Stressed Out? Manage High Stress Situations

By Roberta Cava

Are you prone to stress? Is your stress level off the scale?
If so, this book is for you! Learn how to control the constant stress of everyday living at home and at work and start enjoying life.
Spend more time doing things you want to do and become energized so you can accomplish much more than you have in the past. Learn about:
* The results of too much stress
* How to deal with anger and worry
* Sleep and fatigue problems
* Workaholism and burnout
* Signs of Heart attack and stroke

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cava Consulting
• Release date: Oct 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648443704

Roberta Cava

Roberta Cava is the author of 30 books. Two of them are international best-sellers. Her Dealing with Difficult People book was published in 1990 (23 publishers in 17 languages). She was born in Canada but now lives on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia.

Book preview

Stressed

Out?

Manage High Stress Situations

ROBERTA CAVA

Copyright © 2018 by Roberta Cava

Stressed Out?

Manage High Stress Situations

Roberta Cava

Published by Cava Consulting

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National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-publication data:

ISBN 978-0648443704

BOOKS BY ROBERTA CAVA

Non-Fiction

Dealing with Difficult People

(23 publishers – in 17 languages)

Dealing with Difficult Situations – at Work and at Home

Dealing with Difficult Spouses and Children

Dealing with Difficult Relatives and In-Laws

Dealing with Domestic Violence and Child Abuse

Dealing with School Bullying

Dealing with Workplace Bullying

What am I going to do with the rest of my life?

Before tying the knot – Questions couples Must ask each other Before they marry!

How Women can advance in business

Survival Skills for Supervisors and Managers

Keeping our children safe

Just Say NO!

Human Resources at its Best!

Human Resources Policies and Procedures - Australia

Employee Handbook

Easy Come – Hard to go – The Art of Hiring, Disciplining and Firing Employees

Time and Stress – Today’s silent killers

Take Command of your Future – Make things Happen

Belly Laughs for All! – Volumes 1 to 6

Wisdom of the World! The happy, sad and wise things in life!

Fiction

That Something Special

Retirement Village Bullies

Life Gets Complicated

Life Goes On

Life Gets Better

DEDICATION

Dedicated to my support group of loyal friends and family who were always there when I needed them.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks to Holmes and Richard Rahe for allowing me to use their Holmes-Rahe scale that determines a person's stress level.

STRESSED OUT?

Manage High Stress Situations

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - What is stress?

Chapter 2 - How prone are you to stress?

Chapter 3 - Results of too much stress

Chapter 4 - Dealing with anger and worry

Chapter 5 - Sleep and fatigue

Chapter 6 - How to relieve stress

Chapter 7 - Handling stress at work

Chapter 8 - Stress exercises and relievers

Chapter 9 - Workaholism and burnout

Conclusion

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

My interest in stress management occurred when I discovered that every time my stress level rose, an old back injury reared its ugly head. With the responsibility of single motherhood, I couldn't take the chance of being incapacitated with the pain - too much was riding on my paycheque.

Later, I learned to cope with the constant stress of my job - the trials and tribulations of keeping my company going, the pressure of always being up-to-date with material for my seminars, arranging seminar bookings for myself and my twelve associate trainers, the travel and living out of a suitcase and being centre stage while conducting my seminars.

So, I read everything I could about how to handle stress and found many techniques that helped me in my business and home life. I also learned that if you manage your time, you're more likely to be able to manage stress as well.

A woman explained stress management to an audience with a raised glass of water. Everyone knew she was going to ask the ultimate question, half empty or half full? She fooled them all...

"How heavy is this glass of water?" she inquired with a smile. Answers called out ranged from eight ounces to twenty ounces. She replied, "The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it.

If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem

If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm.

If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance.

In each case it’s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

She continued, And that’s the way it is with stress. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won’t be able to carry on.

"As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we’re refreshed, we can carry on with the burden – holding stress longer and better each time practiced. So, as early in the evening as you can, put your burdens down. Don’t carry them through the evening and into the night..."

If you believe stress is controlling your life, read this book and start practising prevention.

Back to Top

CHAPTER ONE

What is stress?

A major cause of stress is trying to keep up with the time demands of modern society. A person becomes time-sick when their life becomes nothing but rush, rush, rush! My purpose is to help you understand stress better and turn its negative, energy-sapping side into a positive source of energy that works for you at home and on the job. Stress influences all facets of our lives and is a potential health hazard if not properly understood and handled. We're all exposed to stressful situations, but we can learn to cope with them through understanding and action.

A prime candidate for stress-induced mental or physical illness is an individual in a stressful job or home situation. This person feels powerless to cope with or adapt to their stress or to change the conditions causing the stress. Don't stay with negative situations!

I'm sure you'll agree with me, that in our modern society, stress is one of the most pressing problems (other than the economy of course - which causes us stress).

It's well-known that people's lives would be a lot happier and longer if they identified and reacted to stress in more effective ways. A superficial understanding of stress is a good place to start, but a poor place to finish. Stress, especially in today's world, is a complex affair. The more we understand about the basic intricacies of stress, the better position we'll be in to survive the experience of stress and to use it as an instrument for growth.

Fight or flight syndrome

It's the dawn of human history and a man steps out from his cave to watch the rising sun. Suddenly, he hears a noise in the nearby woods. His muscles tense, his heart pounds, his breathing becomes rapid as he locks eyes with a sabre-toothed tiger. Should he fight - or run for his life (fight or flight reaction?) He reacts by reaching down and picking up a sharp rock which he hurls at the tiger. The animal snarls but disappears into the trees. The man feels his body go limp, his breathing eases (release of the fight or flight reaction) and he returns to the safety of his den.

It's early morning and a man steps out of his home and begins his drive to work amidst the roar of rush-hour traffic. He picks his way through the traffic and finds himself behind a line of traffic that must inch itself around a fender-bender accident. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and clenches his teeth. He arrives late for work, opens his office door and is confronted by his pacing boss. He’s told his report was due an hour ago and the client is furious. If he values his job, he'd better have a good explanation. And, by the way, he can forget about taking the weekend off as he had planned.

The man eyes a paperweight on his desk and wishes he could throw it at his boss. Instead, his blood pressure rises, his stomach churns and his back muscles begin to knot. He reaches for a Maalox and an aspirin and has a sudden yearning for a drink.

The sabre-toothed tiger and caveman days have gone, but the modern jungle is no less ferocious. The sense of panic over a deadline, a tight plane connection, a reckless tailgating driver, are the new threats make the heart race, put teeth on edge and initiate heart palpitations. These responses served our forefathers well; that extra burst of adrenaline primed their muscles, focused their attention and prepared their nerves for a sudden fight or flight.

But what does a person do with this automatic response in today's traffic jams or boardrooms? The fight or flight emergency response is inappropriate to today's social stresses. It's also dangerous. When you get a modern person using the responses a cave man used to fight the elements, you've got a problem.

In the past 30 years, doctors and health officials realise how heavy a toll stress is taking on the nation's well-being. Two-thirds of office visits to family doctors are prompted by stress-related symptoms and people's inability to release their stored-up stress. For example, among tuberculosis patients, the onset of the disease had followed a cluster of disruptive events; a death in the family, a new job or marriage. Stress didn't cause the illness - that takes a germ -but tension did seem to promote the disease’s process.

Companies have become alarmed by the tremendous cost of such symptoms in absenteeism, company medical expenses and lost productivity. Based on national samples, these costs are estimated at $50 billion to $75 billion in North America a year and Australia is showing a similar rate of escalation. Stress is a major contributor, either directly or indirectly, to coronary heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidental injuries, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide - six of the leading causes of death.

Stress also plays a role in aggravating such diverse conditions as multiple sclerosis, diabetes, genital herpes and even trench mouth. It's a sorry sign when the three best selling drugs in the country are an ulcer medication, a hypertension drug and a tranquilliser.

No one really knows if there is more stress now than in the past, but many experts believe it has become more extensive. The noise of air traffic for instance, takes its toll on people living close to airports. Blasted daily by noise, people living near major airports have higher rates of hypertension, heart disease and suicide than residents of quieter areas.

We live in a world of uncertainties - everything from lack of job security, high unemployment figures, to the dismal state of the economy. Today's pressures have developed a breed of thrill-seekers who, often to their own detriment, prefer excitement over tranquillity. Life in the fast lane becomes a dangerous habit for them. Skydivers get hooked on the jump (as do bungee jumpers). Others go white-water rafting and still others SCUBA dive.

A moot point may be whether daily stresses and hassles do more damage than life-change events. A single event can cause smaller changes that touch every aspect of existence. Divorce for example is not an isolated event. Accompanying divorce are often social isolation, a reduction in income and the problems of being a single parent. These become the chronic strains of life.

Joblessness has a similar ripple effect. The greatest source of stress is not the actual loss of the job, but the gradual domestic and psychological changes it imposes. These can be devastating. To be sure, not everyone falls to pieces because of the loss of a job or even a spouse. Research into stress and preventive medicine has focused on what psychologists call hardiness or coping behaviour. Certain population groups enjoy remarkable good health and longevity. This suggests that possibly their faith, pride of accomplishment or productivity play a role in lowering the ill effects of stress.

Fight or flight response

Stress acts upon five separate areas of the brain that govern five endocrine glands. These glands secrete hormones that prepare the body for action. So, the physical link between stress and metabolism is very real. When we're alarmed, our muscles tense, our heart speeds up, insulin and sugar pour into the blood stream and digestion turns off. But what if there's no outlet for this energy build-up? Scientists have discovered that metabolic problems persist when a person's body energy is triggered, but not released. This response was supposed to last only a few minutes. When stress remains for a long time, this response can lead to serious mental and physical problems. There are similarities in the physical response whether a lion is threatening us or whether we're taking a test.

Because stress factors thrive in modern society, we're not always aware of their existence. They may be as subtle as feelings of competition, income goals or lack of leisure time. Daily stressors - worries, annoyances and fears, accumulate and wear down the body's resistance. While some people deal easily with stress, others find themselves confused, accident-prone or physically ill. Think back to the last time you had a cold or the flu. Were you under an undue amount of stress?

In addition to stress research, scientists and medical practitioners are studying practical therapies that combat stress. Some rely on common sense, such as exercise, time management and diversions from workaday pressures. Others rely on more elaborate techniques where stress manifests itself as a disease; where lifestyle or heredity promotes vulnerability to stress; and where people seek to avoid stress by finding a simpler, calmer life.

In addition to the above-mentioned problems including congenital ailments, the following physical and mental symptoms are common in most people:

Physical symptoms:

general fatigue

rapid pulse

increased perspiration

pounding heart or palpitations

tightness in the chest

high blood pressure

coronary disease

rheumatoid arthritis can flare up

tightened stomach muscles

tensing of muscles of arms and legs

shortness of breath (hyperventilate)

bronchial asthma can flare up

gritting of teeth

clenching of the jaw

in women, menstrual irregularities

in men, impotence

frequent colds or flu

inability to sit still

digestion slows down

stomach aches

constipation

faster breathing - hyperventilate

clammy feeling

extremities cold

body trembles

tension and migraine headaches

butterflies or nervous stomach

eat more or less

sleep more or less

migraine or tension headaches

voice rises

stiff, achy joints

sore back and neck

muscles twitch in sleep

rashes and hives

Enhancement of blood clotting mechanisms in case of injury. People who require surgery are often hospitalised or given full bed rest before they have their surgery. This is to give the person's metabolism a chance to relax. The person is encouraged to keep their stress level as low as possible. This is necessary because, if their fight or flight reaction is triggered for too long, the person's blood clotting mechanism will not kick in after surgery when it's required for quick healing.

Swift elimination of waste products. (This is why we must go to the bathroom when under duress. Ask most people to make a presentation in front of a group and most will want to go to the bathroom before doing so.)

Digestion is shut down (which causes the queasy stomach, gastritis and digestive disturbances such as diarrhoea). Note: Don't eat a