Step 1
Understand that stress comes from inside you
Over the last 25 years or so the topic of stress has been a pretty hot one, with hundreds if not thousands of books, tapes, lectures, and seminars devoted to the topic. If you have ever been to a lecture or seminar, you know that your could be in for anything from an exciting description of how your adrenal glands work to monkey studies to explorations of how you can thrill your inner child. Having been to a few of these myself over the years, I have developed one important understanding: more often than not, most people miss the point, and don’t really have a useful way of conceptualizing stress. Sometimes it seems that the only options are to pray for magic or go to Lourdes.
There has got to be a better way, and, strangely enough, there is. The problem, I think, is that most definitions and descriptions of stress focus entirely too much on either external factors or things to do (like taking a “5 minute vacation”) after you are already way to stressed out. Although this is an understandable enough thing to do, it does not accurately prescribe a way to decrease stress.
After working with many people over many years, I think that the best way to think of stress is to understand that it is:
The uncomfortable internal state generated when reality does not match expectations.
The nice thing about this definition is that it provides a way to tackle the problem. Two possible solutions emerge – to resolve stress, you can either a) change your expectations or b) change reality.
Changing reality is not as difficult as it sounds, and in fact happens every day. Many people find that their job is distressing or not what they want, and they make a change to new employment. Some individuals even change careers, or major life directions. Divorce is another example of individuals changing a reality or a situation, in the hopes that somehow this will reduce unpleasantness or distress.
Changing reality often can work, and have tremendous positive benefits. On the other hand, many individuals to do so find that they ultimately end up in the same situation with the same unhappiness. In other words, although their reality changed, there expectations remained constant and it was the expectations that were the problem in the first place. Like they say, when you try to run away from yourself, you usually go along for the ride.
The second implication of the definition given above is the real key to managing stress. My belief is that the bulk of stress comes from this perceived failure to meet expectations. Although this is not an original idea, it can be restated as “it’s not the situation that gives stress- it’s your way of looking at the situation”. Face it –no one gets stressed out if they feel like they are doing a fine job of whatever it is they are doing, despite the feedback from other people. I have been unable to think of anyone who was stressed out when everything was going great. In fact, most people’s definition of “great” is when things are meeting or exceeding expectations.
Changes in the health-care industry provide a great example of how failure to meet expectations create stress. You may have heard that revenues and earnings of health care professionals have really taken a hit over the last few years. You can probably see that a physician who expected to earn half a million a year would be stressed out attempting to live on $250,000 per year.
At the same time, it is easy to understand how many people would be ecstatic to earn $250,000 per year. The point is that stress or lack of stress is controlled by what you expect.
I ran into a similar situation in 8th grade science class. A fellow student, who will go nameless, had never made less than a “100" on a test during her entire academic life. Yes, it really is true. At any rate, when one test was returned (the teacher was a supportive, non discriminating type who announced each person’s grade and handed them out from highest to lowest- this was obviously before all that “self-esteem” stuff hit academic circles) she made a .... gasp.....97.5. Forget that the rest of us budding scientists had grades starting at about 42, she lost it. Years later when I read the definition of “apoplexy” I immediately thought of that episode, even though she thrashed a bit before she passed out.
Back to the point, the rest of us would have been thrilled to have a 97.5.
So, the moral of these stories is that the first step to reducing stress is to understand that your expectations control your stress level. People who are stressed out almost always have unrealistic expectations about their behavior, life, and the behavior of others. If you can get a grip on what you expect, you can reduce your stress level. Unfortunately, expectations tend to be deeply ingrained and take some work, though not very difficult work, to change.
Through the next steps we will look at how you can control your thinking to change your expectations and lower your stress. This can be done. You can do it. All you have to do is keep reading, turn the pages, and, when necessary, complete an exercise.