Don't Get Trapped with this S.O.B.

How stress makes you sick, keeps you trapped and stifles your team’s potential

When left unaddressed, stress, overwhelm and burnout (S.O.B.) can be deadly killers. There has been solid research on this for decades, yet we continue to ignore this information at personal, organizational, and societal levels. It’s as though we’ve been given the blueprints, materials, and tools to create a beautiful home, but we decide it’s too much work and we’d rather live in an apartment infested with black mold. The apartment – our current way of living – will definitely have negative effects on our health, but moving is too big of a hassle. 

So we stay put and sacrifice our health. 

This is a terrible idea!

“Stress is the body’s reaction to harmful situations” – it exists for good reason, to keep us alive (WebMD). But it’s not meant to be a long-term state of being. Keeping ourselves in a state of stress leads to overwhelm, and eventually burnout. We have nothing left to give and our body rebels. You may break out in hives, start to see fluctuation in your weight, have inexplicable recurring headaches, disrupted gastro-intestinal functions, a constant cold, an unfocused brain, acne or even start to lose your hair (Business Insider). 

In his landmark book, “Why Zebras don’t get Ulcers?”, Robert Sapolsky, PhD, a Neuroendocrinologist at Stanford, explains how stress isn’t just a transient feeling. Its effect, as he studied over decades, is premature aging, premature diseases, and premature death. Stress makes you sick physically. It raises risk of all chronic diseases - obesity, heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes, not to mention sexual problems. Stress also makes you sick mentally. It takes away your ability to work, earn, and invest. It raises risk of depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug use, and suicide. It adds to relationship problems at work, and home, and is a risk factor for divorce. 

All of this is avoidable.

Psychology Today tell us that “it’s important to recognize the connection between stress and your health and make stress relief a priority” (emphasis added). 

Artists describe burnout as feeling blocked – when stressed or overwhelmed they’re unable to produce work they’re proud of. And yet, Steve Jobs has said, “if you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away.” This can also be used as a tool against our enemy the S.O.B. – not looking back. Our bodies often react in a stressed way because of past experiences, instead of evaluating the present properly. Living in the moment, evaluating each situation as it comes instead of judging it based on pre-supposed facts, can help our brains and bodies fight stress and live more fulfilled lives. 

Because stress attacks us both mentally and physically, it’s vital to modify our responses to stress as it modifies its attacks. Precisely the reason I do what I do. I’ve spent nearly a decade coaching healthcare leaders to create remote work environments for their teams that actively boost employee engagement and combat stress, overwhelm and burnout on practical, implementable, daily levels. 

Ready to find relief for your harried team? Contact us today to get started. We have individual and group coaching options available for all types of teams.