Theme 1 - Leadership
Managing Stress
Most of the stresses you experience may come from your employment, your family situation or from your lifestyle. Some of these stresses include too much work, having to perform beyond your experience or perceived abilities, having to overcome unnecessary obstacles (a person being difficult) keeping up with new developments, financial problems, relationship problems, ill-health and family changes, such as birth, marriage or divorce. While some stress is inevitably and can even motivate us to action, prolonged stress leads to distress with inevitable consequences. There are six important signs of stress to watch out for when you know you are 'burning the candle at both ends!"
To effectively deal with stress you must:
| Signs of stress |
Detecting the problem |
| Muscle tension Bracing Habit |
Shoulder, neck and back tension which is fatiguing and can be quite painful |
| Hyper vigilant - Aggressive Over-Reactivity |
Setting unrealistically high expectations and struggling against time and other people to achieve superficial success. Setting unreasonable goals. Focusing on quality not quantity as the measure for success.
|
| Tenacious Bulldog Mentality |
Not knowing which battles to fight and when to let go. Fighting all the battles and having no energy for what really counts |
| Disrupted Breathing Patterns |
Every time you hear someone give a "big sigh of relief, it is an indication that during the previous 5-10 seconds the stress of the situation has caused restricting or holding the breath in. Others may hyperventilate. |
| Cold, Sweaty Hands |
When you shake hands with other people you have a very direct indication of that person's emotional state. |
| Negative Self-Talk |
Using self-defeating statements about how bad you will do or how things never seem to work out right. |
If you have identified some of the signs of stress from items 1-6 above go to links below for tips on Managing stress.
This completes Theme 1
