{"id":701,"date":"2019-11-05T08:40:05","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T08:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dexterzhuang.com\/?p=701"},"modified":"2023-04-29T02:01:09","modified_gmt":"2023-04-29T09:01:09","slug":"how-to-change-your-relationship-with-stress-for-good-backed-by-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dexterzhuang.com\/2019\/11\/05\/how-to-change-your-relationship-with-stress-for-good-backed-by-science\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Change Your Relationship With Stress For Good (Backed by Science)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My eye twitched uncontrollably<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I initially felt ecstatic as I transitioned into my first product management role at a startup. Yet soon afterward, the pressure I put on myself felt like the inside of a steam engine firing on all cylinders. The tension in my shoulders and my hunger to learn the craft competed for my attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The product broke regularly. I felt like I constantly fought fires without resources, resulting in long days in and out of the office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would\u2019ve been a healthy approach to my situation? Stay calm and level-headed. Strategically assess my opportunities going forward. Respect my boundaries. In a nutshell, navigate my career like a Jedi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, I got caught in the grooves of my self-critical thoughts. They spun round-and-round like a broken 90’s record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t until my eye twitch persisted for two months that a switch flipped in my mind. I started paying closer attention to my body\u2019s needs. I dove into the research, starting with mindfulness tools for strengthening my mental resilience.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I don\u2019t have a silver bullet for stress (and don\u2019t believe it exists except at Hogwarts), I\u2019ve discovered a collection of tools for handling stress that served me well to-date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burn-out is rapidly rising.<\/strong> For the first time this year, the World Health Organization released new evidence-based guidelines<\/a> on preventing chronic stress in the workplace. In a recent Gallup study<\/a>, 28 percent of millennials<\/strong> claimed to feel frequent or constant burnout at work, compared with 21 percent of workers in older generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More workers are leaving their jobs due to their chronic stress. In a survey<\/a> of hundreds of HR executives, 46 percent say employee burnout is responsible for 20 to 50 percent<\/strong> of their annual workforce turnover. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These trends look grim, but we don\u2019t need to become statistics. The battle for mental well-being starts with changing our day-to-day practices<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, my goal is to empower you with practical science-based tools and strategies to fundamentally change your relationship with stress for good<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

[wp-svg-icons icon=”pushpin” wrap=”span”] Save For Later: <\/strong>This article contains several tools that you can use throughout your work and life. Feel free to bookmark this article so you can refer back to a specific tool later.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Arc of Stress: A Brief Primer on the Science Behind Strain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Believe it or not, there already existed a coherent model of stress a hundred years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1908, researchers Robert Yerkes and John Dodson developed the Yerkes-Dodson Law<\/a><\/strong> (or the Arc of Stress<\/strong>, as I like to call it), which describes<\/a> an empirical relationship between arousal (stress) and performance (illustrated below): <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What this arc-shaped chart shows is that performance increases physiological or mental arousal up to a certain point. Beyond this level, stress becomes too high and performance decreases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[wp-svg-icons icon=”pushpin” wrap=”span”] Fork in the Road Alert:<\/strong> The rest of this section is a deep-dive into Yerkes and Dodson\u2019s findings. Read onward if you\u2019re a nerd like me and like to learn about how things work. Otherwise, feel free to jump to the next section for more actionable material.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking Down the Arc of Stress<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

How did Yerkes and Dodson arrive at this model? By doing what scientists have done for generations \u2014 testing on Pinky and the Brain.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They designed an experiment<\/a> where they applied pressure to mice in a maze, measuring how long it took them to reach the center depending on the pressure. If the mice turned in the wrong direction, they gave the mice low voltage electric shocks (simulating a moderate level of pressure). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without any shocks, the mice meandered towards the center at their own pace. With a low voltage, the mice completed the maze faster, taking more correct turns. However, when the scientists turned up the juice (voltage), the mice moved erratically and took longer to reach the center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One lesson I learned from their research was that I\u2019m extraordinarily lucky to be human and not a lab mouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another lesson was that their model can be divided up into three different states: <\/p>\n\n\n\n