When was the last time you heard a team member speak positively about stress? Yeah, it’s been a while for us too. Stress is typically referenced and viewed as a negative thing, but as many leaders already know, stress at work isn’t always a bad thing. Research from the University of California–Berkeley suggests that acute stress makes the brain alert and that being more alert leads to better performance. In another study, scientists at UC San Francisco indicated that while chronic stress is damaging, small bouts of acute stress keep our brains resilient and conditions us to persevere under pressure.
This is where stress becomes a little bit of a balancing act. Just because some stress is healthy for performance doesn’t mean it all is. We’ve all heard the adverse effects of stress on health, well-being, and job performance, and that’s precisely what chronic stress does. As the Mayo Clinic explains, when we feel stress, hormones, including cortisol and adrenaline, are released into our bloodstream. Once that stressful moment is over, our hormone levels go back to normal. This is the way our body works. But when we continually and repeatedly feel stress, these hormones stay in our bloodstream longer than they were created to, and this negatively impacts every system in our body. According to the American Psychological Association, this can lead to changes in appetite, loss of sleep, heart disease, decreased cognitive abilities, anti-social behavior, and more, and one of the leading triggers for chronic stress in Americans is work.
If occasional stress helps us grow, but too much stress causes all of us to wilt, how do we help our teams navigate the inevitable stress they’re going to experience at work? Here are some approaches to consider that have been shown to increase resilience, improve effectiveness, and counteract stress.
Train the brain for chaos. Neuroscience research reveals that the practice of mindfulness can systematically equip our brains to create helpful mental habits that promote resilience and ultimately improve productivity at work. Leaders and teams who practice mindfulness collaborate better, manage stress more productively, and sustain high performance. What could that look like for you and your team? Here are a couple places you could start:
- Invest in training on how individuals could practice mindfulness.
- Explore apps that promote mindfulness practices like Calm, Headspace, and the Muse.
Emphasize “monotasking” for better attention. Humans are not effective multitaskers. And before you go thinking you’re the exception, let us gently say that you’re probably not. Multitasking has been shown to increase work time and mistakes made on the job. People are best at serial monotasking. Leaders can encourage monotasking by helping team members prioritize deliverables and avoiding the pitfall of mistaking the urgent for the important.
Be intentional about your use of time. We get it, some workdays and/or seasons feel like there is barely a moment to breathe, let alone take a break, but these days there is a tendency for professionals to be pulled toward an “always-on, anywhere, anytime, anyplace behavior” that ultimately dilutes performance and production. People can only function on high alert for so long. Even the best athletes in the world require time to recover and rest. Be thoughtful about when you expect team members (and yourself) to engage with work and be deliberate and clear about when not to engage. No emails after 7 PM or on weekends, for example. If there are no natural down cycles in your work, as a leader try to create some.
Practice compassion toward one another and together. Did you know that organizations that are intentional about practicing compassion significantly improve employee performance, engagement, and profitability? One potent act of compassion that a leader can perform is taking the time to understand the motivations, hopes, and challenges that team members have and create support mechanisms that help people be at their desired best.
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From Reflection to Action: What will you do this week to increase resilience, improve effectiveness, and counteract stress in your own life? What will you encourage your team to do?
