subject: Job Stress Management [print this page] Author: Michael Logan Author: Michael Logan
Job stress management is an inside job. What I mean by that is stress physiology and feelings happen inside my body, and are totally unrelated to anything happening in the external world.Don't believe me? I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but it is my thought about my job that brings on my job stress, and the need for job stress management.An example to illustrate my point.No matter where you are right now, imagine yourself holding the winning lottery ticket for any lottery.Now, how do you feel, and better yet, how fast did your body create those feelings? (The time was at least twice as fast as you can blink your eyes).Now, imagine saying to yourself as you hold that winning lottery ticket that the state has cheated you again, and the amount of the winning lottery ticket is not enough, and what feelings do you have following that thought?If you are like 99.99999% of the world's population, you do not hold a winning lottery ticket, so this exercise illustrates how thoughts about the same fanciful situation bring feelings, one set of feelings very exciting and optimistic, the other set of feelings resentful probably.The same cognitive process brings the stress physiology into your body at work, and it is the repetition of the thought or a pattern of thoughts which keeps stress physiology going on in your body.So It Stands to Reason.... that the job stress management issue is best impacted by managing your thinking, feeling, and behavior, and an excellent model for this process is the emerging brain fitness model.The one very important fact that no one really addresses in the stress management field is that our thinking and physiology are really fast, and any management attempt has got to take that into account, so my job stress management tools need to change my thinking fast, and I need to build it into my life so that it happens very frequently, perhaps every heart beat.That tool that helps me manage my stress level heart beat by heart beat is called heart rate variability biofeedack.Heartmath is short for heart rate variability biofeedback or training the brain in my heart to beat coherently on demand, and when my heart beats coherently, every cell in my body joins in, since the heart impacts every cell with either blood flow or electromagnetic energy.But back to the brain fitness model of job stress management.Did you know that your brain grows new neurons? It does and they migrate to the area around your hippocampus which is vital to the formation of memories.And those new neurons will build millions of connections to other neurons, which is called neuroplasticity.What kills those new neurons? Prolonged exposure to stress hormones. What Enhances Neurogenesis and Neuroplasticity? Attending to the pillars of brain fitness, which are physical exercise, nutrition, including anti oxidants and lots of omega 3 fatty acid, sleep, stress management, and novel learning experience.The novel learning experience, for example, is usually characterized as the kind of learning involved in learning a new language or learning a new instrument. The novel learning experience cannot be more counseling books for me. My brain knows counseling already.If you are like me, my boss is not going to let me practice a trombone on the job (and I am self-employed), but he will let me practice online brain fitness programs which provide an increasing level of challenge and the appropriate amount of feedback so that I encourage neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, and he will provide every opportunity to practice heart rate variability biofeedback, because my boss and I have found ways to build in those kinds of practices in a very efficient way.We have learned to practice stress physiology almost constantly in our modern lives, but it was designed to be called up when we needed to act fast and powerfully to confront a true life or death situation, and then, given a successful outcome to our efforts, we were supposed to rest for awhile and return to equilibrium, so a constant stress physiology is a misuse of the physiology and actually makes job costing errors more possible.The key to peak performance on the job is relaxation. We must now practice relaxation, and heart rate variability biofeedback is a great tool for that, and we must practice brain fitness.The more we build those in to our schedule, the more fit our brain is which makes possible a better job performance.And job stress management becomes part of the job.Remember that hammock and the summer breeze gently rustling the leaves over your shady nap spot? Now that is job stress management. About the Author:
Michael S. Logan is a brain fitness expert, a counselor, a student of Chi Gong, and licensed one on one HeartMath provider. I enjoy the spiritual, the mythological, and psychological, and I am a late life father to Shane, 10, and Hannah Marie, 4, whose brains are so amazing. http://www.askmikethecounselor2.com
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