Stress needs a good PR firm. The court of public opinion is shouting, “Hey, ho. Stress has gotta go!” while shaking their angry emoji fists across social media.
And who can blame them?
For many, the last few years have been stress on top of stress. Never mind the pandemic. Between labour shortages, layoffs, the cost of gas and groceries, social and political unrest, and the great debate between remote and in-office productivity, it’s been a lot to handle.
It’s no wonder employees are reporting higher levels of stress and burnout. Statistics Canada found that 21.2 per cent of all employed people reported “high or very high levels” of work-related stress.
Stress levels peaked at 27.3 per cent for health-care and social workers, a parting gift from the pandemic. This impact on quality of life and overall health resulted in 2.4 days lost among employees over 12 months, which doesn’t bode well for Canada’s already diminished productivity rates.
Whether we’d like to admit it or not, stress is an inevitable part of work and life and can’t be avoided or eliminated. We can, however, shift how we think about stress, help repair its reputation and save ourselves in the process.
Good Stress
Yes, good stress exists! Stress, or activation, mobilizes us to focus, meet a deadline or come up with that big idea. Our pace quickens, we focus and we get a boost of energy to help cross the finish line.
It also helps keep us safe. As much as we’ve evolved, we are still hard-wired for survival. Activation helps us brake suddenly to avoid a collision or that hot cup of coffee we dropped rushing to a meeting.
Stress activates our nervous system’s sympathetic branch to pull us away from a perceived threat (our fight-or-flight response), which we can harness in small doses to give us that drive we need at work. In a regulated nervous system, we move smoothly between stress cycles of activation and deactivation countless times daily.
Bad Stress
We run into trouble with stress when we become stuck in an activated state. Imagine your stress as a radio with a broken volume dial. It’s blasting heavy metal, and you can’t turn it down or off. Bad stress happens when we experience too much activation for too long (such as the pandemic). Or we’re exposed to too much at once (like a new boss at work).
We know that good stress activates our nervous system by engaging a fight-or-flight response. But what if we get stuck there? Over time, we perceive even little things as threats, and we lose the ability to move smoothly between activation and deactivation (our on and off buttons). Our nervous system is constantly scanning for danger — even an email can be distracting, even threatening. Unsurprisingly, this state takes a ton of energy. Hypervigilance can lead to exhaustion and, eventually, burnout. Not healthy!
Avoiding Burnout
Burnout happens when we get stuck in our parasympathetic branch (the off button). Ultimately, we get so overloaded that our system feels like the only way to protect us is to shut down, like an animal pretending to be asleep to avoid capture. We are immobilized, unable to make decisions and utterly overwhelmed. Also not healthy!
Stress isn’t inherently bad and can actually serve us — we just aren’t designed to stay in an activated state for long periods. The next time you feel your pulse rising at work, get curious about how stress is showing up for you.
How do you notice it? (This could be changed behaviour, shifts in sensations, mood, energy levels, etc.)
Can you identify it as good or bad stress?
If it’s good stress, how could it serve you in a positive way?
If it’s bad stress, what is contributing to this, and how can you intervene?
When we build awareness about how and when stress appears (both good and bad), we can intervene earlier, learn to avoid burnout and repurpose energy toward solving real problems at work. Three things to remember: adopt a positive attitude, focus on core beliefs and reframe the situation as something to be solved, not feared.
Danielle Smeltzer, founder of Awarely Embodied Leadership, is a passionate advocate for trauma-informed leadership and progressive workplace well-being.
