Stress Affects Personal Performance

What is stress? Stress is a mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting condition occurring in response to adverse external influences and capable of affecting physical health, usually characterized by physical reactions such as increased heart rate, muscular constriction, increase blood pressure, frustration, stress and depression.

Stress throws the nervous system out of power and balance. Stress is not always bad. In small doses, being under pressure can help you perform and motivate you to do your best. But when you’re constantly running in emergency mode, your mind and body will pay the price. When you sense danger – whether it’s real or imagined – the body's defenses kick into high gear in a rapid, automatic process known as the “fight-or-flight” reaction, or the stress response.

The stress response is the body’s way of protecting you. When working properly, it helps you stay focused, energetic, and alert. In emergency situations, stress can save your life – giving you extra strength to defend yourself or prompting you to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident.

Stress is not always harmful to you and there are many advantages to stress. The stress response helps you rise to meet challenges and increases your performance. Stress is what keeps you on your toes during work tasks; it increases your creativity, sharpens your concentration in completion events and sports, and keeps you focused while studying for finals when you'd rather be doing something else. How you tolerate stress depends on many factors, including the quality of your relationships, coping skills, outlook on life, life pressures, emotional satisfaction, and past experiences.

At a certain point stress becomes distress and stops being helpful. At this point excessive stress will begin causing major damage to your health, your mood, your productivity, your relationships, and your quality of life.

Harmful Effects

The human body doesn’t distinguish between physical, emotional or psychological threats. When you’re stressed over daily events, family arguments, a crowded highway, or economic pressures your body’s reaction is just as strong as if you were facing a life-or-death situation. The more your emergency stress response -“fight or flight”- is “on”, the harder it for the stress system to shut down.

Recurrent stimulation of the body’s stress system can lead to serious health problems. How much stress is “too much” differs from person to person. Sensitivity to stress can vary also. Some people thrive on excitement and high levels of stress while others crumble from the slightest bit of stress, frustration or life barriers. Chronic exposure to stress can throw every physical system out of balance and cause a constant feeling of fear. As a result your blood pressure can rise; you will get an increased fear response, increased respiration, increase in cortisol hormones, and an increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. Chronic stress can also decrease the effectiveness of your immune system, contribute to infertility and speed up the aging process. Repetitive states of chronic stress can even rewire the brain, leaving you more vulnerable to anxiety, panic and depression. Other health problems that are caused or exacerbated by stress are autoimmune disease, emotional or physical pain, digestive problems, sleep problems, obesity, PTSD symptoms and many skin conditions.

Physical Exercise – Physical exercise of any kind will help to reduce your level of physical stress. Develop a routine of physical exercise whether it is working out at a gym, bike riding, playing catch with your kids, yoga or simple walking 20 minutes a day.

Emotions –Accept your feelings as yours. Gain skills to soothe and calm your emotions when you are feeling sad, lonely, angry or afraid. This will increase your confidence and emotional strength. Learning to balance your emotions helps you to bounce back from adversity and reduces your vulnerability to stress. Emotions are expressed through feelings and feelings are like waves. Feelings come in and go away. Feelings do not last forever whether they are positive or negative.

Sense of Control – If you have a positive mindset toward your ability to influence events and persevere through life’s challenges, you will have more control of your stress level. The more you feel that you are not performing adequately in your life the more vulnerable you are to accumulating stress.

Understanding and Preparation - The more you know about a stress, including the effects, how long it will last and what to expect, the greater your ability to cope.

Utilizing Support Network – The more you are isolated or withdrawn from others, the higher your degree of vulnerability to stress. A strong network of supportive friends and family members is an enormous buffer against life’s stressors.

Practice Relaxation – Learn a method of relaxation. Spend 10 minutes a day with yourself in “me time”. Sit with yourself without distraction.

Humor – Increasing your ability to laugh and not take everything in life personally, will decrease the amount of stress you store.

Follow these 6 suggestions and you will be able to decrease your vulnerability to stress and increase your performance to enhance your life.