During Stress Awareness Week, Thrive & Shine founder Nicky Bartley shares her top ten de-stressing strategies for Staffordshire business leaders:
“Stress is perhaps one of the most misunderstood states of the human condition. It’s a lifesaving hack in fact, designed to act as a kind of alert, a nervous system feedback loop, sending information to the body and mind, prompting us to check and reflect on whether we are in actual life-threatening danger in that moment.
This majorly intelligent feedback loop gives opportunity for learning to arise, updating the system that yes, we are in real and present danger, or no we are not. If we are, this fight or flight response will guide us a best it can to safety. If we are not in real and present danger, the cue presents in order to prompt the mind to update the information so that the next time we are I a similar situation, it can continue as normal and not allocate resources to the nervous system.
This is how stress presents us with the opportunity to learn and have insights. Not understanding the stress prompts though, lead people to ignore the opportunities and insight, overriding the system. The stress response eventually gets louder, continuing in similar circumstances to again, request a sense check. It’s become common place to numb these sensations, to avoid them or to act them out, leading to chronic stress, illness, disease and relationship breakdowns.
As a CEO, taking time to understand your own stress responses will exponential improve all areas of your life and business. You will also be inadvertently role modelling this to your workforce, the benefits of which, they’ll be truly appreciative for.
Here are ten actionable and meaningful tips that you can use to help reduce your stress levels:
1. Taking breaks might seem obvious, but for many CEO’s, it’s not a priority. Our mind establishes patterns based on the beliefs we hold. If we never give our mind chance to go offline, it quickly adapts to this and will find a way of running more efficiently, but usually not necessarily more optimally. Over time, we become more forgetful, less motivated and less creative.
2. Remember that your employees are watching you so that they can be like you, especially managers. You are the role model for how the culture works and how to relate to each other within that culture. You set the tone for the whole organisation. This is a good thing, you can use it to create a workplace where employees feel safe, supported and encouraged to shine and will bring you reassurance and peace of mind.
3. Forget work and business regularly. Ensure there are moments in each day, where work is not a priority. Notice how present you are outside of work. If you’re not present, work on this, since presence during any activity or endeavour is vital to not only the quality of our output, but to our response to any input.
4. Don’t isolate yourself from those around you in a bid to protect yourself. Have people in your immediate team who you can confide in. Ultra independence is a stress response and overrides the value of running a business with employees in it. Humans are born problem solvers, especially when together and never more so when there is a real problem to solve. Make the most of having a team and share with them, their value to you.
5. If there is one thing that I would advise that every human, including CEO’s, practices, it’s to involve yourself in a hobby or interest, particularly something that you’re not yet good at. Hobby’s have a wide range of benefits, including helping us to exercise our creativity, encouraging us to become good leaners and presenting the opportunity to work on things like patience, self compassion and self acceptance.
6. Remember that the nature of being human, is the capacity to change. Trying to remain the same person who entered the business is not a useful endeavour and denies our growth. One of the biggest causes of stress, is the opposition in our mind, to change. Test out where you’re reactive rather than responsive, where you might have resistance to the view of another and where you yourself might be fearful of your identity or reputation being damaged. All of these are beliefs, not truths and over time, will increase stress load and any feeling of heaviness and burden.
7. Get outside in nature isn’t a cliché, it’s vital. Being in nature doesn’t have to mean a walk in the country or climbing a mountain. It can mean a stroll in the park, or even a walk around the block. Fresh air, sunlight, wind, rain, are all natural elements that we are designed to have some exposure to. Being outside increases and improves resilience, gives our mind something to think about whilst it readjusts to a different environment and activity, which in turn enables it a rest from what it was thinking about. We aren’t separate from nature, we are nature.
8. Test out your beliefs. Everything we think is a belief, no exception, even the truths. There has been great strides made over the last 10 years in the fields of neuro-psychology and it’s now more widely recognised and established that our human experience is created 100% from thought arising in the moment. Our perceptions are beliefs that are close to reality, but are not an accurate representation of actual reality, which is why every human has a different perceptive experience of the same thing. It’s also the reason that our beliefs, if and when they’re limiting, can change. Where do you feel that change would be beneficial and where does change feel difficult, improbable and stressful? This is really an exercise in self reflection, remember to be gentle with yourself. Beliefs are not something that we have chosen, they’re ideas and concepts that we simply haven’t questioned.
9. How is your gut microbiome? Those patterns that I mentioned that the mind establishes, are digested within your gut. Nutrition plays an intrinsic part when it comes to stress. Our mind does not exist solely within our brain, it exists throughout our nervous system. The gut is the epicentre of our nervous system, sending nutrients, in the right amount, at the right time, to the right places. This is why stress often manifests itself in the digestive tract. It’s also why we often notice a gut reaction to questions, decisions and experiences. Healthy intake of the right nutrients at the differing phases of our life is important. This changes with age and cycles in both men and women, so take advice from a qualified nutritionist if you’re unsure of what a healthy and optimal diet should consist of for you.
10. Sleep – I have saved the best for last. Without proper sleep, stress recovery will be impossible. Not only are the phases of sleep vital to sustaining health, they’re vital to sustaining the mind’s rinse cycle. The phase of deep sleep, which is usually the third phase of sleep, is where the mind rests and resets after the rinsing stage of dreaming. Deep sleep is where our vital organs and every single cell in our body, shuts down so that it can establish what needs renewing. Stress is the number one cause of sleep disruption and is the easiest way of establishing whether someone is suffering from stress. Often, people don’t recognise the signs of stress until the patterns are well established and thus can be more stubborn and widespread to deal with, however, sleep is the first signal that adjustments will be beneficial.
If I was to advise only one thing that would benefit managing stress, it would be to check sleep hygiene and start from there. That includes limiting light in the evening, putting work away at least two hours before sleep and undertaking regular reality checks.
Nicky is the founder of Thrive & Shine, a wellbeing hub supporting employers and business managers with their employee mental health, wellbeing, culture and change. To find out more, visit the website by clicking here.
