Weird day. Really good bits. Really tiring bits. Feel slightly washed out and exhausted. Can’t tell if I’m a big drama queen or not. Met the new Director General of the BBC today. Launched a site and stuff. More on the important bits tomorrow. Question of the moment: Should you be stressed in stressful situations or should you be calm through them? Personal theory – stress gives you power and if corralled and put into your service is fairly useful. Not sure I’m correct. If I’m wrong, I’m going to have to restructure my belief system a lot. Other question: What do people do when they’re not working?
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10 replies on “Two questions about stress and work…”
The site looks nice. I think a degree of stress can fuel creativity and ingenuity.
Please tell me he wasn’t still wearing that dreadful pink shirt and brown jacket combination . . . please.
One of the big universal pieces of advice from the l*feh*cks survey (which I never have enough time to stick in the talk) was that almost everyone said the best trick they’d learnt as they grew older was to “calm down”.
It may be an age thing, but they definitely felt it improved their productivity.
Stress is great for short periods of time, but after a while it builds up and literally poisons you. I think it’s best to save it for special occasions.
While not working I sit in a chair and stare at the wall…
He’s taller than Greg Dyke was and wasn’t wearing the same outfit he was in the thing on the ring-main. He also doesn’t stutter as much in real life. He must have been really nervous.
Like fridgemagnet said: Useful in short burst but prolonged stress is 100% pure poison. It breaks down your immune system and all while you don’t notice the symptoms building up. Take some general advice from an experienced stress-user (with friends & coworkers to follow):
Remember to say “no” from time to time. Prioritise & say “no”. You can be just as an important person without saying “yes” all the time, because people can get used to your patterns of handling things pretty quickly: If you are an open door, people poor it through the step, unconsciously. But if you’re half-open, they can get used to that too and still feel you are part of the game. Add-on-advice: Turn off your cell phone when you get home.
What I do when not working? As little as possible, except if it’s during longer periods of time, then I start being active within own projects. Boredom can be a true bliss…
A little adrenaline can be useful but stress is generally not healthy or helpful. Tires you out too much and makes you less effective. And what is this thing ‘not working’ of which you speak?
There’s a “not working”??? Damn, no-one ever mentioned that to me before. Stress, unfortunately, actually helps sometimes, at least in the decision-making process (when making music anyway). You probably have to be better at it (the work) than me to be able to deal with it properly though…..
I had a chain of Bad Things happen to me in a short span of time a few years ago. Ended up seeing an NHS psychotherapist. Told her my story and basically ended with “…so I think i’m depressed. That’s bad, right?”
She replied that given what I had been through, she’d be worried if I wasn’t depressed – that is: it would have been wrong for me not to be depressed.
Fear, stress, depression and all those other “bad” things are appropriate given the right circumstances. You just have to make sure those reactions don’t come up at the wrong time. Keep it in perspective…
Probably helps that my current boss is agreeable to me saying at 3pm “I’m going home. I need to go have a swim and steam.” That’s my current cure-all for when relaxation is required.
stress is like a bell curve
without any stress we couldn’t hold our bodies up
and at a certain point a person will reach an optimum stress level, which allows them to function at their best.
howeve the promeble is there is such a thing as too much stress at this point a person actually become less effective.
like everything it’s all about the balance