Stress: friend or foe?
Every year, around this time of the year, when outside temperature rises, flowers are blooming, birds are singing, summer bars are looking exceedingly inviting… I notice this feeling of unease, a nervous sensation. As if something is coming… and it’s not winter… And then it hits me, every year again. It is my heritage from university. The approaching summer time has automatically been connected with the upcoming examination period (Damn you, Pavlov!). Even now, more than 15 years after graduating, I notice that my body still responds to this time of year – though, luckily in a much less intense way - and tries to prepare me for what’s coming. This time it made me think about stress and the place it holds in our current society. Based on the stories of my clients, it seems that stress has taken up a dominant place in the way we look at the world, as well as ourselves. However, many people struggle with this word and its meaning. What is stress actually? And is it something we should avoid or seek out to improve our performance?
Stress: why do we have it?
Stress mirrors the fact that our nervous system is activated and that we should change our current state in order to adapt to a changing or challenging environment. When humans lived in caves and were at the bottom of the food chain, stress triggered our capacity to escape from life threatening dangers, like lions or enemy tribes. It triggered our need for survival. Nowadays, stress is no longer exclusively linked to survival of the fittest, but rather connected with psycho-social factors, like our performance, work, relationships, etc. Which kinds of stress we experience, however, is irrelevant, because we activate the exact same physiological mechanism. This mechanism actually makes us flexible and avoids a rigid and monotone way of functioning. It results in a change of heart rate, increases muscle tension in order to perform a physical activity, it changes our vascular system so it can increase the pressure in our veins and increase the speed at which we can circulate oxygen and necessary nutrients, it alters our attention system in order to focus on what is really important and not be distracted by our environment. All these changes are driven by the sympathetic nervous system or the ‘accelerator’, which activates us and improves our performance. Put it like this: stress has the effect of riding down a hill with your bicycle, it decreases the effort you have to make in order to reach your goal. However, it is also very exciting and might even trigger doubts about your capacity to keep your balance. Stress cannot evolve into panic, because then we lose our focus, falter and fall. This often happens not because we lack the capacities, but because we interpret our doubts as truths. Moreover, the meaning we give to losing our balance and falling, is also very important: do we see it as an opportunity to learn and improve our balance next time? Or do we see it as prove that we can’t ride a bike? But that is another story, that I might take up another time…
Stress: the duration.
The duration of our stress response is the following crucial factor in performance improvement. Our body (and nervous system) is made to endure short but intense periods of stress. We thrive in those situations. During these periods of stress, the body reorganizes its functions and prioritizes in light of our goals (survival!). When this period of stress continues for too long, the opposite effect can occur, and our bodily functions are disrupted and even damaged. For example, during stress our blood pressure rises in order to increase to speed at which it circulates oxygen and nutrients to our muscles. Because of this increased pressure, the blood is pumped into the hart with increased force. This is not dangerous or problematic. However, if this situation continues for too long, the hart will need to adapt by creating more muscle tissue at this side of the heart. This, in turn, can give rise to cardiac arrhythmia's, which increases the risk of blood cloths. So, again, stress is our ally in times of need, but if this strain continues for too long, even when the thread is no longer present, it can alter and damage our body. In order to avoid this, you need to limit the time of actual stress by adding resting time or relaxation (the ‘rest-and-digest’ time). This will activate your parasympathetic nervous system (your ‘brake’ system), which signals to your body that it is safe enough to go back to your initial constellation linked to relaxation. The more you do this (go from stress to rest), the easier it becomes (and stays!) to shift from a high stress level to a low stress level.
6 practice points to improve performance during a period of stress
If you would like to know more about stress management, take a look at the website.
For those facing the exams, good luck and trust your own performance engine!
Aisha Cortoos
Clinical Psychologist - PhD in Psychology - Psychotherapist
Sleep/stress expert