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Stress. It allows bridges to stand, it keeps buildings from toppling, and it can take over our lives if not carefully monitored! The thing about stress is that it is only self-imposed. Sure, we often have deadlines, which might seem like someone else has put the stress upon us, but how we deal with that deadline is up to us — we can come at it in a consistent and organized way, working through the task steadily until it is done before the deadline, OR we can wait until the last moment and feel the stress of the impending deadline the whole time we work. Really, it might not seem like a choice, but it is!
Pressure. It can help cook our food, run pistons in an engine, or put a fire under our butts! Pressure is what happens when there’s a lot to do at once and you’re using your toolkit to help you through each phase. Pressure is similar to stress, but it doesn’t cost us as much. Pressure can feel extremely intense without tipping into the realm of stress because it is missing one key piece: rumination.
According to the American Psychiatric Association “Rumination involves repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences.” Rumination then is what we do when we are anxious about the future, constantly turning over the what-ifs in our minds, or when we are depressed about the past, focusing on what went wrong.
The problem with rumination is that it keeps us stuck. Instead of being mindful of the moment we are in now, we find ourselves trapped in the unchangeable past or the unknown future. Both of these cause us to feel undue stress, which can be destructive and diminish your all around well-being, from suppressed immune functioning to coronary problems. In general, it makes people feel miserable.
Pressure, however, is not the same as stress. Pressure happens at the same places that stress would — only it is without the rumination, it is staying in the present moment and handling what needs to be done. Pressure often comes with a valve, so you can let out a little steam, without losing the entirety of the pressure that keeps things moving along.
Dr. Derek Roger has spent over 30 years researching why some people in difficult situations become overwhelmed, while others persevere. His four steps to breaking stress and rumination look a little something like this:
1. Notice that you are spending your time stuck in the stress-pattern of rumination and break it. Do something physical like standing up, clapping your hands, or engage the diving reflex (facial contact with cold water, otherwise known as bradycardia). Or engage in something mindful, like taking notice of one thing that is red, one thing that is orange, one that is yellow, one that is green, one blue, and one purple thing.
2. Attention management is something we’ve touched on before. When you are ruminating, you are stuck in the hamster wheel of life — constantly stressed about what you haven’t done and what you still need to do. Directing your attention to only the tasks you’ll complete now and letting other tasks go until you face them later can ease your workload perspective entirely. Pressure is fine, stress is not.
3. Take a snapshot of where you are in the moment. People who ruminate often get lost in an unhelpful thinking style, such as catastrophizing, but good leaders have a general overview of where they are and where their team is — they’ve put things into perspective. Dr. Derek Roger says three techniques work well to help in this realm: contrasting (some things, like a missed sale, aren’t nearly as bad as others in our lives, like a traffic acccident), questioning (will this matter in 5 years time? Realistically, what’s the worst that could happen? and if it did, how would I make it through?), and reframing (looking at the stressor/task from a different angle, seeing opportunity where at first was only work, etc).
4. And finally, letting go. If we could, we would, right? The phrase I like to use best is “Radical Acceptance” but I’ve heard it as “radical okay-ness” or even simply “it is what it is”. This is about acknowledging that whether you like it or not, the situation is as it is. Maybe there was a lesson to be learned or something to take from the experience. Or maybe there’s something you can do about it, if you’re unsettled enough. Whatever the situation, knowing that when it is over it no longer has a hold on you, the pressure is gone, so there’s no need to ruminate over it.
If you can master these four steps, you’ll be a pro at letting go of stress and only taking on the current pressures of tasks in your life. If you’d like more help with these concepts, feel free to contact me and we can discuss further.
