How Successful People
Stay Calm
The
ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a
direct link to your performance.TalentsMart has conducted research
with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top
performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress
in order to remain calm and in control.
Research
summaries that explore the havoc stress can wreak on one’s physical
and mental health found that prolonged stress causes degeneration in
the area of the brain responsible for self-control). The tricky thing
about stress (and the anxiety that comes with it) is that it’s an
absolutely necessary emotion. Our brains are wired such that it’s
difficult to take action until we feel at least some level of this
emotional state. In fact, performance peaks under the heightened
activation that comes with moderate levels of stress. As long as the
stress isn’t prolonged, it’s harmless.
Research
from the University of California, Berkeley, reveals an upside to
experiencing moderate levels of stress. But it also reinforces how
important it is to keep stress under control. The study, led by
post-doctoral fellow Elizabeth Kirby, found that the onset of stress
entices the brain into growing new cells responsible for improved
memory. However, this effect is only seen when stress is
intermittent. As soon as the stress continues beyond a few moments
into a prolonged state, it suppresses the brain’s ability to
develop new cells.
“I
think intermittent stressful events are probably what keeps the brain
more alert, and you perform better when you are alert,” Kirby says.
For animals, intermittent stress is the bulk of what they experience,
in the form of physical threats in their immediate environment. Long
ago, this was also the case for humans. As the human brain evolved
and increased in complexity, we’ve developed the ability to worry
and perseverate on events, which creates frequent experiences of
prolonged stress.
Besides
increasing your risk of heart disease, depression, and obesity,
stress decreases your cognitive performance. Fortunately, though,
unless a lion is chasing you, the bulk of your stress is subjective
and under your control. Top performers have well-honed coping
strategies that they employ under stressful circumstances. This
lowers their stress levels regardless of what’s happening in their
environment, ensuring that the stress they experience is intermittent
and not prolonged.
While
I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful
people employ when faced with stress, what follows are ten of the
best. Some of these strategies may seem obvious, but the real
challenge lies in recognizing when you need to use them and having
the wherewithal to actually do so in spite of your stress.
They
Appreciate What They Have
Taking
time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the
“right” thing to do. It also improves your mood, because it
reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the
University of California, Davis found that people who worked daily to
cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy,
and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol
played a major role in this.
They
Avoid Asking “What If?”
“What
if?” statements throw fuel on the fire of stress and worry. Things
can go in a million different directions, and the more time you spend
worrying about the possibilities, the less time you’ll spend
focusing on taking action that will calm you down and keep your
stress under control. Calm people know that asking “what if? will
only take them to a place they don’t want—or need—to go.
They
Stay Positive
Positive
thoughts help make stress intermittent by focusing your brain’s
attention onto something that is completely stress-free. You have to
give your wandering brain a little help by consciously selecting
something positive to think about. Any positive thought will do to
refocus your attention. When things are going well, and your mood is
good, this is relatively easy. When things are going poorly, and your
mind is flooded with negative thoughts, this can be a challenge. In
these moments, think about your day and identify one positive thing
that happened, no matter how small. If you can't think of something
from the current day, reflect on the previous day or even the
previous week. Or perhaps you’re looking forward to an exciting
event that you can focus your attention on. The point here is that
you must have something positive that you're ready to shift your
attention to when your thoughts turn negative.
They
Disconnect
Given
the importance of keeping stress intermittent, it’s easy to see how
taking regular time off the grid can help keep your stress under
control. When you make yourself available to your work 24/7, you
expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself
offline and even—gulp!—turning off your phone gives your body a
break from a constant source of stress. Studies have shown that
something as simple as an email break can lower stress levels.
Technology
enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be
available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free
moment outside of work when an email that will change your train of
thought and get you thinking (read: stressing) about work can drop
onto your phone at any moment. If detaching yourself from
work-related communication on weekday evenings is too big a
challenge, then how about the weekend? Choose blocks of time where
you cut the cord and go offline. You’ll be amazed at how refreshing
these breaks are and how they reduce stress by putting a mental
recharge into your weekly schedule. If you’re worried about the
negative repercussions of taking this step, first try doing it at
times when you’re unlikely to be contacted—maybe Sunday morning.
As you grow more comfortable with it, and as your coworkers begin to
accept the time you spend offline, gradually expand the amount of
time you spend away from technology.
They
Limit Their Caffeine Intake
Drinking
caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source
of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that
forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with
a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking
in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing
you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email. When
caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyperaroused state of
stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. The stress that caffeine
creates is far from intermittent, as its long half-life ensures that
it takes its sweet time working its way out of your body.
They
Sleep
I’ve
beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about
the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and
managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally
recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or
discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and
clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory are all
reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep.
Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even
without a stressor present. Stressful projects often make you feel as
if you have no time to sleep, but taking the time to get a decent
night’s sleep is often the one thing keeping you from getting
things under control.
They
Squash Negative Self-Talk
A
big step in managing stress involves stopping negative self-talk in
its tracks. The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more
power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just
that—thoughts, not facts. When you find yourself believing the
negative and pessimistic things your inner voice says, it's time to
stop and write them down. Literally stop what you're doing and write
down what you're thinking. Once you've taken a moment to slow down
the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and
clear-headed in evaluating their veracity.
You
can bet that your statements aren’t true any time you use words
like “never,” “worst,” “ever,” etc. If your statements
still look like facts once they’re on paper, take them to a friend
or colleague you trust and see if he or she agrees with you. Then the
truth will surely come out. When it feels like something always or
never happens, this is just your brain’s natural threat tendency
inflating the perceived frequency or severity of an event.
Identifying and labeling your thoughts as thoughts by separating them
from the facts will help you escape the cycle of negativity and move
toward a positive new outlook.
They
Reframe Their Perspective
Stress
and worry are fueled by our own skewed perception of events. It’s
easy to think that unrealistic deadlines, unforgiving bosses, and
out-of-control traffic are the reasons we’re so stressed all the
time. You can’t control your circumstances, but you can control how
you respond to them. So before you spend too much time dwelling on
something, take a minute to put the situation in perspective. If you
aren’t sure when you need to do this, try looking for clues that
your anxiety may not be proportional to the stressor. If you’re
thinking in broad, sweeping statements such as “Everything is going
wrong” or “Nothing will work out,” then you need to reframe the
situation. A great way to correct this unproductive thought pattern
is to list the specific things that actually are going wrong or not
working out. Most likely you will come up with just some things—not
everything—and the scope of these stressors will look much more
limited than it initially appeared.
They
Breathe
The
easiest way to make stress intermittent lies in something that you
have to do everyday anyway: breathing. The practice of being in the
moment with your breathing will begin to train your brain to focus
solely on the task at hand and get the stress monkey off your back.
When you’re feeling stressed, take a couple of minutes to focus on
your breathing. Close the door, put away all other distractions, and
just sit in a chair and breathe. The goal is to spend the entire time
focused only on your breathing, which will prevent your mind from
wandering. Think about how it feels to breathe in and out. This
sounds simple, but it’s hard to do for more than a minute or two.
It’s all right if you get sidetracked by another thought; this is
sure to happen at the beginning, and you just need to bring your
focus back to your breathing. If staying focused on your breathing
proves to be a real struggle, try counting each breath in and out
until you get to 20, and then start again from 1. Don’t worry if
you lose count; you can always just start over.
This
task may seem too easy or even a little silly, but you’ll be
surprised by how calm you feel afterward and how much easier it is to
let go of distracting thoughts that otherwise seem to have lodged
permanently inside your brain.
They
Use Their Support System
It’s
tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by
yourself. To be calm and productive, you need to recognize your
weaknesses and ask for help when you need it. This means tapping into
your support system when a situation is challenging enough for you to
feel overwhelmed. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside work
who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get
the best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in
your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance
when you need it. Something as simple as talking about your worries
will provide an outlet for your anxiety and stress and supply you
with a new perspective on the situation. Most of the time, other
people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as
emotionally invested in the situation. Asking for help will mitigate
your stress and strengthen your relationships with those you rely
upon.
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