What are Life Skills?

UNICEF defines Life skills as - psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They are loosely grouped into three  broad categories of skills

• cognitive skills for analyzing and using information, 
• personal skills for developing personal agency and managing oneself, 
• inter-personal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others.

Which LifeSkills are covered?

The World Health Organisation identified these basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures: 

1. Decision-making
2. Problem-solving
3. Creative thinking
4. Critical thinking
5. Communication
6. Interpersonal skills
7. Self-awareness
8. Empathy
9. Coping with emotions
10. Coping with stress.

Some trivia

‘Life skills’ was never part of the school curriculum. WHO/ UNESCO mandated academia to teach these skills in all schools across the globe in 1993.

Different countries educate their children in these skills with different objectives

• Zimbabwe and Thailand - prevention of HIV/AIDS
• Mexico - prevention of adolescent pregnancy
• United Kingdom - child abuse prevention
• USA - prevention of substance abuse and violence
• South Africa and Colombia - positive socialization of children.