The general atmosphere in the corporate work place undeniably grows more and more tense as the year approaches its end. Stress is a “hot topic” at this time of year and it seems as if workers are hyper stressed. Projects have to be finalised, deals closed, strategies developed for the coming year and so on.

For the last few months I have been confronted with stressed-out employees and clients on a daily basis. As such I chose to investigate the negative effects of stress, but instead ended up stumbling upon the fascinating concept of positive stress. The TED Talk by Kelly McGonigal is what inspired this article.

Watch this talk >>

Kelly McGonigal - How to Make Stress Your Friend

Through a study including thousands of participants and spanning over a period of 8 years, McGonigal concludes that it is not stress itself that is harmful, but the perception and the belief that stress is a killer, that will end up killing us.

She claims that if we change our minds about stress, we can change the way we react towards stress and cope with stress. Stress is essentially a reaction of your mind and body, preparing to accept a challenge. And the moment we stop challenging ourselves, is the moment we stop growing.

Being Stress-Fit & Stress Ready

The corporate climate in which we operate throughout the year hardly ever grants us a dull moment. It might be a taxing environment, but it is one that energises us, drives us, pushes us to exceed our own expectations of ourselves, and finally conditions us to better handle stress and operate better under pressure. Working under constant pressure makes us stress-fit and therefore stress-ready, allowing us to build a high stress tolerance. This tolerance especially comes in hand during the last annual month of business.

Being Stress-Sensitive

The more you consider stress to be an absolute curse, the more you will go about your daily activities trying to avoid it. The more you avoid stress the more stress sensitive you will become.

Being hyper stress sensitive means that those who are stress-fit, especially if they are work colleagues or clients, will exceed you regarding performance, dominate you and possibly even intimidate you.

Living to avoid stress will also make one fall into a certain routine over time, which sooner or later will become a personal comfort zone. It is all fine and well to have a comfort zone; however the case is often that one gets stuck in this mind-set of playing it safe and being set in one’s ways. And so, when change occurs, and it will, and you are forced to adapt, an anxiety attack is most likely to be on the cards.

Constructive Stress

The irony is, that if you are not used to handling a fair amount of constructive stress, you will be more prone to experiencing chronic stress in unpleasant or simply unforeseen situations. As mentioned earlier, stress prepares one for a challenge. There can be no challenge devoid of stress.

Next week’s article will discuss further positive views on stress and how to make yourself stress-fit outside of the normal work environment.

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Carla van Straten is a writer for Sound Idea Digital | Carla@soundidea.co.za | www.soundidea.co.za | @SoundIdeaLMS