Say you’ve had a busy and stressful workweek. Your days are packed with calls and appointments and you still have to carve out time to prep for an important presentation only two days from now. You’re planning a summer vacation and you haven’t even booked the rental car yet. You look at your screen – ping! Your calendar says its time to pack up and go to an industry meet and greet.
Do you:
a) Skip the event and keep your head down and work – the feeling of achievement will help you feel on top of things.
b) Pack up and go to the event – it will give you a needed break, you will connect with some valuable contacts and get some perspective on how others are faring this year.
c) Head for the gym or an outdoor workout – it always helps to burn off some stress, plus the weather is warm and it’s swimsuit season!
The #1 Remedy when you are stressed: I suspect many of you are thinking I’d recommend c) the gym as the “right kind of busy” choice to make. While I always think it’s a good idea to pack in some exercise, the most reinvigorating thing you could put on your plate is b): Go connect with your colleagues. That’s right, put more on your proverbial plate – load it up with the right kind of busy. In this case, reach out for some social interaction.
Expand, don’t contract. Yes, logic dictates that you should do less so that you can focus better, but the reality is that dialing down the activities that relax, recharge and refresh can actually make you less productive, less focused and slower at finishing. I call this a stress tunnel – the natural tendency to eliminate discretionary activities to focus on your current priority. Do this for too long and too often, and it’s you, your priority, and the stress it is causing, alone in that stress tunnel.
Social interaction is the key to creating a powerful buffer to stress. In the middle of summer vacation season, our tendency is to do a marathon work-sprint before leaving for a long amount of time, but I invite you to reflect on how that is not ultimately serving you and your work. Respond to the creep of the stress tunnel now, before your vacation: Start a routine of using the long summer days and relaxing weather to build in fun time, work out time and reach out time.
If you build this habit, vacation is that much more rewarding when you get there. CNNHealth recently reported about how healthy, helpful habits we form in relaxation stay with us in times of stress. The more you exercise this reaching out muscle, the stronger it gets, and the more relief it brings.
Next time you’re feeling utterly overwhelmed by all the stressors of this season, don’t think about what stressful things you can eliminate. Instead, consider what buffers will really lighten the stress you feel. In many cases, your best buffer is reaching out to other people. Not only will just being among friends and colleagues lighten your load, but in doing so you really open yourself up to the serendipity that comes with simply being out in the world.
Curious about building more habits and buffers to keep your stress tunnel far far away? Get your personal meQ score–you’ll have a real insight into your own specific stress personality type, and Lifestyle Habits and Thinking Styles that aggravate your stress. your meQ Score, which is your Balance Quotient (like an IQ score, but about your ability to balance the stuff you care about with the conflicts and demands in your life). Trust me, it’s different for everyone.
Reach out to stress less, and report back! Find me here in the comments and on Twitter at @JanBruce – tell me about how you used reaching out to stay out of your stress tunnel.