When you are stressed your whole life suffers

​I chose to be a Stress and Performance Coach. The reason being that stress is the complete opposite of performance and it is the biggest obstacle to peak performance. When you are stressed, your ability to perform to your best, in any area of life, is severely restricted. It is very hard to get the best from yourself when you feel like you are being attacked from all angles and you think that everyone and everything is conspiring against you. The sad reality is that most people who suffer from stress either don’t realise it or most often, don’t want to admit to it. In other cases, there are some people who will argue that some stress is good or necessary, which is just plain wrong.

When you are stressed, the first thing you need to do is recognise the stress so that you can take corrective action. The earlier you spot it, the more painless the remedy will be.  The signs could show up in any area of your life. You don’t have to be paranoid about it but you shouldn’t be a passenger in your life i.e. you should be observing what is going on in your life anyway so that where necessary; you can steer a different course.

​When you are stressed, the signs may appear across several different areas of your life. There are too many different examples to cover in one article but the examples below will give you some good ideas about what to look out for.

​When you are stressed, your behaviour becomes more erratic. You are constantly rushed as you jump from one task to another. As you are working on one task, you are already planning and preparing for the next. Some people fool themselves in to thinking that they are being efficient but if you are not giving full attention to your current task, you are not going to perform that task to the highest standard you can manage.

I am not saying that you should be achieving perfection because that is neither necessary nor possible. But you should be able to at least do a perfectly serviceable job i.e. you get the job done without any major issues. Sure, it may be possible to improve on what you have delivered but the work still more than meets the requirements for a job well done.

When you are trying to plan and prepare for the next task before finishing the current one, you are multitasking. Multitasking does not work and is not possible. Very few people are good at what we call multitasking and they are not actually multitasking. They are rapidly refocusing i.e. they are switching between tasks very quickly. Most of us need a period of adjustment when we switch task as we need to catch back up with where we left off and get focused on the​ task again.

In the vast majority of cases, multitasking fails miserably because:

​It has been shown, time and time again, that it is far better to singletask where you focus solely on completing one task before moving onto the next.

Related article: Why you need an effective organisational system

​Emotional management is dependent on your ability to remain calm, composed and in control when you face pressure. When you are stressed, you can’t remain calm, composed and in control. As emphasised above, you are always in a rush and you are constantly trying to do more than you really can, just to keep up with the demands you (or others) have placed upon you.

As the pressure becomes more than you can handle, stress kicks in. When you are stressed and as that stress grows, your emotions become more erratic. You may just experience one unwanted emotion but in most cases, your emotions will jump around a little.

The emotions you may experience include:

​Basically, any emotion which suggests that you are anything but calm, composed and in control is likely to arise when you are stressed. These emotions will restrict your ability to get the best out of yourself and your ability to get the best out of others. In fact, you may become unbearable, thus damaging the inter personal relationships in every area of your life.

​Many of the negative sensations you experience when you are sick may arise when you are stressed. There is an obvious reason for this. You just need to think of the origins of the word disease or, dis-ease. Your body and/or mind are not at ease so you start to feel the sensations which are meant to be warning signs. They are meant to warn you that you need to take some action to get back to a state of ease.

Have you ever had a meeting where you have done something wrong (e.g. missed a deadline) and you feel you might be reprimanded. You may have been thinking about it and your body starts to react according to how you think. Maybe you are nervous and worried so you feel a little sick in your stomach or, maybe you are defensive and ‘up for the fight’ so your heart is racing and you are starting to sweat a little in preparation for the conflict.

Sometimes, we dismiss unusual sensations as a bug or mild illness but they are a sign that you are not at ease and you need to pay attention to determine what is wrong and what action you may need to take. When you start to tune in to your sensations and feelings you will be able to identify issues while they are still in their infancy. You can then eliminate some of the sources of stress, nip stress in the bud and in cases where you are ill; take the necessary corrective action.

​How you view your life and how your view yourself are incredibly important for performance and happiness. The experiences in your life influence the images which run through your mind but just as importantly, the images which run through your mind influence your experiences.

You don’t have to be a genius to work out that when you are stressed and/or feeling bad, the images which run through your mind will be overwhelmingly negative. You will have a negative image and opinion of yourself and your abilities. This in turn negatively impacts your belief that you can cope with the pressures you face so, you become even more stressed and the cycle continues.

The key here is to recognise when you are stressed and start to deal with it. As you deal with your stress, your belief that you can overcome the pressures you face grows; resulting in more positive images running through your mind and creating a positive cycle which lifts you from a position of stress to a position of personal power.

Related article: 4 Ways your self-image impacts your performance

​To get the most from your life, you need to be able to think about the work you must do in the present moment and you need to be able to conduct higher level thinking which allows you to plan, decide, problem solve and set effective goals. When you do this higher-level thinking, you determine the course of direction for your life. It is the present moment thinking which then allows you to put the plans into action and get the results.

When you are stressed, your mind is completely taking over by present moment thinking. You are disorganised and overloaded so you can’t see further than the end of your nose. You are constantly trying to deal with current problems so you can’t think any further ahead. Like the fisherman with a hole in his boat, you are too busy bailing out the water to think about landing a big fish.

Of course, when you are facing such a big problem, you need higher-level thinking to solve the problem. But you don’t have the mental resources available for such thinking because they are all tied up with the immediate challenges. It is this difficulty in finding space and resources for higher-level thinking which can make stress such a difficult problem to solve. It is also why so many people are stressed for so long without realising or accepting it i.e. they can’t take an honest look at their situation for long enough to diagnose the full extent of the problem and see the madness for what it really is.

Related article: Why you might be struggling to set great goals

​Have you ever tried to have a conversation with somebody whose mind is elsewhere? They are completely distracted and the conversation is getting little or none of their attention. It is a bit like reading a political manifesto i.e. you are on the receiving end of meaningless babble which bears no relation to anything you have said or done and you suspect that you are of no importance whatsoever to them.

That is no way to have a relationship but when you are stressed, it is likely that your friends, family and loved one are the ones reading the political manifesto. Connection is what makes relationships so special. Sharing our thoughts, feelings and stories with others and hearing theirs in return. It helps to give us a shared experience of this life. We feel supported when others give us their time and attention and we feel of value when we get to offer our time and attention to them.  However, connection requires that we are 100% present when we are with the other person. When you are stressed, your body might be present but your mind is in another place trying to resolve all the problems you face.

If only you could realise that being 100% present and sharing your problems with a friend or loved one would make a great first step to solving your problems.

Stress also damages your relationships by virtue of the lack of emotional control mentioned earlier. You can’t keep losing control of your emotions with others without it doing some damage to your relationships.

​When you are stressed, the first sign of a problem with your health is often fatigue. You are constantly tired. This is a sign that you are not getting the rest and recovery you need to recover from the efforts you are making each day. When this happens, you begin each day with less energy than you had the previous morning. It doesn’t take long before your performance and your health start to suffer.

In addition to the fatigue, stress stimulates the production of cortisol which, amongst other things, suppresses the immune system. A suppressed immune system means that your body has difficulty in detecting and fighting illnesses. This leads to minor illnesses having more severe consequences than they really should have. Also, it leaves you more susceptible to serious illness.

The potential negative health consequences of stress are virtually endless but among the more severe consequences are an increased risk of stroke and heart attack. Remember that the next time that somebody tells you about all that ‘good’ stress. Or more sensibly, ignore the talk of ‘good’ stress and realise that stress is just not good for you.

​Despite what many people would have you believe, stress is not a good thing. It is not a badge of honour and you should never be proud to say you are stressed. Of course, you shouldn’t be embarrassed, ashamed or guilty either. But you should recognise it for what it is; a sign that some issues need to be dealt with and changes need to be made. While the stress response is useful when absolutely necessary; there is no need for you to be experiencing it unless you are in serious danger. Unfortunately, any time you are experiencing fear (in any of its guises) or you feel like you can’t cope with the pressures you face, you are triggering the stress response. This leads to a whole range of problems, many of which are discussed above. So, when you feel that you might be experiencing stress, take the time to identify the changes you need to make and make them. You will be grateful you did. You will be happier, healthier and you will see great improvements in your performance levels.