When did you last have one of those stressful days. . .the kind that proves Murphy's law about everything going wrong that possibly could:

- The alarm didn't go off and you missed your 7:30 meeting.

- The stove went on the blink as you were fixing breakfast.

- The secretary of your community club resigned so you answered letters all day.

- Club members decided they didn't have time to prepare for the Fair booth next week and you are going to lose the $50 deposit that you made from your personal account.

- You got stuck in a traffic jam on the way home.

As the pressure mounts, so does your blood pressure and soon your head aches or your stomach hurts. You begin snapping at everyone (including strangers). Your heart pounds and you find yourself either becoming more aggressive or withdrawing into yourself.

What you are experiencing is a stress attack, and it is one of the most common phenomenon in today's world of work. According to management expert Karl Albrecht, stress-related illness costs industry over 150 billion dollars a year. It has become known as the "quiet killer," as it contributes to most of the major health problems (i.e., heart disease, hypertension, ulcers, cancer).

By the time you finish this module you should be able to:

1. Anticipate situations and events that cause stress.
2. Prepare yourself to better deal with stress.

As a leader in today's world, you not only need to understand stress, but you must also learn to manage it effectively if you are to survive in a healthy, productive, and successful manner. Your very life may depend on your skill in anticipating and handling stress!

Let's examine that hectic set of events we listed above. There are three components of stress in each of them.

1. The stressor - that event or incident in the environment that arouses stress.

2. Your perception of that stressor (how it will affect you).

3. Your reaction or physical and emotional response to the stressor based on that perception.

This information explains why some people view a seemingly stressful incident so much more calmly than others. Let's take the traffic jam for instance. One person impatiently views it as a maddening inconvenience. Another person in the next car may see it as a chance to listen to a favorite tape and unwind before re-entering his or her life with the family. It's the same traffic jam--but both the perceptions and reactions are very different. Therefore, it is stress-inducing to one and stress-reducing to the other.

What this points out is that in coping with stress, we have three options:

1. remove ourselves from the situation or stressor;

2. re-engineer the situation so it is no longer stressful;

3. teach ourselves to react differently (change our attitudes) regarding things we find stressful that we cannot change or leave.

Research has shown that it is prolonged, unrelieved stress that is the most debilitating, so those are the situations to work on first. Two frequent responses to stress are either anger or fear and they evoke different reactions:

Anger - fight

Fear - flight

Both responses involve the entire body. The stress response pumps the necessary adrenaline and blood throughout our system to help us mobilize for action. When we stay in a stressful situation too long, we end up "stewing in our own juices" and this can have serious consequences to our health and well being.

Dr. Donald Tubesing, a well-known author and lecturer on stress management, sounds a hopeful note. He states that most people handle 98 percent of potentially stressful situations successfully. The other two percent are what cause the problem. He and other experts remind us that not all stress is bad, as it is often what provides the excitement and zest that counteracts boredom and stagnation. The key is to find your appropriate and healthy stress level and to choose which stresses to keep and which to shed. Tubesing also notes that this sorting out process can be aided by asking yourself these three questions:

1. Does a threat exist?

2. Is it worth a fight?

3. If I fight, will it make a difference?

By answering these questions, it will help you keep from "spending $10 worth of adrenaline on a 10 cent problem." The goal is to try to learn to expend the appropriate amount of energy on problems or stressors based on their long term importance to you. If you overreact to small things (like traffic jams and lost socks) you will use up your stress energy inappropriately.

One of the most seductive temptations for leaders is be all things to all people. This is sometimes referred to as the "Messiah Complex." It is what leads to longer and longer hours, more and more projects, weekend and evening commitments, and eventual burnout. It so often looks easier, quicker, and more effective to do things yourself rather than going through the time and effort to recruit, train, and supervise volunteers to help you. Besides, it's kind of nice to feel you have climbed on that pedestal called "indispensable." Remember--the only way to get off a pedestal is down and it behooves you to climb down before you fall off!

A large part of your job as a leader is to be a manager: someone who works with and through others to accomplish organizational goals. And how those "others" feel about working with you has a tremendous impact on both the quality and quantity of work they will do. . .which has a tremendous impact on your own perceptions of your effectiveness as a manager. . .which has a tremendous impact on your own stress level . . .which has a tremendous impact on your health and peace of mind.

In the book Survival Skills for Managers, several suggestions are listed to help manage the stress in your life:

1. Clarify your values. Be sure that most of your time and energy goes towards those things of greatest value to you;

2. Take good care of yourself physically through exercise and nutrition;

3. Create and use personal support systems where you can share your successes;

4. Learn to let go of past resentments, toxic relationships, and bad health habits;

5. Seek variety and a well-rounded personality--avoid being a one-dimensional workaholic;

6. Maintain optimism and keep some optimists around you;

7. Try to make the workplace and work itself more enjoyable;

8. Don't let small things become a hassle;

9. Take responsibility for yourself,

a. Take action today to change what needs to be changed,

b. Develop creativity and flexibility, and

c. Have faith that things can be different.

Most effective leaders have been, first of all, effective as persons. They are well-rounded, involved, enthusiastic life-long learners who always see themselves on a "journey of becoming."

Instructions: Check off each of these life events that has happened to you during the past year. Total the points for the items checked.

There seems to be a well-documented and clear relationship between life change and physical disease. It is impossible to make accurate predictions on an individual basis, since most of these findings are statistical. In our subjective judgment, we would estimate that you might be able to interpret your life change scores as follows:

*From Holmes, Thomas H., and Rahe, Richard H., "Holmes-Rahe Social Readjustment Rating Scale," Journal of Psychosomatic Research, Vol. II, Pergamon Press, Ltd., 1967.

Now go back and look at each item that you checked. What can you do to lessen the stress? Can you

1. remove yourself from the situation,

2. re-engineer the situation so it is no longer stressful, or

3. teach yourself to react differently to stressful situations that you cannot change?

Write down any answers that occur to you:

Teaching yourself to react differently to a stressful situation may seem difficult. There are many techniques for relieving your own stress. Try this one:

Sit on the edge of a straight chair, your knees about 12 inches apart, your legs slanting forward at an angle greater than 90 degrees. (To relax, it is important not to be distracted by tight clothing, and to set aside your watch and glasses.) Sit up very straight. Now let yourself collapse like a rag doll, your head forward, your spine rounded, your hands coming to rest on your knees. Check yourself to be sure you are comfortable and then talk to yourself: "My right arm is heavy, my right arm is heavy..." Repeat this 10 times while concentrating on your arm from the armpit to the fingertips. Then make a fist, flex your arms, take a deep breath and open your eyes. Repeat the procedure three or four times a day. After you become adept at making your right arm heavy, you can extend the heaviness to legs and the whole body until you can relax from head to toe. Use this technique when you feel yourself getting tense.

Another technique is to sigh deeply, making a sound of deep relief. Let all of the air out of your lungs. Then simply permit the air to come back in. You do not have to force yourself to inhale; it will happen naturally. Do this 10 times.

When it becomes natural and pleasant to breathe "into your stomach," practice it at odd moments during the day, taking three or four deep breaths and putting all your attention into the relaxation of breathing. When you have learned to get that relaxed feeling from the breathing, you can practice every time you start to feel tense. When your throat tightens as you are driving and you have to stop at a red light, use this time to breathe. When something upsetting happens at the office or at home, stop and breathe. These simple, natural breaths, given some attention, have a potent effect as circuit breakers for tension.

Try the relaxation techniques at least once each day for a week--when you feel tense.

Are there other simple relaxation techniques that you have used successfully? Share them with a friend.

RESOURCE FOR FURTHER STUDY