Reducing “bad” stress
- Philip Brophy
- Mar 26
- 3 min read
Managing stress • 3 min read
Research carried out in the University of Michigan showed that exposing yourself to nature or even just looking at pictures of nature increases your ability to transition from stress to rest.
Psychologist Marc Berman studied the cognitive capabilities of two sets of students.
One set of students took a break in a busy urban setting while the other cohort took their break in a quiet natural setting. When set a series of challenging cognitive tasks on their return, the set of students exposed to nature significantly outperformed those who were in the busy urban setting.
Introduction
Stress is both inevitable and natural. We live in a constantly changing world where there is no shortage of things to potentially worry about. Lots of us work in fast paced environments where we need to deal with many curve balls that come our way.
You’ll be pleased to know that there are ways in which we can effectively manage stress.
Managing Stress
There is lots of advice out there on how to effectively manage your stress levels. We have chosen our top three.
1. Self-care
Exercising, eating well, meditating, breathing exercises and better sleep habits, are all proven ways to help reduce your stress levels.
2. Root cause analysis
We encourage you to problem solve and address the root of the stress - what is the source of it?
Is it a culmination of many small things or one or two big things?
Once you have a better understanding of what is causing your stress, you can look to break the stress down into manageable steps to help lighten the load on your brain.
3. Mindset
Research has shown that if we perceive stress as debilitating, we tend to either over or under react to stress. Studies have shown that if we can manage to move toward a “stress is enhancing” mindset, we’ll have a more moderate cortisol response (physical reaction in the brain) to stress.
Please note that we recognise this mindset cannot be embraced in every situation, especially in a highly stressful set of circumstances.
Managing Stress in Practice
1. Self-care
- Start your day with breathing exercises or five minutes of meditation
- Leave your desk at lunch time to go for a 15 minute walk or run
2. Problem solve root cause
- Schedule some time with a colleague if you have identified that a strained relationship is the root cause of your stress
- Make your work visible using a simple “to do”, “doing” and “done” table. Identify the core components of your stress and formulate a plan to resolve them.
3. Mindset
- When you are feeling stressed, simply begin by recognising it. If you learn to consciously recognise it, you’ll automatically start to mitigate it.
- How are you handling stress — is it helping or hurting you?
If you can shift your mindset to think that this will enhance your capabilities, you can manage stress more effectively.
Key takeaways
Self-care is one of the best ways to manage your stress levels. Exercising, eating well, meditating, breathing exercises, and better sleep habits, are all proven ways to help reduce your stress.
Root cause analysis gives you a better understanding of what is causing your stress, and in turn, you can look to break the stress down into manageable steps to help lighten the load.
Research shows that if we can shift our mindset to “stress is enhancing”, we have a more moderate cortisol response (physical reaction in the brain) to stress.
Think big, act small
Pick one or two things from the list above and aim to implement it into your daily schedule.
That might be scheduling 15 or 30 minutes to get out for a walk at lunch time or simply raising your awareness around where stress is stemming from.
We do not recommend an “all or nothing” approach when working on managing your stress levels. Start with one area and aim to build positive behaviours from there.
Content sources
Harvard Business Review, Why You Should Choose Sleep Over Work, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
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