Worrying causes stress. You could say worry is a form of self-induced stress. When you feel negative emotion of any type, it creates stress in your body. Worry can be a slight worry, such as a worry about whether you left the coffee pot on as you drive to work or it can be a continuous concern for the welfare of those you love.
When you worry, as soon as you feel worried, a bio-chemical change occurs in your body. These changes affect every aspect of your body, including your immune system, cognitive function, central nervous system, and digestive function to name a few. This creates a pathway for illness and disease.
The digestive function disruption, when it is continually disrupted with chronic stress from any source, including habitual worrying, becomes dysregulate greatly increasing the risks of obesity and diabetes and lowering its ability to deliver nutrition from the foods you eat to your body.
The effect on your immune system is worse. Your incidence of cold and flu will not only be more frequent, the episodes will be more severe. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. The risk from cancer and even Alzheimer’s increases as immune function declines. An attitude of positive expectation reduces the risk of developing heart disease by 50% (Boehm, 2012). The risk of other diseases also increases.
Why do you worry? What is worry? In many cases worry is a lack of trust. In many cases it is not a conscious lack of trust, but a habitual one. For example, if you worry about the welfare of your child when he or she is not with you, perhaps your young adult child, where you have no control over the outcome you may believe your worry is love, but it is really indicating that you do not trust your child to take care of him or herself. That worry may make the child doubt him or herself, lowering self-esteem, which increases the risk of becoming a victim.
Additionally, this child you love may someday die earlier for two reasons. Today the research linking the detrimental effects of chronic stress, including chronic worry are not widely known. They are known in the halls of academia where the research has been found, but the public has not yet embraced this new knowledge that changes the way we look at healthy behavior. But if you’re worrying about a twenty-something year-old, he or she will someday understand that your early demise was partially because of worry you did about his or her welfare. Now, an emotionally healthy person will realize that she was not responsible for how you thought about her, and whether you trusted her to do what was best for herself. But if that level of emotional intelligence is not achieved, he may feel guilty about how much you worried on his behalf. Guilt is another negative emotion, one that if it is chronic, will cause the same bio-chemical chain reaction described above for worrying. Thus, your habit of worrying has the potential to rob not only you of years of healthy life, but also rob the person you are worrying about.
Now, let’s consider a major cause of worry—projecting things we see reported on the news as likely scenario’s for us or are loved ones. Is this a valid concern? Yes, to the extent that bad things happen in the world. No as far as the likelihood that they will happen to someone you love. For example, most parents worry about their child being abducted by a stranger. The risk of this is 1 out of 1.5 million children. A woman I am citing in my upcoming book, Stress Kills:Happiness Heals, figured out that a child would have to be left outside unattended for 750,000 years in order to make the risk 1 out of 1. Why do we fear this so much?
Most of us believe the media is here to inform us of life during our times. But the truth is that the media did research to see what makes viewers watch more. How does the media make money? Ratings, based on the number of viewers. What is their job? It is to get good ratings. Nowhere in that job description is there anything about informing us. If that were their goal, they might report how many millions of people made it home tonight and every night instead of scouring the planet for the worst of human experience and piping it into our homes.
Look behind the veil and see that when the media pushes that into your living room, they are doing their job, because the research showed that frightened viewers watch more news.
Remember, the first thought you have and the emotional response you have to the thought does not mean the thought is true or even likely. Negative emotion only means that the perspective of the thought is different from what is desired from the situation. The emotion does not give the potential greater validity, unless and until you let it take root.
Now, I’m not saying tragedies don’t happen. But the likelihood of one happening to you or your loved ones is extremely small. The likelihood of you having negative health outcomes from habitual worry is large.
Worry is not love. As stated earlier, worry indicates a lack of trust.
There are other factors at work here as well. When you continually worry about someone, it can diminish their confidence. Research into who criminals choose as victims shows that a lack of confidence greatly increases the risk of becoming a victim.
Is your loved one of such low intelligence that he cannot make good decisions about where to go and who to go with?
Or is your loved one just as concerned about her own wellbeing as you are and consciously making good decisions that make her safer?
Remember, the survival instinct is strong in each of us almost all the time. There are some exceptions when life feels too difficult, but that is often more a lack of resilience than a truly horrific life. My recent book, Prevent Suicide: The Smart Way increases resilience, a strong protective factor against suicide. But outside the arena of suicide (which is a temporary state of mind that will pass if given the opportunity to do so), we all have a strong natural self-preservation instinct. Combine intelligence, some common sense and this survival instinct and the risk we won’t always make it home safely is very small.
There is another pathway that being distrusted can lead to increased risk. It does not feel good when you aren’t trusted—even when the distrust manifests as worry. This can lower self-esteem and also mood, both of which are risk factors that make it more likely someone will drink and/or experiment with drugs. These will increase the risk of something to worry about happening, but the root is not the drinking or drugs, it is the lack of trust that made the person seek solace in those things.
It’s Christmas Eve. Many families will be gathered today. Many families whose conversations do not go very deep. Oh, they love one another, but they don’t know one another. Instead of worry, show your loved ones love and trust. Let them know that you’ve been misled by the media and maybe also by your own experiences in the world you lived in at their age, or the naiveté you had at their age, but you’re now going to do your best to trust more and worry less.
If you’re worried that someone is at risk, instead of worrying, take action. Tell them you are worried and that it is your life experience and your personal history and habits of thought that make you worry but they could help you overcome that by sharing with them what they do to protect themselves.
If a relative were to ask me that I would be happy to share the multitude of ways I manage my life and actions to be safe, from locking my doors to planning where I go and when I go, to wearing sensible shoes if I am out alone, to being aware of my surroundings, etc. You may be surprised at younger ladies, many of them seldom go anywhere alone, partly for social reasons but I think also because they feel more comfortable having a friend along.
Have real conversations—not surface ones. It will build stronger relationships which research shows improves your health.
Tragedies can happen to anyone at anytime. No one is immune from this possibility.
Everyone has the ability to decide how to deal with the aftermath of tragedy. Some people decide they can never again be happy–and they aren’t. Some try to forget and use alcohol or drugs or other addictions to try to ease their pain, which leads to more pain. Some people give up.
But others thrive. They experience what is termed Post Traumatic Growth (PTG). PTG is the opposite of PTSD in many ways.
Surviving is not enough. It is not why you were born or why you live. You can thrive no matter what has gone before.
What makes the difference between the two? It really comes down to choice of perception. Now, to be fair, most people don’t understand they have control over their perspective. For some reason (something I am working hard to change) our society does not teach this critical life skill.
By choosing perspectives that feel better we are able to function. By choosing the perspectives that feel best, we become instruments of change and thrive in ways no one would have anticipated or expected prior to our going through the tragedy.
Making the choice to make meaning out of the nonsensical is the only choice that leads to thriving.
Chronic stress has negative effects on immune function, digestive function, cognitive abilities and other physical functions of the body. It also increases relationship difficulties.
There are ways to lower stress even when you can’t change circumstances. I am pleased that I will be on Joni Aldrich and Chris Jerry’s radio show, Advocacy Heals U, Tuesday January 6th at 2 p.m. Eastern allowing me to share some techniques those who are suffering can use to ease their burden. Please join us if you can. If you’re not able to listen on Tuesday, there will be a replay. The details are noted below.
I’m having a guest appearance on ADVOCACY HEALS U with show host and author Joni Aldrich and Chris Jerry on Tuesday, January 6th, 2:00-2:50 p.m. ESTwww.W4WN.com(Women 4 Women Network) and www.W4CS.com (Cancer Support Network). No downloads or Apps needed to listen. (If you miss it, catch the rebroadcast on the Sat. after the show at 4:00 p.m. EST on both networks.)
All shows are archived on iHeartRadio.com.
If you, or a friend or co-worker, have endured a tragedy please share this with them. The techniques I’ll share during the show can help ease their burden
Jeanine Joy understands what helps humans thrive. She is the Founder ofHappiness 1st Institute, Co-Founder of Achieve Affinity, and a Member of the Board of Directors of AWES International and the AWES Foundation.
Her research into understanding what creates resilience, good physical, mental, and emotional health, and strong relationships yielded answers. Drawing from many scientific disciplines and philosophies including positive psychology, sociology, quantum physics, psychoneuroimmunology and other sciences as they relate to what cultivates human thriving, she developed practical steps that empower individuals and organizations to thrive more. Because her focus addresses the root cause of human thriving, the benefits of her techniques extend into every area of life—making even difficult situations easier.
Her focus is on building strengths that are known to protect individuals from undesired outcomes and helping them overcome existing problems. Her work emphasizes what could go right and helps individuals create more thriving in their own lives.
[l2g name=”” id=”873″]Most people judge themselves more harshly than they judge others. We are intimately familiar with our own flaws and shortcomings because we have full access to every thought and deed.
We tend to give others the benefit of the doubt while denying it to our self.
Does this benefit us?
Does this benefit our family?
What about society. Does this hesitancy to forgive our self benefit society?
The truth is that it does not benefit us, our family, or society.
If I regret a past action that means the person I am in that moment is not someone who would make the same decision as the one I am regretting.
Essentially, I am beating myself up for who I used to be instead of celebrating what I learned from the experience that allowed me to become a person who would make a different decision.
I’ve learned something from the experience. I have become more.
The same is true of anyone else who is regretting something from the past. I had a wonderful interaction in a store with a stranger who was “born again” but whose church kept focusing on how she should beat herself up about who she once was. She was praising the Lord loudly every minute or two when I went into this antique shop and my first thought was that I would stay away from her, but we ended up having a wonderful conversation. She shared her history briefly and I could tell she was not that person any longer and had not been that person for quite a while, yet the pain she was in from having been that person at one time was palpable. I helped her see she was no longer that person because that person would not regret what she had once been. Her relief was palpable. It was a brief encounter yet we changed one anothers’ lives. She helped me see that even someone I might perceive as “she’s going to preach at me” if I let her near was someone with whom I could have a great interaction and learn from as well as uplift.
Also, when you understand the negative ramifications of the negative emotion directed at self when you don’t forgive self, you’ll hasten to forgive self. Not doing so greatly increases the chances you’ll have more to regret later.
Negative emotions produce biochemical reactions in our bodies that make our immune system less effective, disrupt our digestive function making weight management more difficult and increasing the risk of developing diabetes, the chronic stress load interferes with the body’s ability to appropriately time when a baby should be born resulting in preterm births and even when the pregnancy lasts until term, children who have more asthma, sleep and behavioral problems and depression prior to age 16. Our relationships are less than they could be. Our cognitive function decreases with negative emotion.
The price you, your family, and society pays for your refusal to forgive yourself is probably higher than you realize.
Also, when you understand how behavior and emotional state are intertwined with better behaviors stemming from better feeling emotions, your motivation to feel as good (emotionally) as you can increases. You know you’ll be naturally kinder, and have better relationships when you feel good than when you don’t feel good.
Give yourself the gift of forgiveness this holiday season.
For more techniques on defusing stressful thoughts so you can relax and enjoy life more , try one of my books.
I really appreciate that you are reading my post and hope it provided value to you. On LinkedIn, I regularly write about Happiness, Stress Reduction, Human Thriving, Primary Prevention, Health and Wellness, and more. If you would like to read my regular posts then please click ‘Follow’ (at the top of the page) and feel free to also connect with me via Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads. Please consider sharing this information with your network if you found it valuable, they may also find value in what I have written.
Here are other posts I have written for LinkedIn Pulse:
I wish for you many blissings. (Blissings = blissful blessings)
About : Jeanine Joy Jeanine Joy is an inspiring and life-changing author, speaker, and scholar. The purpose of her life is to seek out knowledge that increases human thriving, create explanations and processes that provide practical ways for individuals adopt strategies that enhance their lives. Her programs, books, and speeches empower people to fulfill their dreams and enjoy more loving, happy, and successful lives. Her ultimate goal is to help create a better world for everyone on Earth.
Jeanine Joy, in conjunction with Happiness 1st Institute and Achieve Affinity (a 501(c)3) is giving away 10,000 copies of her life-saving book, When Only You Can Prevent Suicide. Worldwide suicide is the 10th leading cause of death and it is 100% preventable.
When Only You Can Prevent Suicide FREE book giveaway
The information in this book has so much potential to save lives that Jeanine Joy was not satisfied with just writing it and making it available. She wants every person who is depressed, who is or has considered suicide, who has a hurting heart, who is lonely, who feels rejected, who feels shame, who feels “not good enough”, who feels the world is against him or her, who feels hopeless, trapped, or lost to read this book. She knows its power to help and she wants to help. She also wants others who want to help to read it–to help them help others.
The techniques explained in this book have already saved lives.
Based on twenty years of research guided by one dominant question: What makes humans thrive? Jeanine has put her heart and soul into providing practical solutions that work with examples that will resonate with a wide audience.
We have the knowledge to prevent suicide now. It requires a primary prevention attitude where we strengthen the hearts and minds of people before they are in crisis mode. These methods work during a crisis, they have worked then, but they are best used long before the crisis when they can help the person ensure he or she will never reach that dark moment.
It just makes sense to increase resilience and each person’s ability to thrive even when circumstances are not perfect. I’m not sure anyone ever has a life where things always work out just as they hoped they would, but we can have a world where people are more nimble in their response–where they suffer less–much less. That world is possible now. Today. Jeanine Joy
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When you read about “prevention” and “wellness” today you are going to see conversations about early detection of disease and symptom management. They use the words, “prevention” and “wellness” but that is not what they are really writing about.
True Prevention is when the person does not get sick in the first place.
True Prevention is when you prevent the symptoms, even the early symptoms from showing up in the first place.
Early detection is important because it gives the medical health professionals a better shot at helping you avoid further deterioration and death, but it is not true prevention.
Good symptom management is important to slow down the progression of diseases and help you maintain the best possible quality of life, but it is not true prevention.
True prevention eliminates the need for symptom management because there are no symptoms, no disease, to manage.
True prevention results in true wellness.
True prevention begins at the root cause of illness and stops it by managing the earliest indicators that illness will be on its way if action is not taken.
A Harvard meta-analysis has already shown it is possible to reduce the risk of developing heart disease by 50%.
Are you going to stay with early detection and symptom management or will you embrace the future of healthcare and develop the skills that lead to true prevention and optimum health?
Take a new look at the literature from your employer’s wellness provider. Are they just encouraging you to do blood work and tests (like mammograms and prostrate exams) for early detection or are they teaching you the skills that enable you to manage your health and well-being in a way that keeps you well–without symptoms to manage?
Do their weight loss efforts focus on movement and calories, ignoring the research that demonstrates that stress adversely effects your:
Choice of food
Decisions about exercise
Decisions about what to eat
and
What your body does with the food you eat
If the wellness program has stress management at all (many do not) is it just dose dependent recommendations like exercise, helping others, journaling (without clear instructions on do’s and don’ts), and encouragement of social connections (without help in creating and maintaining healthy connections), time management, and gratitude (which research has shown is inferior to appreciation).
Dose dependent stress management leaves you susceptible to the whims of your circumstances as far as your stress level is concerned. You don’t have control. You can use a dose dependent method of reducing stress and it reduces it some, for a while, but it does not change the root cause of the stress.
There is a better way–a way that leads to true prevention.
The health transition is already further along than mentioned in your post about the health aspects. Although what you mentioned, “A new proactive service will emerge, one that monitors and analyzes key sets of “health signals” around the clock, reacting to changes before they become severe illnesses.” will occur there is something even more beneficial than early detection. Prevention. Complete avoidance of the illness in the first place. In True Prevention-Optimum Health: Remember Galileo a template True Prevention, not early detection and symptom management, is provided.
Humans have an innate early detection system that monitors health signals around the clock and reacts instantaneously to changes. Research published in March demonstrates clearly that our emotions provide this system. The problem is that we are taught to misinterpret the meaning of our emotions–that is why they seem so complicated. When we understand how to accurately interpret their meaning we know, moment by moment whether our thoughts, words, and actions are supportive of our well-being or not.
We can prevent at least 50% of the diseases that are currently occurring using this system based on current research. I believe the numbers will be much higher.
If you want to rev your wellness program to the next level, contact us for information on classes or read True Prevention–Optimum Health: Remember Galileo for a template that helps you incorporate this early detection system into your life.
The prevention research is clear. The absence of negative emotions is not the same as the presence of positive emotions and does not provide the preventative effects as the presence of positive emotions.
Dose dependent stress reduction is not good enough.
Don’t settle for less than the best possible outcome.
This one thing will improve the quality of your life–in every area–more than any other action you could take.
On another post, Is Happiness Wrong? I was asked a question about empathy. Although I answered in the comment section, the formatting is limited in that venue and this is much easier to read.
“The state of happiness we are referring to doesn’t require a constant state of bliss. It is a deep sense of inner stability, peace, well-being, and vitality that is consistent and sustainable. Awareness that one possesses the knowledge and skills to return to a happy state, even when not in that state, is a critical component of sustainable happiness.”
Authenticity
So it is not a perpetual state of happiness that is recommended. That would necessitate some inauthentic responses at times and authenticity is extremely healthy. In Remarkable Recoveries one common thread of individuals who experienced spontaneous recoveries from terminal illnesses was a decision to be more authentic. There is enough evidence about the benefits of authenticity in the research that I always recommend individual’s be authentic.
Better Empathy
It is possible for something to occur that takes one out of the state of happiness, but when they have the skills and have used them often enough that they know they have enough mastery to be able to know the path back to happiness they never really dip below hopeful for long. Hopeful is a pretty healthy emotional state, far better than despair and considerably better than frustrated or other upset emotions.
Better empathy requires finesse. For most people, empathy requires that the person “understand how the upset person feels.” So, for example, let’s say they’ve just found out that someone treated them unfairly (perhaps promoted someone else when they believe they deserved the promotion or cheated on them in a relationship.” I’ll use the cheated on analogy as I explain further because most people can relate to relationship issues.
So, someone is emotionally upset about being cheated on. As their friend, we’re taught to feel empathy for them. This translates into finding out the nitty-gritty details of the transgression and feeling indignant anger and hurt for them by attempting to feel as they feel and validate the feelings they feel.
One of the first things my students learn is that you feel what you feel, no outside validation is necessary. If you feel it, then it is your emotion. You own it. It is the result of your perspective on the topic on which you are focused. There are many other perspectives that could be chosen—millions in fact.
What most people do is take the emotional hit and then make it worse.
I trusted her and love her and she cheated on me.
Choose from millions of thoughts that make it worse:
I’m a horrible judge of character to marry a woman who would cheat on me.
I’ll be alone the rest of my life because I’ll never be able to trust anyone again.
I don’t want to lose her, I don’t want to be alone.
Will I get to see the kids often if I divorce her or will I have full custody and how will I manage that?
What is wrong with me that she was not satisfied with me?
The list of potential thoughts that feel even worse goes on and on.
If you go right there with your friend, you’re feeling anger and despair right along with him. In that emotional state your cognitive abilities decrease. You’re less able to help him find solutions to the questions that are plaguing him. (I’ll ignore the negative health effects for the purposes of this conversation but they are there.) As you enter that emotional state, emphasizing with him, you are also projecting lower expectations about his future prospects to him than you would from a higher emotional state where you would have a broader viewpoint.
That is why I don’t encourage empathy—and especially not long-term empathy. What I recommend instead has several benefits to both people.
First, a word about this. I think it would be very difficult for anyone raised on our current society to not feel empathy for a friend who has experienced something unwanted. It is the duration you’re willing to tolerate the lower emotional state to feel as they feel that I encourage you to shorten—drastically.
Research
Researchers have looked at empathy and found some surprising results. The negative emotional hit that someone who is feeling empathy feels is often worse than the negative emotional hit the person who is actually experiencing the loss feels. The person in the actual situation begins accepting the situation almost as soon as they experience it. The researchers looked at individuals who had lost a child in a natural disaster—a devastating experience. But once it happens, the parent begins the process of accepting the loss whereas the person empathizing with the loss does things like imagine how awful it would be if that were to happen to them and their child.
Researchers have also looked at and recorded the body’s responses to pain and the watchers’ negative hit is worse than the person who, for example, hits his thumb with a hammer.
I found the research interesting and eye-opening. Our imaginations are powerful and when we are the observer, our imagination is able to make our emotional response worse than that of the person actually experiencing the loss.
Other research demonstrates that our pets are mood lifters. When you’re emotionally upset your dog or cat is likely to notice but they will not join you in your low emotional state. Our family dog will sit with anyone who is emotionally upset, seeming to offer comfort, but the moment she senses the person might be ready to feel better she’ll try to start licking them and it always works.
See The Potential Benefits
For example, one of my friends lost her job in the past year. Upon hearing her news I was upset for her—for something less than about 60 seconds. I have trained myself to see the silver lining so my mind automatically goes to thoughts that feel better, in this case they included:
She hated that job anyway and would have probably stayed too long, continuing to be unhappy for long periods of time each day. It was hurting her health and now she will find something better. She is a well-qualified professional in her field. I am confident she will find something she likes better and could even lessen her long commute and make more money. This is going to turn out well for her. In fact, Joe was telling me he was looking for someone for a similar position last time we talked, I’ll introduce them. Joe would really appreciate her talents and I think they’d work well together.
If I had stayed in a state of empathy, feeling angry on her behalf, it might have been days before I recalled the fact that Joe was looking for someone. I would also not have been in a position to help her remember that she is talented and well-qualified and the fact that her former employer did not appreciate her does not mean she isn’t. The employer could have had myriad reasons for letting her go that had nothing to do with her talent or skill. Perhaps he wanted someone he has a relationship with or a familial relationship. It does not matter. It could have been that her dislike of the work did impact her performance (almost certainly somewhat true), which does not say she would not be highly competent in another role, but that the structure of that particular position did not suit her strengths and/or personality.
In a broad sense, what I encourage in lieu of empathy after that first hit that is pretty inevitable is to look for the silver lining and then help the person see it for herself. See the potential the person has for wellness, for great relationships, for success. See it so clearly that you expect that for them. I won’t go into it here, in True Prevention—Optimum Health: Remember Galileo I expand on it, but research has shown that we have the ability to influence others significantly with our expectations of them.
The ability to see the person fully recovered from whatever is wrong serves them far better than you feeling as they do—despair, hopelessness, anger, resentment, jealousy, rage, frustration, fear, etc.
When you emphasize and feel as they feel your cognitive abilities restrict and you see the world as they do—from a narrowed viewpoint—a viewpoint that cannot see the good possibilities in the future.
When you see the person for their expectation, your emotional state remains at a higher level and you have the ability to influence them to move in a better-feeling emotional direction.
I’ve been doing this for quite a few years and my older friends, ones who pre-date when I learned the root cause of what makes humans thrive, have not all adopted these strategies. It really is most difficult to teach people who knew you before you were an expert. I understand why. The point is that I do spend time with people who do not do as I do. They seek me out when they are troubled because they have learned that I help them find a way to feel better. Seeing the good possibilities feels better than having the negative emotions validated via empathy. I don’t judge their emotions. Emotions are responses to thoughts that we think that assume a specific perspective. We have the ability to change our perspective and feel better but most people assume when they feel a thought that feels bad that it is both true and the only way to look at the situation.
If the emotional response to the thought feels bad there is always a better-feeling way to look at the situation.
Helping someone see their potential when they can’t see it is a gift.
I’ll go back to the imaginary friend I created for the example who found out his wife cheated on him. One of the very first things I go to when someone’s relationship rules are violated in this way is reminding the person that the desire they have is for a relationship with integrity with someone they trust who agrees to the rules for the relationship that they desire. They obviously did not have that and now they know. They did not have that before the actual cheating occurred because if they did the person would not have cheated. I also help them see that the cheating has nothing to do with them—it does not say they are not a good partner. The cheating was about the person who made the decision to take that action. Our behavior is always the result of a combination of things including our current emotional stance. I’ll share with them examples of so many people whose first marriage ended and after a while they find that they are delighted with the outcome. I’ll share my own story about how devastated I was when my first husband cheated and continue on to several years back when I wrote a thank you letter to the other woman. At the point in time that I realized how much better my life had become than it ever would have had I remained married to him, I felt gratitude to her for taking him off my hands. My method gives home when the person is feeling hopeless. It uplifts. It helps the other person see the possibilities for his or her future in a better light than they would achieve quickly if all I did was feel anger with them and validate their current emotional state.
If we feel an emotion, it is a valid response to the thought we are thinking that received that emotional response. The emotion is valid. However, it is not the only possible perspective, even about that topic. Our emotions indicate whether our thought on that topic is serving our highest good. If the response to the thought feels worse, it is moving in the wrong direction. If the response to the thought feels better, it is moving in the right direction.
Hugs
None of this means that you treat the others’ emotions as wrong. It does not mean you do not care or are not concerned for their well-being. It means that you have a clearer view of a path, or paths, that will help them recover from the loss faster. Your holding this expectation of them, even just in the privacy of your own mind, can increase the other person’s resilience. You can help them bounce back faster.
It requires sensitivity as to when you speak about those paths. It is not appropriate to speak of them when the person is not yet receptive. It is best to begin in a general place (even if you have specifics in mind). For example, I know you’re a strong person. I know you’ll get through this. You have a lot of friends who are willing to help you. You are not alone.
Often, the mere act of holding someone and giving him or her space to experience their current emotions is all you can do in that moment. But rather than drop down into their emotional state while you hold the person, do your best to see the potential for a better future.
Our society tends to hug too briefly for the therapeutic benefits. An 18-second hug feels long to most westerners but that is how long it takes for a wonderful chemical cocktail to be released by the body that is soothing and healing.
Sometimes I will write down the potential I see in the other if the person is not ready to hear about the silver linings I see. I may or may not ever share what I write but what it does is strengthen my expectation for their recovery in a way that helps to make my expectation more dominant. This has a beneficial effect on them that is explained in my book based on something quantum physicists have discovered.
It’s not much different than what many parents do naturally when their child has suffered a disappointment. Although some parents become angry and belligerent when their child does not attain a desired role in the school play, many will be sympathetic while also recognizing the learning opportunity. They may feel glad that the child is learning that while disappointments can feel painful, they live through them and they do feel better in the future, while the parent is around and able to provide comfort. The parent that knows the child who is hurting (because her best friend invited someone else to go with her to the circus) will feel better and will have a lot of fun times in her life is of much greater value to the the child than the parent who feels anger, resentment, and jealousy on behalf of the child–the empathetic response. I think it is easier to see the type of stance I recommend when we look at parent-child relationships but it works equally well with friends and even with strangers the news media places in your home.
It also is not that you won’t work toward solving the problem is there is something you can do. The perspective many people seem to convey is that we have to be empathetic to solve the big problems–the families living in war zones, hunger, poverty, and other adversities people live with around the world. But we’re smart creatures. We don’t have to steep ourselves in how it would feel to know we’d like to do something about these problems. It is immediately apparent that peace, plenty of food, abundance and other pleasing circumstances would be better for everyone. Einstein said:
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
When we look at a problem in the way I recommend, we immediately turn our attention toward solutions. Empathy, the way much of the world encourages it, keeps us focused on the problem. You have to focus on solutions to solve problems.
Let’s look at this from another angle. Empathy isthe ability to understand and share the feelings of another but our society encourages going to the lowest common denominator with empathy. A situation where both people feel the emotional state of the one who is at the lowest emotional point. What I recommend is, when the person in the lower emotional state is ready to reach for a better-feeling emotion, that the one who sees the potential be the one that is empathized with. This process raises the emotional state of the one who is in the lower emotional state.
Cautionary Note
I will add a cautionary note here. Anger, rage, and vengeful thoughts feel better than despair, depression, and hopelessness. The key with thoughts that elicit those emotions is to see them as steps on a path to even better feeling emotions and not to act on the better-feeling thoughts that elicit those emotions. Just stabilize yourself in the more empowered emotions and then reach even higher to frustration instead of anger, to blame instead of vengeance. The more empowered a thought is, the better it will feel.
Although this explanation is long, it is not complete because there are nuances that really help a person develop the skills to become more naturally positively focused. True Prevention—Optimum Health: Remember Galileo provides many of those nuances as well as techniques that help individuals develop the skills. I also teach classes around the world, in person and online, to help individuals develop the skills that lead to greater positivity and sustainable happiness.
The only real way to understand these skills is to use them yourself and feel their resonance. Just as you cannot imagine precisely what it is like to play a violin if you’ve never held one in your hands, these skills are best proved to yourself by yourself by using them and paying attention to how you feel.
Recently someone told me I should not be happy because there are people in the world who are suffering.
I’d like to know your thoughts on this. Is happiness wrong?
Here are mine:
I have researched happiness for many years and understand that happiness is not the result of success or good health. Yes, those things help. But the research is exceedingly clear that individuals who are positively focused enjoy better health, better relationships, better mental health, and more career success. When you’re happy first, good health, great relationships, and success follow.
Happy people are literally smarter. The same person scores better on the SAT exam when he is happy than when he is not happy.
So, if we want to solve the world’s problems, it seems to me we want the happiest possible people working on the solutions because they are the ones who are more likely to find them.
Let’s take these one at a time.
The disease burden in the world creates a tremendous financial strain on every economy, it not only costs money to treat but also creates losses from lower productivity. Our immune system works better when we are happy. The Grant Study showed that a positive outlook delayed death by more than a decade and reduced the number of years with chronic and debilitating diseases by eighteen years because the dreaded end of life diseases came much closer to death.
That alone would be a tremendous boon to the economy. Diabetes, stroke, depression, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and even the common cold and flu are less likely to happen to someone who has a positive mental focus.
So, from a health standpoint, I say the more happy people the better.From a health standpoint my happiness benefits a lot of people beyond myself because it lowers the risk of my adding to the disease burden.
As researched in the Harvard Men’s Study, whether the graduate was positively focused or not meant more to his eventual success than his Harvard education. The negatively focused Harvard graduates were much more likely to become alcoholics, to divorce, to commit suicide, to experience business failures, and more than their positively focused classmates.Even though we live in an era where prosperity is beginning to be viewed as somehow undesirable by some who believe that one person’s success lessens their chances of success, I think most would agree that a business failure hurts not only the business owner but also the employees who are left without jobs. I don’t see much argument from society that not being an alcoholic and a lower divorce rate are both beneficial to society.
For the good of society, the more success the better. One person’s success does not diminish your chances of success. Today the real root cause of wealth is a well executed good idea.
Happy people are more likely to marry and more likely to remain married. Happy people have better relationships of all types–at home, work, in the neighborhood. Extended outward this even plays out in research that demonstrated unhappy people are more likely to commit crimes–something that is very bad for relationships. Happy people are more likely to be kind to strangers, to help someone in need, and display better corporate citizenship. I don’t think anyone would dispute that these are all pro-social benefits.
Happy citizens are good for society.
Now, if you were taught the false premise that happiness is the result of circumstances or that it is something you must chase, you may feel that this is sort of like someone sticking their thumbs in their ears, wiggling their fingers and saying “Ha Ha, I’m happy–you’re not.”
But the truth is that it is not circumstances that determine happiness.You can be sick and poor and worried and find a perspective that makes you feel hopeful and in the moment you find that hopeful thought and believe in its possibility, you feel better. In that same moment, your immune, cognitive, digestive, and endocrine system functions begin improving.
As your cognitive function improves, solutions you could not think of just minutes before occur to you.
Your happiness is determined by the perspective you take about your current circumstances.
It is possible to feel positive emotion even in the midst of a bad situation by finding the silver lining.
I’ve been studying what makes humans thrive for a very long time. I know how to help people thrive. I am best able to do that when my cognitive abilities and my health are in top form. My cognitive abilities and health are best when I am happy.
Therefore, I believe my happiness benefits me and all those (the world) that I am set on helping.
The old paradigm said, “You shouldn’t be happy until someone else/everyone else is happy.” But that paradigm did not have the benefit of the information researchers have published in the last few decades. The research leads us to a new paradigm, “If you want to help others, maintain your happiness as best you can because you will have greater clarity of thought and be in a better position to identify solutions.”
Thinking about the problems others are experiencing increases my stress level, which decreases my cognitive abilities, decreases my immune system function, my digestive system, endocrine system and mental health. I don’t think that serves anyone well.
What do you think? Is Happiness Wrong?
The research on happiness and health as well as techniques that help you develop the skills that allow you to be happy even when your circumstances are less than ideal are provided in True Prevention–Optimum Health: Remember Galileo. Right now I am working on an expanded follow-up to True Prevention (Stress Kills:Happiness Heals) that takes the conversation into uncharted territory applying the principles to eliminating disparate impact, creating peace, eliminating racism, education, and more. If you prefer classroom style learning, we provided classes in person and online.
When the research became so clear and compelling to me, I named my company Happiness 1st to remind myself and my clients that when you’re happy first, everything you want is easier to achieve.
Chronic stress can lead to debilitating diseases and shorten your life by a considerable number of years. In one large longitudinal study that followed the participants for life, the negatively focused participants had 18 fewer healthy years. They not only died about 10 years earlier, they also spent about 8 years being sick when the positively focused participants were able to enjoy 18 healthier years. In the positively focused group the debilitating end of life diseases came at much older ages and much closer to the time of death.
Sometimes people don’t want to live longer because they don’t want to linger in unhealthy bodies. If you tend to be negatively focused, stressed, and unhappy your chances of living more unhealthy years is much greater.
Every bit of that is a choice you make. Focusing on the negative is a habit of thought that can be changed. Stress is not a matter of the situation, but of how we respond to the situation. There are skills that can increase your resilience, emotional intelligence and decrease (literally) the amount of stress you feel without changing the circumstances.
The great news is that when you decrease stress, happiness shows up. In recent years there has been a great deal of research on the benefits of happiness. Guess what? They are the same as the benefits from reducing stress. Why? Because stress and happiness are two ends of the same stick, they are on the same continuum.
High stress decreases your brain function. You’re literally not as smart when you’re stressed as you are when you’re not stressed.
In other words, you’re smarter when you’re happy.
High stress diminishes your immune function.
In other words, when you’re happy your immune system is working well.
Your digestive function, endocrine system, and more have the same relationship with stress and happiness. When stressed they don’t work as well, and when happy they are at their optimum.
Even the decisions you make about risky behavior, exercise, food, and sleep are better when you’re happy and worse when you’re stressed.
Many undesirable behaviors are simply attempts to reduce stress by someone who does not know a healthier way.
According to a research brief completed by Rand Corporation, “Approximately 730,000 people have filed claims for asbestos injuries in the United States through 2002. At least 8,400 defendants and insurers have paid $70 billion to settle these claims.”
That is less than 1 million claims and a 70 billion price tag.
About 100 companies have filed for bankruptcy because of their asbestos exposure.(1)
Why were companies held liable for asbestos? They knew the risk to employees (or should have because the risk was known) and they did not provide adequate protection for their workers. Rand states it this way, “Asbestos litigation, the longest-running mass tort litigation in the United States, arose as a result of individuals’ exposure to asbestos and the failure of many product manufacturers to protect their workers.”(2)
The risk to your organization from not protecting your employees from workplace stress could bankrupt your company.
It does not matter who you are, or how big you are because the pool of potential litigants expands as your workforce expands. Some of the more conservative estimates I’ve seen estimate that 26% of the population has unhealthy stress levels and that 70% of that is due to workplace stress. Let’s do the math.
314,000,000 x .26 = 81,640,000 x .7 = 57,480,000
People in USA x low estimate of those with unhealthy stress levels = 81.6 million
70% attributed to workplace stress brings the number down to 57.4 million
That equates to more than 78 times the number of asbestos litigants.
And, unlike asbestos, risk cannot be stopped by no longer using the product.Workplace stress risk will continue as long as the business is in business. The best you can do it mitigate it. The good news is our program takes stress management a giant step forward.
Pay Attention: Think Long-Term
The research is compelling. TRUE Prevention–Optimum Health: Remember Galileo touches upon many of the stress related illnesses including heart disease which accounts for 1/3 of all deaths. In early 2015, Stress Kills:Happiness Heals will tell the full story–not just the health impacts, but the social problems exacerbated by stress, including divorces, depression, and suicides.
If the potential of corporate liability due to workplace stress that employers know, or should know, are harmful to their employees mental and physical well-being does not make you afraid you need to talk to a risk manager. The potential threat is real. Once the research is clear and compelling, businesses are held to a standard that they should know the risks of placing demands on their employees that lead to chronic stress.
Putting your head in the sand and ignoring the issue will not make it go away. But there are ways to manage the risk without doubling your workforce.
Stress management skills are not taught in school. The vast majority of your employees have no idea how to lower the stress they feel in any given situation. You already know some of them handle stress better than others, but not why.
The stress reduction techniques touted by most of the books and stress management teachers are dose dependent and stressed people are less likely to actually do them. It is not the reason they are stressed, stress decreases motivation. It is part of the problem. It is also part of your engagement problem. Employees who understood how to manage stress might find their environment challenging instead of stressful.
Face it, we cannot eliminate the stress from every job. Performing surgery is stressful, caring for a preterm infant with serious complications is stressful, regulations that increase and change frequently is stressful, taking up the slack from disengaged co-workers is stressful. Eliminating stress is not an option.
The connection between workplace stress and health is irrefutable. Already, in some large cities like New York and Los Angeles, police officers who die from heart disease–even if they are on vacation when they die–are considered work-related deaths. But stress does not have to involve real life or death situations for the human body to experience the negative health effects.
Long-Term May Mean… Tomorrow
The number of asbestos claims is a drop of water in the ocean compared to the potential stress claims from employees. The future that I’m talking about is not that far in the future. To those who are familiar with the state of the research connecting stress to mental and physical illnesses, it is already clearly visible. When will the first case be filed? It could be tomorrow. The evidence is compelling enough and accumulating on an almost daily basis.
What can you do to manage this risk?
The economics will not allow you to double your workforce to reduce the workload, so that is not an option.
Dose dependent stress management techniques like exercise, helping others, going outside,meditation, massage, yoga, and tai chi are dose dependent and the evidence that those suffering from the highest levels of stress are least likely to do them. The fact that they are not doing them is not a defense because evidence demonstrating that it is the high stress that makes it less likely just points the finger back at the cause of the stress.
There is a way to teach employees to manage the stress at the root cause that empowers them to perceive the stressful situation in less stressful ways. Why is this the best method? Because it addresses the issue at the root cause, it affects the entire experience. It shows the employee they have more control over their stress than they know. Increasing employee’s locus of control in this way has multiple benefits including improved health and engagement. That’s three boxes checked in one program.
Reduce risk of stress-related litigation
Improve Employee Wellness Efforts
Increase Employee Engagement
But the benefits do not end there. The program delivers considerably more. Relationships between co-workers (and their relationships outside work) improve because of what they learn in the program. This not only makes the workplace more harmonious, it lessens the amount of outside relationship stress that is adversely affecting the work day. This is not just romantic relationships, but also relationships with children, parents, and friends.
How much does relationship drama impact your organization’s productivity? How much of management’s time is spent dealing with personality conflict type issues?
There is another benefit. From years in risk management, I am well aware that some lawsuits employers have to defend against are for things that one employee interprets as threatening but another one would not even remember a few days later. It is the perception of the event, rather than the actual event, that creates the problem. Our programs provides employees with skills that enable them to perceive situations from perspectives that feel better to them. While it is never possible to quantify lawsuits avoided (a bane of compliance officers and risk managers everywhere), the dots can be connected and the relationship can be clear enough that the CFO will understand the benefits.
Let’s return to the wellness program for a minute. All those healthy habits you’re attempting to get your employees to do are hindered by high stress. In fact, the link between high stress and obesity has changed the paradigm of calories in – calories out = BMI. Stress affects how the body processes the food a person eats and increases the risk of obesity, which increases the risk of diabetes, which increases the risk of heart disease. Stress also increases the risk of high blood pressure which increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. Chronic stress also diminishes the effectiveness of the immune function, increasing the risk of colds, flu, and even cancer. All of this is already scientifically documented. Many of the citations are in TRUE Prevention–Optimum Health, but Stress Kills:Happiness Heals, which is in the editing stage expands the picture further.
Other Benefits
The benefits of our program seem too good to be true but the reason they are so expansive is because they address the root cause. Almost everything else that is done to improve health and stress today addresses symptoms, not the root cause. Now is the time to take action. There are other benefits from our program detailed throughout our website.
Take Action…Today
If this sounds frightening, it is. What can you control? Can you control the job responsibilities in a way that makes them not stressful? Can you control the work loads employees are tackling?
What you can do is empower them with skill based training that insulates them from much of the stress in their lives–both work-related and personal. This training would go a long way toward demonstrating that you took every possible precaution to help your employees. Of course, it should be combined with other things you’re probably already doing, such as an EAP program. But when you wait for the situation to be at the point where most employees will reach out to an EAP, the stress has already caused damage.
We measure a variety of things in a host of different ways before and after the training, including stress, depression (expect about 10% of your employees to be suffering from depression in the pre-training testing), resilience, and emotional intelligence. You can choose to add other measures. The program is provided in large groups so the cost is surprisingly affordable. Smaller employers can combine to form a larger group to keep their costs reasonable. In large organizations, we have train the trainor programs.
Workplace wellness programs are missing the key ingredient to true prevention. They focus on early diagnosis, symptom and lifestyle management while ignoring the elephant in the room–the one common factor at the root of everything.
While meeting with a representative of a large regional health system’s workplace wellness division, I asked him what their solution was for addressing stress. He mentioned their EAP (employee assistance program) offered counseling but said that was all they had. He also said many employers recognize that stress has both a negative effect on worker’s health and on their contributions at work. He was excited by our program but when he took the information back to his employer they said they had all the knowledge they needed in-house. If that is true, why are they excluding stress management skills training from their workplace wellness program?
The research about stress is clear. Workplace wellness programs tend to focus on the same areas and stress management skills would help improve the results in every one of them.
Smoking cessation.
Stress plays a role in the ability of individuals to quit smoking and maintain their status as non-smokers. Anxious individuals find it the most difficult to quit. Anxiety and smoking behavior are highly correlated.
Weight Management/Obesity/Anorexia/Bulimia
Researchers have demonstrated that the old paradigm of weight management is too simplistic because it ignores the impact of stress on the digestive system. The digestive system does not function as well when an individual is stressed and chronic stress contributes significantly to the development of diabetes. Stress also results in unhealthy food choices. Food is the number one anxiety drug.
Eating disorders often have their roots in low self-esteem. The design of our program leads to increases in self-esteem, which could provide relief for those who have eating disorders and prevent their development by those who are at risk of developing an eating disorder.
Diabetes Disease Management
The impact of stress on the digestive function has been linked to the development of diabetes. In 2007, the direct cost of diabetes in the United States was 174 billion. Indirect costs included 2.6 billion for absenteeism, 20 billion reduced productivity during work for the employed population, 7.9 billion unemployment from disease-related disability, and 26.9 billion lost productive capacity because of early mortality. Stress also has a direct impact on adherence to recommended treatments.
Physical Inactivity
Stress levels affect whether or not an individual will be active and choose to engage in physical activities. Highly stressed individuals who do not have an ingrained habit of physical activity are unlikely to develop the habit while they are stressed. Despite the fact that physical activity/exercise is often recommended as a dose dependent stress reduction method, such increases in physical activity do not consistently help stressed individuals because they do not feel sufficiently motivated.
Depression
By the time depression has developed, the individuals has typically been suffering from chronic stress for a sustained period of time. We need to educate employees (and the entire population) that tolerating stress is not the appropriate response. Coping until we’re depressed is a strategy that has made depression an epidemic with 10% of the US population suffering from it, according to the CDC.
Why are they not recommending early intervention to address stress? Because they think it requires expensive one-on-one treatment and because of the ridiculous stigma’s associated with mental health. Stress Management skills are simple to understand and implement. They are simple enough that kindergartners can understand the basics. Adults are a little more difficult and take a little longer to teach because they have developed a lot of false premises throughout their life that hinder their ability to adopt strategies that come quickly and easily to younger children. But it is still far from something that requires expensive one-on-one treatment. I can teach auditoriums full of people how to manage stress in meaningful ways that have a positive impact on their work and home lives right away and continue to increase as the techniques are applied.
Even individuals who suffered from repeated bouts of depression have now reported that they have been free of depressive episodes since learning these skills.
Poor Diet/Nutrition
Stress and happiness are opposite ends of the same continuum. Researchers have linked happiness with better food choices. Individuals in the top 25% of optimism scores ate more fresh vegetables, salads, berries, fruit and low fat cheese that other subjects in a research report comparing optimism to dietary habits. A meta-analysis done by researchers at Harvard and published in 2012 concluded that positivity and optimism led to better food choices and better choices about risky behaviors. Our stress management program increases happiness, positivity, and optimism.
Chronic Stress
The common recommendations for managing stress are all dose dependent. That would be fine if there wasn’t a better way, but there is. Dose dependent stress management is the same as taking a prescription pill to manage the symptoms–it does nothing to affect the underlying cause. Dose dependent means you have to do it in order to receive the positive results and if you don’t do it, you don’t get any results.
Because our program helps individuals change the root cause of the stress, it functions more like a cure. It does not prevent bad things from happening, but the response is more resilient, emotional intelligent, and less stressful than it would have been before they learned to use the skills we teach. The way the individual responds to the same stimulus that may have once made him or her highly stressed may not be at all stressful once the techniques have been applied for a while.
We all know that everyone reacts differently to circumstances. What stresses one person out may be fun to another person. I’ve studied what makes humans thrive for two decades and then developed programs that teach individuals how to develop the habits of thought that help them thrive.
The frequently recommended dose dependent stress reduction methods include exercise, going out in nature, helping someone else, petting your cat or dog, meditation, yoga, tai chi, and massage. While these methods are a good “pill,” they do not provide long-term benefits with the exception of a consistent meditation practice. But even consistent meditation does not address stress at the root cause.
Some recommendations can be counter-productive. One commonly recommended stress reduction method is to discuss the problem with a friend. The outcome of that discussion can go either way. I definitely have friends who would make it worse by focusing on the worse aspects of the situation and reminding me of other bad situations like the current one. I also have friends who would be beneficial to talk to but I’ve never seen this type of recommendation come with recommended parameters for the discussion.
Employee Engagement
This is not a typical focus of Corporate Wellness Programs although the hope is that the program will be perceived in a positive light. Our program also helps engagement in a variety of ways. The first is that it helps create a more inclusive and positively focused employee base. Working with people who are energetic, focused, and optimistic creates synergy and an environment that makes being at work enjoyable. The way any individual views his employer or any other aspect of his life reflects how he views everything in life. Someone who is generally dissatisfied with life is generally dissatisfied with her work. The reason for this is because our habits of thought play a tremendous role in the aspects we focus on in every area of our lives. If we focus on the aspects that we don’t like, we’re not engaged. If we focus on aspects that we find exciting, our engagement increases.
The inherent nature of our program increases the likelihood that employees will focus on aspects of their jobs and the company that they like.
Turnover/Retention
One of the most frequently cited reasons for turnover is not liking the people. A working environment where relationships are harmonious, where workplace conflict is unusual, where conversations are fruitful, and others are supportive would be very difficult to leave. The techniques I teach can accomplish this type of shift in corporate culture. Individuals who understand how to use the skills can even ignore outright attempts to upset their equilibrium without feeling stressed or a need to retaliate. The techniques provide individuals with tremendous stability and equilibrium in their chosen emotional stance.
There is a song by Pharrell Williams that describes the steady emotional state:
“Here come bad news talking this and that, yeah,
Well, give me all you got, and don’t hold it back, yeah,
Well, I should probably warn you I’ll be just fine, yeah,
No offense to you, don’t waste your time
Here’s why
Because I’m Happy”
I know, that to someone who is not generally happy the thought of being around a bunch of happy people is not very appealing but when everyone understands they can be happy and most are, the whole dynamic changes. Those who need a bit of help find it everywhere they look because one of the most natural and frequent behaviors those who learn to be happier demonstrate is a desire to help others do the same.
Research shows that positively focused people are kinder and demonstrate better corporate citizenship.
Cognitive Ability
Stress diminishes our cognitive abilities. The same person is smarter when happy than he is when stresssed. Do you want your employees to make better decisions? Teach them how to reduce the stress in their lives. You can keep the same employees and gain a smarter workforce.
Absenteeism
Immune function decreases as stress increases. Research has shown that the severity of colds and flu are directly tied to positivity, wth the most positively focused experiencing the fewest symptoms and duration of illness. The most positively focused have sometimes not developed an illness at all, even after being deliberately exposed to the virus. The symptoms are not just self-reports. One study in particular actually measured symptoms, going as far as to weigh used tissues so that the results would not be slanted by the more pessimistic attitude. The pessimists reported more symptoms but they also had more symptoms.
Productivity/Presenteeism
The level of productivity is important to employers. In all except the most mindless, repetitive occupations repeated research has shown that optimists produce more than pessimists.
Although you may believe optimism and pessimism are inborn traits, they aren’t. They are habits of thought and individuals can change their habits of thought to make their life feel better.
Optimists are more successful than pessimists in study after study.
Sales
There is very solid evidence that even less qualified optimists outperform more qualified pessimists based on traditional measures of qualification. If optimism is not one of the considerations for hiring your sales staff you are leaving a lot of untapped potential on the table. Teaching your sales staff our stress management techniques would improve sales.
Ethics/Morality
The research is very clear that ethical behavior improves as positivity increases. Think about it. When the economy dips, white collar crime increases. The same stress that reduces cognitive ability leads individuals to faulty conclusions that result in them deciding to commit a crime.
Education Components
There are a number of false premises that hinder individuals from becoming happier and less stressed. One of them is that they should just be strong when they are faced with stressful situations. But the advice, such as think positive and decrease the stress in your life, is worthless without teaching them how.
Stress adversely affects every system in the body fairly quickly. It is something that should be dealt with as soon after it is experienced as possible. I’ll give you an example. Jealousy creates stress in the body. I am almost never jealous of anyone about anything. I recognize that feeling jealous is my seeing someone else experience something that I want but am perceiving I can’t be, do, or have. Earlier today I learned a friend was at a lecture at Harvard on psychoneuroimmunology and I felt jealous. I told my partner to tell our friend I was jealous (he was going to see him before I did). But I manage my emotional state to a really good place. I had not felt jealousy in a very long time. It did not feel good. Within less than five minutes I realized what I was doing and said, “Why am I feeling jealous? Why do I think that is something I can’t do?” Very quickly my jealous was gone, replaced by an attitude of being delighted that I have friends who attend those types of lectures and can intelligently discuss such subjects. I also affirmed that there was no reason I could not also attend a lecture like that. My jealousy is completely gone and I am now excited about the next time I’ll see my friend. I’m looking forward to hearing what he learned and comparing ideas. I can even ramp my emotional state up even higher. I know this man’s heart wants to help a lot of people, especially those who are the last to receive help, whether here in the USA or abroad. I can think about what he might have learned that will help him do that and feel even more positive emotions. I’ll stop there but the process could keep going. I’ve already shifted from jealousy to a bit of a natural high just by changing my perception but I have not begun to tap the potential positive emotions I could milk from this situation.
Do, however, notice that the circumstances did not change. He is still the one who attended the lecture. The only thing that changed was the only thing I could change, my perspective about it. My emotions improved as I assumed a more empowered perspective. My body no longer feels stress from assuming an unhealthy perspective.
I’ve been using these methods for years but it is not much more difficult for a novice to shift perspective and gain similar advantages.
We need to change our tolerance of stress. We need to help everyone understand that they should do what they can as soon as they can. It makes all the difference.
There are other false premises that interfere with optimal health that our program identifies and changes.
Attracting Quality
Attracting quality employees is critical to the success of your business. The iconic work cultures of our era will not have anything on a company that has incorporated the techniques in our program. You’ll have your pick of the best of the best–provided you provide a healthy work environment with opportunities to advance. Our program won’t change what your company does, only how it does it. There is another benefit I have not yet mentioned, that can help create an irresistible work environment.
Creativity
Creativity is just like cognitive ability as it related to stress. Creativity increases as happiness increases and decreases as stress increases. Ideas flow more readily to individuals who are positively focused. There is a second advantage that comes from our program that relates to this area. Many good ideas are wasted because the person who thinks them is afraid of how others will perceive the idea. Our program increases self-confidence and also the ability to feel good even if someone does not agree with us. The impediments that cause many good ideas to die before they are born is eliminated.
Diversity
Even diversity is positively impacted by our program. Research shows that positively focused individuals are naturally more inclusive. We have the ability to take your diversity initiatives to a higher level.
Resilience
We spend a lot of time planning for business continuity in the event of problems from busted water lines to epidemics and wars. But we tend to ignore the fact that people are required to execute those plans. In the disaster planning milieu, we assume people who are not directly taken out by the disaster will be functioning in their assigned roles. We forget that different people respond to stress in different ways and that the stress of a disaster could take out people who are not affected by the direct cause.
The best disaster plan you can create is worthless if your employees lack the resilience to persist during a disaster. Can they fulfill their duties in the midst of so much uncertainty?
I would far rather have resilient people and a mediocre plan than a great plan and staff with mediocre resilience levels. The resilient individual will retain the ability to think in dire circumstances that will be lost to someone who is less resilient. The best planning cannot predict all the variables. The resilient individual will be able to respond in the moment–when it counts. Those hero’s we love to watch on TV, who come through when bullets and bombs are all around? They’re resilient. Whether you adore MacGyver or Jack, it is their resilience that makes them able to persevere. My Dad tells me, Jeanine you could fall into an outhouse and you’d come out with a diamond ring. He has seen me repeatedly respond to circumstances that would devastate less resilient individuals in ways that make the outcome better than if the adversity had never happened.
Our program increases individual resilience, the ability to bounce back will be improved. It won’t matter if the strife is at work or personal, it will not drag them down as long as it would have without our training.
Sleep
Stress can adversely affect the ability to get a good night’s sleep in a number of ways. Stress can cause individuals to stay awake worrying about problems and it can cause them to wake up too early and be unable to go back to sleep. The stress of too many competing priorities can result in individuals simply not giving themselves enough time for adequate rest.
This is a significant concern to employers. Sleep deprivation can lead to more mistakes, including accidents. Inadequate sleep increases the risk of an automobile accident by three times.
Stress management skills reduce stress, allowing individuals to benefit from a better night’s sleep.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
Our program increases EQ in three of the four key areas because of the way the program is designed.
Final Question
Does your corporate wellness program offer a stress management solution that satisfies your needs? Does it address stress at the root cause? Why not?
Contact us today to learn more about how Happiness 1st Institute can help your company achieve a lot more of its potential.
“Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between. But, he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He made us cry. He gave his immeasurable talent freely and generously to those who needed it most – from our troops stationed abroad to the marginalized on our own streets. The Obama family offers our condolences to Robin’s family, his friends, and everyone who found their voice and their verse thanks to Robin Williams.”
I would add to this that Robin Williams will be an instrumental part of removing much of the stigma associated with mental health issues–opening the way for more to achieve greater mental and emotional health.
People will ridicule and stigmatize strangers but there are so many who love Robin Williams whose attitude about seeking help will change because they will understand that if society had been different, if we had deeper conversations with one another, if we understood more, Robin Williams might have received the right help at the right time.
This shift in the stigma associated with mental/emotional health may become Robin Williams’s greatest legacy. Let’s make it so.
He can’t do it alone but with the help of those who love him there has never been a better time.
We live in a world where people in emotional pain suffer in silence. Their pain affects everyone. Mental health affects physical health, behavior, relationships, and cognitive abilities.
The origin of the stigma came from fear about the cause of mental illness and the inability of healers to cure it. Today we know more and can do more. It is time for everyone to understand the mind-body connection and how to attain and sustain better emotional and mental health. We have the tools to accomplish this—now it is time to educate, to help everyone understand how much difference it makes and how simple it can be to feel better.
Think about what you would have wanted for Robin Williams if you had known the pain he was in. Make a decision that you’ll be supportive of eliminating any negative bias you may have toward mental and emotional health issues.
Make a decision to give a smile to those who have none and a hug to those who need one. Compliment more, criticize less. Be open to deeper conversations. Learn more about how to decrease stress and increase happiness–they are opposite ends of the same stick.
This great man, with a great legacy, has the potential to become even greater.
