Foreword:
The amount of stress we experience has been linked with chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, hypertension, and more. It can operate silently, or we can be quite conscious of how hurtful and uncomfortable stress makes us. At Lead On, we’ll explore our experience of stress as a primary topic. Hopefully, you’ll find ways to ease stress in your life when you’re here at Lead On.
Stress is real, and everyone has their limit.
Working on an eBook recently, I was formatting the footer for graphics and page number in Microsoft Word. As I researched Word functions, I ran across this bit of trivia, inserted almost randomly within syntax listings:
Note: The PAGE field does not count beyond 32,767.
Wow.
If I wanted to write a Word document that went 32,768 pages, I’d be out of luck. Word says no.
Even Word has its limits.
Excel’s max number of rows? 1,048,576. Number of columns? 16,384.
We all have our limits. What are yours? Maybe a better question is this: How do you know your limits?
We’re talking about stress, and there are lots of stress definitions. Engineering students study stress as physical forces acting against one another. We find stress, loading, strain, and tolerances in engineering calculations, and limits are when something will break.
Back to us – we know our limits when we can’t function well. When we have a breaking point. We know when things progress past what we can tolerate. You know what that looks like for you …
Some of us shut down, while others say things we later regret. Some of us eat a whole lot of ice cream, while others won’t eat at all. Some of us – you know how this goes.
We know our limits because we don’t deal very well with others or ourselves when we’ve hit our limit.
Sometimes during a stressful day, we just want to go home and go back to bed.
There are thousands of responses we can have when stressful events happen. As you probably know, what we do under stress is connected to the ancient fight-or-flight response. We’re wired that way. To survive, we fight or run.
Fighting or running worked really well in ancient times. Today? Some of our responses help us, and some don’t.
Here’s the best news of all: One response can help a lot, it’s not hard, and it even prevents more stress. What is it?
Be aware that things are difficult and decide to breathe deeply for a minute.
Emma Seppala, Ph.D., (see below for Dr. Seppala’s information), calls it a Square Breath. I’ve recommended this to many coaching clients during the last several years – they’ve used it successfully, and some people call it their 4-by-4. Here’s how it works:
- Breathe in as you count 4 seconds. Hold for 4 seconds.
- Breathe out, counting 4 seconds. Hold for 4 seconds.
- Repeat 3x, for a total of 4 sets.
Doing the 4-by-4 takes about one minute. You’ll feel the results within that minute. What results? You’ll feel calmer, able to think more clearly, and you’ll probably be able to come up with an action plan to deal with the stress.
Try it out right now. You’re preparing yourself for when you’ll need it. Being prepared is half the battle.
The rest is recognizing – in the moment – when to use the 4-by-4 before you hit your limit, and then doing it.
Go forth and breathe.
But don’t expect Word to handle your 32,768-page document.
Lead On.
Please let us know if you have comments or suggestions about our future Lead On articles addressing stress.
Emma Seppala, Ph.D., is Science Director, Stanford Center For Compassion and Altruism Research and Education; and Co-Director, Wellness, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. If you’d like to see Dr. Seppala’s cool infographic, The Scientific Benefits of Breathing for Greater Health and Happiness and other resources, check it out here.
Recent Comments