Chronic Stress: How to Cope in a Down Economy (Part 1)

The following is the first part in a series on how small businesses can reduce chronic stress in the workplace.

They may lurk in a back office hazed in a ring of smoke sitting next to a cold cup of caffeine. They may be hunched over a calculator and a keyboard crunching numbers, or they may be out at the counter making sure that everything gets done “just right.” Often, they coexist with the equally anxious hired hand in charge of keeping daily operations going and the lights on. Either way, with slim pickings for profit margins and given the generally-negative economic atmosphere, is it any surprise that many small business owners and executives exhibit signs of chronic stress? With that said, what are the signs and possible symptoms of chronic stress and what is its overall impact on the viability and longevity of small businesses in the area and the health and well being of the owners and staff? Once identified, aside from buying a fishing boat and moving to the bahamas, what can be done about it?

This three part article will be an interesting read. It may even take you down memory lane and serve up a few “aha” moments that will better your life and hopefully your health. After all, a happier staff is a more productive staff and “if the boss ain't happy, ain't no one happy.” Your health and the health of your staff is the bottom line.

The disclaimer

Many people read articles like this one, see the list of symptoms, and feel the affliction known to University Clinics around the world as “Medical Student’s Disease” or at doctor’s offices as “cyberchodndria.” In that, armed with the new knowledge of possible symptoms, you begin to see them everywhere. Rest assured and take a deep breath, this article is meant to educate, not diagnose. It’s meant to help you ask questions of yourself, start conversations at work, and then take those questions to your primary care provider.

Am I covered? Wait... if you’re having chest pain signs or other signs of a heart attack, call 911 or go to the emergency room.  So, with that in mind and the lawyers off of speed dial, let’s move on.

Warning! Science Content.

In order to understand abnormal reactions to stress we must first understand our body’s normal reaction to it, which begins with a brief history lesson and some basic physiology.

Only in the last few hundred years, has mankind been able to worry more about what new iPhone app to download than about running away from large predators while looking for food. If you want an excellent primer on the subject, watch the new animated movie “The Croods” with your family. In it, the patriarch of the cave-family uses the motto “Never not be afraid.” His only job is to keep his family alive. He is big and strong and only has to react to threats. No “ideas” necessary.

Physiologically and chemically, not much has changed since the stone-age. In order to outrun the saber-tooth tiger at your heels or fight the bear at your front door, two chemicals do most of the heavy lifting and it starts in your brain.

Think of the amygdala as the alarm bell in your brain. Tucked away in the back of the medial temporal lobes of the brain, this almond sized piece of the basal ganglia is responsible for receiving perceived threat information from the frontal cortex and signaling the adrenal glands (housed atop the kidneys) to begin production of a host of hormones. Just the sight or sound of a perceived threat sets off an unconscious signaling process. Most people identify this as “getting tense” or feeling agitated, but they seldom know why.  

Enter the hormone adrenaline. If the amygdala gets the engine primed, adrenaline revs it through the gears like a Japanese drift racer. It constricts peripheral blood vessels, which decreases the possibility of limb hemorrhaging. Core blood pressure goes up, to fight possible hemorrhaging, and it takes the brakes off your SA node to increase your heart rate to pump needed fuel to running legs. If you’re not already on the run, you’ll feel your heart race, beads of sweat gather on your arms, and you’ll get a headache from too much light entering your dilated pupils.

While adrenaline recruits massive amounts of muscle fiber for fast action, the corticosteroid Cortisol feeds them by elevating the amount of glucose in your blood. It also stalls your immune system and its inflammatory response to protect muscle cells during extreme use. If you haven't been eaten or mortally wounded, the system is designed to save you and then reset itself and return the body to normal. You, however, at the cash register or on the couch after a hard days work will feel completely drained, possibly lethargic, and have no motivation to get into the sunlight you crave.  

Granted, Wolves and Vikings are negligible threats in most of Ohio, but the system still serves its purpose. Cars get pulled off of kids by superhuman moms. Trauma victims make it to the Emergency Room alive and first responders function at top gear, but what happens when the intermittent stresses of wolves, vikings, and overturned cars are replaced by the unending stress of bills and payroll? What happens if the system doesn’t reset itself?

We'll get into this next week and focus on the negative effects of chronic stress over a period of time and begin to delve into practical (and free) ways to begin to identify and combat those effects in your everyday life. In the meantime, check out the references below for more in-depth reading on the subject as your time permits.

References:

Lemonick , M. (2003, October 06). How to heal a hypochondriac. Time, Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1005818-2,00.html

U.S. Census Bureau. (2007). Retrieved from U.S. Census Bureau website: http://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html

Mayo Staff. (2010, September 11). Stress: Constant stress puts your health at risk.. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress/SR00001

McEwen, B. S., & Mirsky, A. E. (2007). Physiology and neurobiology of stress and adaptation: Central role of the brain. Retrieved from http://physrev.physiology.org/content/87/3/873.full

My Oldest.

She's picked up a wicked "you have to know something obscure to know what I'm laughing at" sense of humor. Half the fun is watching her watching whoever it is that she's talking to. Her eyes kinda twinkle and you can see the smile on the corner of her mouth begin to twitch as the other person mulls over the obscure thought connection puzzle she's laid in front of them. She lets it go if they don't get it, but her voice dances when they do; they're in the club. They've figured out the secret handshake and cared enough to play along. I've taught her well.

Her inhibitions leave when she's on the dance floor. She owns it. She knows it.  She talks to it. Barefoot, she caresses the wooden floor, whispering with each pirouette. With her toes, she digs in and shouts a chassé, knowing the air accepts her, loves her, and the floor regains her when she's done.

The floor is the foundation of all her muscle, all her moves. It never leaves, never fails, always accepts her efforts to leave and pushes back, with equal force, to help her gain new heights in what she loves. Just enough resistance to make her strong, a trust earned since she was three. I hope I've done the same.

She notices everything, physical and emotional. Windshield wipers that go faster than ours. The movie that showed an obscure shot of the Central Park Zoo trying to pass it off as somewhere else. Seeing others bullied afflicts her physically with pain and hardens her to action. My own inner facial flinch when she does something I don't approve of makes her crumble when I leave the room. She knows me so well it scares me.

She's so much like me that it scares me. Not that I'm afraid she'll do something stupid, she will. Not that she won't be brilliant, she is. No, her burden will be an internal one, a constant struggle between introversion and the excitement of the crowd, the shy subtlety of "will you join my club" and the pure joy of performance. Her power is her weakness; her joy is high and her sorrow black, but tomorrow is always sunny. I think she'll navigate it well. 

I Smell a Panic and it's Covered in Aspartame

Every few years some sort of death food or medicine rears its ugly head on the internet and circulates like wild-fire. Apparently, aspartame is back on the paranoia circuit again.

Remember, anything can be a poison. Of course it's not the best thing for you and has unintended consequences if you guzzle it by the gallon in a frothing frenzy to not eat (all natural) sugar. It might also show up in the blood stream of dead people who had multiple health issues that forced them to use a sugar-substitute; diabetes probably being the common co-morbidity. Others may have been indulging in an unknown variety of "all-natural" health elixirs that don't mix well with much, including aspartame.

If you have ever taken a course in statistics or research you will (or should) learn the phrase "correlation does not mean causation." One of the top examples is the correlation between ice-cream sales and drownings, one of the highest ever studied. As one increases, so does the other. The key is in understanding that they are related, not in causation, but in relation. The relation being the heat of summer time that causes people to eat ice cream and swim. One does not cause the other, but they very often keep close company.

One story that was circulated regarding aspartame included the story of John Cook who "began drinking six to eight diet drinks every day. His symptoms started out as memory loss and frequent headaches." It goes in to great detail describing horrific symptoms that led to his untimely demise. Which begs the question: Was Mr Cook given the standard test for Phenylketonuria (PKU) at birth?

Strikingly, Mr Cook's symptoms correlate with PKU and the substance phenylalanine is often found together with aspartame in sugar-free diet drinks. Was he too old to be tested at birth or was he denied the test by well intentioned parents for fear of a government conspiracy covering up horrendous deaths? We will never know because the story is just vague enough to sound true, but uses a wonderfully generic name that is hard to track.  

Although a bit more money from the government or the FDA might help their bottom line, Doctors, Pharmacists, and Nurses are not part of the conspiracy. They might alert someone as to the over consumption of any food-additive or a potential interaction between medicines or over-the-counter (OTC) herbals.

The current postings smell of the same pseudo-science and panic inducing rubbish that fuels the anti-immunization campaigns, which harm more people than they help.  A web search gives nothing but uncited cut-and-paste news stories that fail to mention where they can from or an original author that has written anything else in the health field. The only "support" for the story is a self-publicized conspiracy theory.

If you or your child need sugar substitutes to make a medical condition bearable, than use them in moderation, but don't throw them away and cause yourself harm by ignoring your medical condition.

If you feel over-burdened to spread medical news, make sure it is a cited article and not cut-and-paste. For everything else, find a medical professional you trust and can talk to before you jump on a band wagon. Even Dr Oz is wrong occasionally, so get a second opinion if you want, but the internet can be a dangerous place to take at its word. 

Time Travel and the Promise That Made it Happen

Have you ever wanted to talk to a time traveler?  What would you ask him? Despite Dr. Brown's repeated warnings, would you risk the space-time continuum? Would you want to visit yourself and see what you've become or give a younger you advice and maybe the winner of the next few sporting events in Vegas? I have and still do, but it wasn't the conversation or the reaction I was expecting.

Twenty years ago, I wrote myself a letter. I had a week to write it, so I woke up at 6AM the morning it was due and typed out the required page, double spaced with the largest allowed font size, on our brand new 486 computer. The dot matrix printer whined as the step feeder clicked a quarter line at a time. Hot off the printer, I tore off the sheet of ready to read dreams, stuffed it in a self addressed stamped envelope, and walked out to the waiting bus. I had done the minimum required. I didn't care or know what the stamp was for.

The letter was a strange mix of what I knew from home, a family that was still together, and the best paying job I could think of (which was the best paying job in the board game LIFE), being a doctor. Three boys seemed to work in my world of two brothers, so that's what I wanted. I liked my hometown, so I would move back after college. My letter-wife was more of an "of course" than a partner, friend, and certainly not a lover. I knew I would have a house, but had no idea what a mortgage was.

Dickens made his living by showing the terrible lives of others and their children. I had the idyllic childhood. My parents still kissed in public, fought behind closed doors, cooked every dinner at home, and we ate together with a fork, knife, and spoon at every meal, including pizza. I had acres of woods to roam in, no idea what 24/7 TV was, and friends I could call to come over any week-end. I lost track of what day of the week it was during summer breaks. Sunday was the only definable day in a whir of frivolity. I could have saved time that morning twenty years ago and simply wrote, "I want what I already have."    

But, all dreams must end and mine ended abruptly. Somewhere during my senior year, my parents shifted back from superhuman to being merely human. Their hard worked facade cracked under the weight of a soon to be empty nest and Dad's graduate school. Then it shattered with a quick divorce after my graduation from high-school.  I didn't know how to cope. I left the country and started running.

Between Japan, working summer camps, and college, I didn't spend more than a weekend home again for over six months.  At college, I joined Campus Crusade to jump around on Thursdays and joined the worship team for a smaller Christian Bible study to feel connected on Tuesdays. On the phone and at home, I devoted almost every waking moment to my high-school girlfriend. She was the glue that kept me coming back to Mansfield, back to home, but even her sweet touch couldn't keep my feet from running from the new reality at home.

When I came home for Christmas break, I had a letter waiting for me. As promised all those years before, a self-addressed stamped envelope from the past was waiting on the living room table, waiting to reminisce, waiting to remind, waiting for an accounting and an answer. Like a gunshot in the night, it stopped me in my tracks.

The paper time traveler wanted to tell me something and all I could do was cry. In three or four small paragraphs in large print, it confirmed for me the loss I had felt and yet couldn't pin down, couldn't remember how to put into words, couldn't recall as the broken ideal I had believed to the point of unspoken and forgotten truth. It allowed me to grieve and know what I was grieving for. I cried tears of remembrance, tears of regret... and, once out, tears of thankfulness, because it also reminded me of what I had had. It gave me a goal for my children as they grew up, albeit with a different ending.

In all the fog of divorce and broken dreams and ideals, a fifteen year-old boy walked me back into the dream he had come so far through space and time to remind me of. He was a procrastinator and a bit of a rule stretcher, but he could articulate his life with passion and conviction even if it was a bit naive. As a thirty-four year old, I have just begun to appreciate how significant that moment was and how you truly can meet wandering time travelers who will change your life and of the teacher's promise that made it possible.    

This Job Will Never Come Again

7:05am

Another morning. The alarm clock has done its thankless job again, but the girls have beat it to the punch. They've run into the room, run me over, and pulled the warm and snugly fitted sheets off of me and onto themselves with a giggle and a contented sigh. They squabble over who gets mom's long abandoned feather pillow. The loser yanks on mine, places her feet on my back, pushing hard, and demands a light breakfast of whatever sugary cereal we have in the cupboard that morning. She always seems to ask for the one that ran out the morning before.

Coffee in the Keurig. The iPod comes off the charger on the kitchen stereo and I check the schedule. If it isn't on there, it probably won't get done. The youngest has dance. Pick up the girls from school. Deposit a check. The watch should be done at the jewelers. Nothing special today. The schedule and my wife kept me moving (and passing) during nursing school. It became a habit of necessity along with checking my email as I rolled out of bed to see the clinical assignments sent out at 4AM. My days are a bit easier in the morning; I check email at seven-thirty now.

7:30am

The filters are getting better, only two or three advertizements and none demeaning the size of my m3mber or touting the newest weight loss miracle cure discovered in some protein rich African berry boosted with B-vitamins and crack disguised as caffeine. The paper version rots in my mailbox and only gets checked a few times a week.

Let's see: Church sent a shotgunned prayer request. The Daily Forward is reviewing life in Brooklyn, again. Dad has sent me another 15MB attachment full of pictures. He says that Facebook is too inhuman and, if he wanted strangers to look at his life, he'd post it on the town square telephone pole. He might have a point, but even his considerate zipping of the pictures does little to curb my irritation at the momentary inconvenience as I set the iPod down to let it download his fishing pictures.

Multitask. The coffee's done. The children are out of bed: cereal, spoons, last minute homework for the oldest,  twenty minutes of Word Girl for the youngest while she eats.


8:00am

Her hair is a tangled fluffy golden puff. Her eyes are playfully blue and her lips are pursed in defiance. She know this dance. We've tangoed before. It's more than that, it's a dare and she knows who wins. Her latest version of "I don't want socks," or "I hate those pants" has evolved to include kicking me in the jaw. It hurts, but I know it's just the independence talking. She has no idea what her real strength is. It took myself, a large orderly, and the doctor to hold her still long enough to get a bean out of her nose a few years ago. She's stronger now.

The oldest has always dressed herself and knows the school handbook by heart. The school challenged her once and she beat 'em down. Not bad for a ten year old. I only heard about it on the way home when I asked why she was smiling so broadly. She is beginning to realize the power of a confident girl, but she feels others pain acutely. I won't be surprised when she joins the peace core after medical school.  

Out the door, still hoping all their shoes are on and the book bags are in the car because I don't see them inside.

8:35am

I sweet-talk the car, half praying to God that the transmission shifts past second gear this time when backing out onto the highway. Truckers don't slow down when you stall and I'm not sure the air bags work, but who does.

I must have upset the tiki-gods last night. The power steering spit up all the fluid last night and my elbows pop in and out as I crank the column around and hit the gas. The youngest is singing to herself about the cereal she spilled. The oldest stares at the clock, knowing we'll be late and trying not to vomit with the realization that she may be the last kid dropped off at the corner of the school and have to walk her sister in alone to the sound of morning announcements.

8:55am 

The lights are all green and we slide in just in time. "Love you girls. Have a good day." Out the doors they go, down the side-walk, and into the school. I miss them already, but I can wait. I know they're growing up and I can't see it all.

Seven-thirty to nine o'clock every day. This is an hour an a half I wouldn't miss for the world. I don't know how I ever did or why. Well, I do. The money was nice, but this is better. I know I won't be able to do this for ever, but I know them better than I ever have. I feel like a Dad. I feel reconnected in a way I haven't felt since they fell asleep as babies on my chest while I was watching football in a chair propped back. It counter-balances my current joblessness/ underemployment and it salves the wounds for now. The job that pays cash will come, but this job will never come again.       

My wife. My love. My joy.

Seeing her in the office with confidence written all over her face impresses me.

She's in her element when she's allowed to talk meaningfully about helping students get a better head start than she had in elementary school. She isn't arguing. She isn't in distress. She's teaching, guiding, team leading and it shows. Her eyes are beautifully bright.

She is a practical woman. She enjoys nothing more then to gather all of the tools around her and plan for the day, the week, the year. Not just to stratagize, but brass-tacks, nuts-and-bolts kind of stuff. Her joy is contagious... and I can only see her through the office window. What a smile.

Even in a pinch, she's there with a grin, but, more than promised prayer on-the-run-out-the-door, she's real help and active practiced advice. She opens up her own resources and shares, without monetary or work-place political gain, anything anyone could need or want... or not even know they wanted until they brainstormed with her is theirs. Book sets on loan: Junie Bee, Deep Fried Worms, Forth Grade Nothing, you name it. Open door during breaks, after school, and in the hall, she's powerful grace in motion.

I trace her beauty in the lines of her dress as she moves toward the door to say hello and see just what I need while excusing the interruption to the others in the room. I love her.

I love the way she loves. I love the way she moves with grace, power, purpose, and an accepting knowledge of her own struggles past and present. Her eyes, her smile, herself. I can't believe she's mine to love in return.   

Snippits for Easter

In Ezekiel, God speaks to Jerusalem regarding looking down on others and foreshadows non-believers receiving His truth: "I will give them to you as daughters, but not on the basis of my covenant with you." Hence, Jesus gives us the blood of the new covenant.