According to Wiens, the “most underrated” skill successful people use to avoid burnout is shifting their stress response from “fight or flight” to “challenge.”
You’re probably familiar with fight or flight, the stress response that can occur when faced with a perceived threat. When fighting or fleeing, your body is on high alert and hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol are released. Your blood vessels constrict and inflammation increases in preparation for possible injury.
It’s a useful response when your life is in danger, but much less so when the “threat” is a tight deadline or a micromanaging boss, Wiens tells CNBC Make It.
Our bodies, she explains, often have difficulty distinguishing between real and perceived threats, which can result in a constant state of fear or overreaction.
What sets top performers apart from everyone else, Wiens says, is that they view stressful situations as challenges that can be overcome, rather than falling back into fight-or-flight mode. Wiens discovered this correlation by studying people who thrive in high-stress environments, including business leaders and police chiefs.
Practicing this alternative response can increase your resilience to stress and in turn lead to better health, emotional well-being and productivity at work – even during periods of high stress, Wiens found.
Building self-awareness is the first step to returning from full fight or flight.
“When faced with a stressor beyond our control, we create stories in our heads to deal with the unknown, which can lead to a lot of self-criticism and catastrophic thinking,” Wiens explains. “But resilient, successful people challenge their assumptions. They are able to break the negative thinking loop and ask themselves, ‘What is true here, and what assumptions am I making about the situation?'”
For example, if your boss announces a reorganization, you might worry about losing your job. That’s a valid concern, but fixating on it won’t make you feel any better, says Wiens.
Switching to a challenge response to the situation may motivate your manager to ask whether your job is at risk and, depending on their response, what opportunities exist for you in other parts of the organization, or for advice on proactively looking for a new job. job elsewhere.
“By viewing stressful situations as a challenge and not as a threat, you can think through a stressful situation with a clear mind and solve problems better, rather than worrying about bad outcomes that haven’t happened yet,” adds Wiens to.
To cultivate a challenge response, Wiens recommends asking yourself the following questions the next time you’re stressed at work:
- What are my strengths in this situation?
- What resources do I have?
- How have I dealt with similar stressors in the past?
By viewing a stressor as a challenge, you train your brain to focus on the positive, Wiens adds: the feeling of satisfaction or reward you get when you succeed.
In “Burnout Immunity,” Wiens mentions healthcare workers who not only avoided burnout but thrived in the stressful environments of hospitals even during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic because they saw stress as a challenge, not a threat.
Similar to fight or flight, the challenge response affects your cardiovascular system, but instead of constricting blood vessels, your blood vessels dilate, sending more oxygen to your brain and muscles.
Both responses can get your heart pumping and your blood pumping before you give a presentation or start a difficult conversation with your boss, but remember that your body is trying to give you more energy to succeed – and make the most of it to make.
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