Dealing with Stress

This is an unusual morning for me as for the first time, I’m doing this call from my home and not from my office. The reason is that for the past week, I’ve had a problem with my back. On Thursday, I pulled a muscle in my back and spent Friday at home. They say the only thing for a back problem is to reflect on what is on your ceiling. So there I was prone, lying down flat, letting it recover. Friday, I thought I was better, went to office towards the evening. Then Sunday morning the pain was back and walking was excruciating. Managed to get through what I do on a Sunday, but spent yesterday again on my back. Unable to go to office this morning, I said I would do the call from home. But what’s interesting is that, as I was dealing with the back pain, my wife Sheila who is a clinical psychologist asked me what was stressing me out. I replied in the negative. But she said that when you have these chronic back problems, it could be stress-related. Typical response from somebody who’s being told they can’t handle a situation is to say there’s no problem, I’m fine.
But lying on your back gives you time for reflection. Some of you may understand what I am saying. Sometimes your best thinking is when you do nothing but lie flat on your back and let the thoughts come and then spend some time thinking about it. And I thought to myself, I wonder if she’s right. I wonder if the back issue is something to do with stress. She knows what she’s talking about. People pay to have her opinion on certain issues. So I decided to take it a little seriously and check myself and find out if indeed what I’m going through is stress-related. As I thought about it, I began to wonder if this was an issue worth talking about on this Tuesday morning.

How do we all handle our stress?

I was reading an article that came out in the Times of India quite a few years ago. I wish I could give you the article but this morning started out as a stressful morning. I had all my material in front of me and at 8:25, my word document decided it had to shut down. Much to my horror, I lost all my stuff and along with it was this article that I had downloaded to share with you. So forgive me if I cannot give you the exact name of the person who wrote it. But as you can understand, it also contributed to my stress level, because suddenly all my notes had gone. So I’ve been frantically trying to get it all back again.

Coming back to this article, this person said that India Inc. – talking about all that’s going on with business activities in India, is finding itself increasingly under stress. A survey taken by an NGO said that 50% of people in the workforce in India are under stress and unable to cope with it but just go through each day with the fallout of that stress in their lives. Thinking about that I wondered how my friends on the Tuesday morning call are doing.

How do you handle stress? Are you under stress or are you not even aware that stress could be a contributing factor to some of the things that may be going on in your life? It may seem that there’s nothing you can do about your stress levels, bills aren’t going to stop coming, there’ll never be more hours in the day for all the stuff that you need to do for your career, family responsibilities and they’re always so demanding. But you have a lot more control than you might think. In fact, the simple realization that you’re in control of your life is the foundation of stress management.

Managing stress is all about taking charge - taking charge of your thoughts, your emotions, your schedule, your environment and the way you deal with problems. The ultimate goal is a balanced life with time for work, relationships, relaxation and fun plus the resilience to hold up under pressure and meet challenges head-on.

But the first thing that you and I need to do is to identify the sources of stress in our lives. Where is stress coming from? Stress management starts with identifying those sources. Now this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Your true source of stress isn’t always obvious. Sometimes it’s easy to overlook your own stress-inducing thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It can come from work deadlines; it can also come from procrastination rather than the actual job demands that lead to deadline stress itself. But to identify true sources of stress, we need to look carefully at our habits, our attitudes and sometimes, our excuses. How do we do that?

Three questions:

1. Do you explain away stress as temporary even though you can’t remember the last time you took a breather? You possibly say you just have a million things going on right now and explain it away.
2. Do you define stress as an integral part of your work or home life? Possibly saying, ‘Things are crazy around here’, or ‘that it’s part of your personality. I have a lot of nervous energy, that’s all.’
3. Do you blame your stress on other people or outside events or view it as entirely normal and unexceptional. Until you accept responsibility for the role you play in creating or maintaining it, your stress level will remain outside your control.

Remember what I said in the beginning. The key to being able to handle your stress is, to be in control of your life, to be in control of the things that are going on around you. But the only way you can be in control is to know the stresses or the things that sometimes get out of hand. Now many people and psychologists will say, ‘Being under stress to a certain degree is good. In fact it gets the adrenaline going.’ You’re on a job, a new project, and a certain level of stress comes to help you function more. But the key always is to make sure your stress level comes back to an equilibrium level in your life. Being continuously stressed is what causes the problems.

What are ways that you can reduce your stress level? After you find out the regular stresses in your life, each time you feel stressed, keep track of it in your journal. Put down a daily log, see patterns and common themes. What caused your stress? Make a guess if you’re unsure. How did you feel, physically, emotionally? How did you act in response? What you did, did it make you feel better? Look at how you currently cope with stress. Think about the ways you currently manage and cope with the stresses in your life. And this journal can help you identify it.

But let me say this, even though I’m dealing with a huge topic and one that needs a seminar, (looking at the newspapers this last week or so, the number of suicides that have been happening with our youngsters, 9-13 year olds taking their lives, recognizing that they are unable to handle the stress in their lives). It augurs well to know how to handle stress for ourselves and for our children and for people in the workplace.

But, just before I close, I want to tell you to make sure you have positive ways of handling stress. Make sure you are not handling stress with unhealthy ways. What are unhealthy ways?

• Smoking,
• Drinking too much,
• Overeating or under eating,
• Zoning out for hours in front of the TV or computer,
• Withdrawing from friends, family and activities,
• Using pills or drugs to relax,
• Sleeping too much,
• Procrastinating,
• Filling up every minute of the day to avoid facing problems, taking out your stress on others, lashing out, angry outbursts, and physical violence.

All of these are unhealthy ways of handling stress.

I’ve thrown out quite a few things this morning. But I think the key factor here is: all of us are under stress to some degree or another. And how we cope with stress in our lives will allow us to live our lives in healthy ways, in an environment that is good for us and good for others, especially for all of you in the workplace. What kind of an environment are you creating for yourself and for the people who work with you, around you, under you?

I was reminded of this verse as I was struggling in these last 5 minutes to get my thoughts together on this call after having my notes taken out and trying to get back to some of the things that I had prepared for this call.
“Cast your cares upon Him (which is upon God) for He cares for you.” Cast your burdens upon God for He cares for you.
I thought to myself what a wonderful world it would be, if I could take that verse and use it in my immediate work environment. For example, think about my immediate superior. If I could cast my cares, my burdens, upon him. What does it mean? A burden is something that has gotten too heavy for me to bear. It’s something that is beyond what I can handle. Then it begins to be a burden. What if I could take that particular burden to my supervisor and know that instead of getting shouted at or, all the other ways that we normally handle something like that, he or she cares for me, enough to be able to say, “I recognize that this is a burden and beyond your ability to handle. Here are ways that you can handle. Let me come alongside of you and help you handle it.”

That’s the way it is with God. When we take our burdens to Him we are saying, “Almighty God, I can’t handle this. It is way beyond me. It’s causing me undue stress.” And God comes alongside of us and says, “I’ll help you with this. I have infinite wisdom and I’ll take care of it.” Immediately we find that this is no longer a burden, immediately stress reduces.

Maybe today you would bring a little bit of God’s character into your life. Look at the people around you and say, “Are they carrying excessive burdens which are causing stress in their lives? Maybe today I can be a caring manager, a caring leader. I can come alongside and help them to cope with something.” Remember – that’s the way God is. If you’re in a situation where you don’t’ have people around you to do that, remember you can go to God and say: “God I’m overwhelmed this morning. I’ve got a burden that is just too heavy.” And God’s infinite wisdom will come alongside of you. Cast your burdens upon him for he cares for you

God bless you all.