Making Stress Work For You

HAROLD L. TAYLOR
MAKING STRESS
WORK FOR YOU
2
Making Stress Work for You
1st edition
© 2020 Harold L. Taylor & bookboon.com
ISBN 978-87-403-3320-6
3
MAKING STRESS WORK FOR YOU Contents
CONTENTS
About the Author 6
Introduction 7
1 Stress and how to recognize it 8

1.1 What is stress? 8
1.2 How to recognize stress 9
1.3 Worried? Action is the best course of action 10
2 How we are impacted by stress 12

2.1 Stress can affect your health 12
2.3 Stress affects performance 13
2.3 Stress weakens willpower 13
2.4 Stress curtails memory 14
2.5 Stress impedes decision-making 14
2.6 Stress leads to burnout 15
2.7 Stress is a catalyst for compassion fatigue 15
2.8 Stress interferes with sleep 16
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3 Sources of stress 17
3.1 Rush-hour traffic 17
3.2 Road rage 17
3.3 Working conditions 18
3.4 Ineffective supervision 19
3.5 Technology 20
3.6 Multitasking 21
3.7 Too much coffee 21
3.8 Self-imposed stress 22
3.9 Beware of second-hand stress 23
4 Personality and stress 24

4.1 The risks of Type A personality 24
4.2 Modifying Type A behavior 26
4.3 Are you a Type A person? 27
5 Little things mean a lot 29

5.1 Don’t let hassles get you down 29
5.2 Summary of strategies for defusing these daily hassles 31
5.3 Attitude can tame stress 31
5.4 Take the optimistic route 32
5.5 Relationships are a must 33
6 Managing the stress in your life 34

6.1 Time to take control 34
6.2 Time to say no 36
6.3 Mindfulness-based stress reduction 37
7 Building stress resistance 40

7.1 Learn to tolerate stress 40
7.2 The stress reistance quiz 42
7.3 25 ways to relieve stress 44
7.4 Balancing high-tech and high touch 46
8 Keep your life in perspective 50

8.1 Get off the Fast Track 50
8.2 Keep on top of your work 51
8.3 Patient people show improved performance 53
Books referenced in “Making Stress Work for You“ 55
5
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harold Taylor, currently owner of TaylorInTime, has been speaking, writing and conducting
training programs on the topic of effective time management for over 40 years. He has
written over 20 books, including a Canadian bestseller, Making Time Work for You, originally
published in 1981.
He has developed over fifty time management products that have sold in 38 countries
around the world. His time management newsletter, now in electronic format, has been
published for over thirty-five years and he has had over 250 articles accepted for publication
in various magazines.
A past director of the National Association of Professional Organizers, Harold received their
Founder’s Award in 1999 for outstanding contributions to the organizing profession. He
received the CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) designation in 1987 from the National
Speakers Association. In 1998 the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers inducted him
into the Canadian Speaking Hall of Fame. And in 2001, he received the Founder’s Award
from the Professional Organizers in Canada. The award has been renamed the Harold Taylor
Award in his honor.
Prior to his speaking and writing career, Harold held management positions in industry
for twelve years at Canadian Johns Manville and American-Standard and was a teaching
master in the business division of Humber College in Toronto for eight years. He has been
an entrepreneur for over forty years, incorporating four companies during that time.
His first company, Harold Taylor Enterprises Ltd., established in 1967, was a multiple
association management company that also published four magazines and a line of greeting
cards, and sponsored public seminars and management training programs. Since 1981, when
he incorporated the time management company, Harold Taylor Time Consultants Inc., he
has personally presented over 2000 workshops, speeches and keynotes on the topic of time
and life management.
Harold lives in Sussex, New Brunswick, Canada. He writes e-books for Bookboon.com (27
to date), publishes a weekly blog article at his website (also posted on Facebook & Twitter),
a free quarterly time management newsletter for his 2000 plus subscribers, sends out regular
tweets, and speaks to seniors and other groups on “growing older without growing old” in
addition to “time and life management.”
His website is www.taylorintime.com
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INTRODUCTION
Forty years ago, I wrote a book on time management called Making time work for you,
published by General Publishing in Canada. Why did I write it? Because there were over
100 books on the market telling people how to save time, conserve time, manage time,
and so on. But few that told us how to successfully use time. The fact was, and still is, that
you can’t save time. What you don’t use each day is no longer available to you. You can’t
manage time; that’s already been done for us - 12 noon comes at the same time every day,
3 PM follows 2 PM, and so on.
We already have as much time each day as we we’re going to get. What we need is someone
to tell us how to most effectively use the time at our disposal.
Similarly, with stress we have plenty of books telling us how to reduce it, manage it, eliminate
it, conquer it and so on. But little on how we can use it to our advantage and to build
resistance to stress. We will never be able to completely avoid it.
But we can identify it, weaken it, channel it, live with it and use it to our advantage.
That’s the focus of this book. We can avoid some of the most harmful types of stress and
can certainly reduce the stress resulting from our jobs, among other things. I will deal with
those. But the important thing is to recognize that in many cases we are our own worst
enemies when it comes to stress. Our personality, our behaviour, and our reaction to the
environment and other people, frequently account for a large portion of the stress that we
experience.
In the early chapters I will discuss stress itself, including its sources, impact on our health
and performance, and ways of counteracting it. And I will close with some suggestions for
building up a resistance to stress so that we are better equipped to handle the stress that
cannot be delivered, as well as those unpredictable stressful events that take us by surprise.
7
MAKING STRESS WORK FOR YOU Stress and how to recognize it
1 STRESS AND HOW TO

RECOGNIZE IT
1.1 WHAT IS STRESS?

The word stress wasn’t used to describe a human condition until the 1930s when Montréal
endocrinologist Hans Selye observed that his laboratory rats would develop peptic ulcers
in response to various toxic substances. He borrowed the word “stress” from physics, where
it means “external pressure exerted on a malleable object to produce distortion or strain.”
Selye observed that stress can result from either good news or bad news and that our bodies
do not recognize the difference between a real threat and a perceived one. Stress reaction is
the same. So, our perceptions, our attitude and our personality can also influence our health.
Stress is a physiological and psychological response to events that upset our balance in some
way. When faced with a threat or perceived threat, the body’s defenses kick into high gear
as an automatic response referred to as the “fight or flight” response.
The “fight-or-flight” response prepares us for emergency action. When danger is sensed, a
small part of the brain called the hypothalamus sets off a chemical alarm. The sympathetic
nervous system responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones, including adrenaline and
cortisol. These stress hormones race through the bloodstream, readying us to either flee the
scene or battle it out.
“Stress occurs when a person perceives excessive demands

on his or her emotional or physical resources.”
- Daniel G Amen, author of The end of mental illness, 2020
Heart rate and blood flow to the large muscles increase so we can run faster and fight harder.
Blood vessels under the skin constrict to prevent blood loss in case of injury, pupils dilate
so we can see better, and our blood sugar increases, giving us an energy boost and speeding
up reaction time. At the same time, body processes not essential to immediate survival
are suppressed. The digestive and reproductive systems slow down, growth hormones are
switched off, and the immune response is inhibited.
Our heart starts pounding in our chest, muscles tense up, breathing is faster, and every sense
is on red alert, ready for action. So, the “fight or flight” response is a good thing designed
to help us cope with emergencies. And the stress hormones released into our blood stream
are dissipated as we act.
8
You have probably heard of cases where ordinary people performed superhuman feats of
strength, under extremely stressful circumstances. Such as a grandmother lifting a Volkswagen
off a trapped teenager or a mother leaping from a second story window with an infant in
her arms.
However, in this modern world, most of the stress we feel is in response to psychological
rather than physical threats. Being overwhelmed by all the things we must do, caring for
an ailing parent, or being caught in a traffic jam all qualify as stressful situations, but none
of them calls for either fight or flight. The same thing applies to a crisis or an unrealistic
deadline at work. Unfortunately, our bodies don’t make this distinction. Whether we’re
stressed over a pending deadline, an argument with our spouse or a mortgage coming due,
it’s all the same to our bodies. It goes into automatic overdrive.
1.2 HOW TO RECOGNIZE STRESS

Most managers recognize stress even though they may not be able to describe it easily. It
normally precipitates emotional discomfort, a feeling that not all is well, helplessness, a
fear of not being able to cope. It could include loss of appetite, insomnia, sweating, ulcers
or other illnesses. It is brought on by the “fight or flight response” described above, which
prepares us to face some conflict or flee some danger. The body is prepared for some
physical activity, but the activity never comes because most of today’s situations call for
behavioral adjustments, not physical activity. Conse-quently our body’s systems are thrown
out of balance.
“For fast-acting relief from stress, try slowing down.”
- Lily Tomlin, Comedienne
The fight or flight response could be elicited when you are suddenly cut off by another car
during your hectic drive to the office one morning. The body’s responses prepare you for
“fight” but instead you sit there and stew - your hands clenching the wheel, face flushed,
stomach muscles tight. The “fight” response might be to jump out of the car, yank open the
antagonist’s door, pull him out by the scruff of the neck and smack him a good one. But
although this would invariably relieve the tension, it is only appropriate from the viewpoint
of our body’s system and not from the viewpoint of acceptable behavior as far as society is
concerned. Consequently, we remain under stress long after the cause of it has disappeared.
A similar reaction could take place when confronted by dozens of little tasks all due at
the same time. Urgency, combined with a predisposition to Type A behavior, can become
9
a health threatening experience. Medical and psychological problems caused by stress have
become a major health problem. One standard medical text states that 50% to 80% of all
diseases have their origins in stress.
Type A behavior will be discussed in chapter 4. But first let’s look briefly at another form
of stress, which is closely related to Type A behavior inasmuch as it is within our control -
worry. Then we will look at how we are the impacted by stress in chapter two.
1.3 WORRIED? ACTION IS THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION

Most people would prefer a worry-free life. With little to worry about, we would reduce
anxiety and stress, improve our relationships with others, sleep better, live happier, and
increase our personal productivity.
Worry normally refers to having negative thoughts about a future event that may or may
not happen. We all know that worry is a waste of time; because it does nothing to improve
the current situation or influence the future situation. It only negatively impacts our health
and well-being. Yet according to Robert Leahy in his book, The Worry Cure, 38% of people
say they worry every day, and more than 19 million Americans are chronic worriers. It’s
difficult not to worry.
“Pessimist: one who, when faced with the choice of two

evils, chooses both.”
- Oscar Wilde
We have all heard the suggestions that we should get sufficient sleep, exercise more, adopt
a positive attitude, use humor, volunteer, obtain social support, remind ourselves of all the
good things that happen to us and so on in order to deflect the tendency to worry. And
it’s all good advice.
But trying to put a negative thought out of your mind only tends to make it hang on
that much harder. It’s like trying to ignore a song that replays repeatedly in your mind. Or
trying not to think of a pink elephant when someone tells you not to.
It makes more sense to spend a few minutes accepting the fact that you are worried,
mulling it over, assuring yourself that you would be able to survive even if the worst were
to happen, and then getting on with the next item on your “To Do” list. According to an
article in Scientific American Mind several years ago, research shows that “the more we dwell
on negative thoughts, the more the threats feel real, and the more they will repeat in our
skulls, sometimes uncontrollable.”
10
But that’s not the case when you act. We cannot both worry and do other things at the
same time with any degree of efficiency. It seems the brain is not as good at multitasking
as most of us seem to think. Acting dissipates worry. And if what you do helps alleviate
the situation you’re worrying about, so much the better.
It seems the old suggestion that action dissipates worry is gaining more scientific backing.
As John Ratey describes it in his book, Spark: the revolutionary new science of exercise and
the brain, a technique called “active coping” is a way of telling the brain that we can survive
in spite of the real or perceived threat. Developed by neurologist Joseph LeDoux, “active
coping” is simply a matter of doing something in response to the problem rather than
passively worrying about it. This action, in the face of anxiety, activates the brain’s motor
circuits, by-passing the amygdala, which was creating the negative snowballing effect.
“First ask yourself: what is the worst thing that could happen?
Then prepare to accept it. Then proceeded to improve on
the worst.”
- Dale Carnegie.
Go ahead and worry a little; it’s a natural product of your concern. But don’t dwell on it.
Take whatever action you can in order to change or avoid the worrisome situation. And if
nothing can be done, assure yourself that you will be able to cope with whatever happens.
After all, you have survived so far, haven’t you? A little worry never killed anyone. Take
advantage of the fact that effective multitasking is impossible. You can’t worry and get on
with your life at the same time. Worry will lose by default.
But what action could you possibly take? It depends on the situation. If you’re worried about
catching a virus, you could take the recommended precautions, strengthen your immune
system, adopt a healthier lifestyle and so on. If you’re worried that your business might
not survive a recession, you could visit the library and review some business books that
discuss coping with a downswing or talk to some retired businessmen who have actually
been through a recession. Or whatever. The important thing is to do something besides
worrying about it.
What if there is absolutely nothing you can do about the situation? Then there’s still no
sense worrying, is there? As the late humorist Erma Bombeck once said, “Worry is like a
rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but never gets anywhere.”
Even so, you must do something. You must be in a healthy frame of mind when you face
it. Go for a walk. Make it a habit. It’s amazing how much worry is weakened by exercise.
Action is the best course of action.
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MAKING STRESS WORK FOR YOU How we are impacted by stress
2 HOW WE ARE IMPACTED

BY STRESS
2.1 STRESS CAN AFFECT YOUR HEALTH

People who are constantly under stress wear down their immune system. They also have
more illnesses of all types. According to the Mayo Clinic, stress can affect your body, your
thoughts and feelings, and your behavior. Stress that’s left unchecked can contribute to
many health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
A study by the American Medical Association found that stress is a factor in 75% of all
illnesses and diseases that befall people. Brian Luke Seaword, in his book, Managing Stress:
Principles & Strategies for Health & Well-being, states that the association between stress and
disease is a shocking 85%. Regardless of the accuracy of these assessments, how you deal
with stress is extremely important.
“If the stress reaction goes on for too long it causes damage
to the body and leads to illness.”
- David Posen, MD
The problem with the stress response is that the more it’s activated, the harder it is to shut
off. Instead of leveling off once the crisis has passed, your stress hormones, heart rate, and
blood pressure remain elevated. Extended or repeated activation of the stress response takes
a heavy toll on the body. Prolonged exposure to stress increases your risk of everything from
heart disease, obesity, and infection to anxiety, depression, and memory problems. In fact,
it has been linked to a host of other diseases, including cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Drs. Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman back in the 1950s believed that 50% of all
premature deaths among males are from coronary disease. According to their research, which
has since been questioned in its accuracy, if you are a male over 40 years old, you have
a 50-50 chance of dying from a heart attack. The odds are even worse if you’re a “Type
A” person, which indicates the importance of your personality and how you react when
subjected to a potentially stressful situation such as the careless motorist referred to earlier.
12
2.3 STRESS AFFECTS PERFORMANCE

It’s possible that you work harder and faster under the pressure of unrealistic deadlines, but
it’s doubtful that you work better. Excellence does not come from tired, harried people.
Mediocrity does. You would hate to have your plane piloted by someone who had been
flying steadily for 12 hours. And you probably wouldn’t feel too comfortable in a taxi if
the driver had been driving all night. It’s a fact that tired workers cause accidents. For the
same reason, most skiing mishaps take place during the “one last run.”
“It’s much easier to be very busy than to be very effective.”
- A. Roger Merill
Don’t talk yourself into believing that working steadily with your nose to the grindstone
will lead to success. Work smarter, not harder. Concentrate on the goals you set for yourself.
Every day do something to bring yourself closer to them. But recognize that you will have
to ignore some of those unimportant activities that produce minimal results. You can’t do
everything and still keep your life in balance.
2.3 STRESS WEAKENS WILLPOWER

Stress will weaken your willpower or self-control. Excess cortisol impairs function in the
prefrontal cortex – an emotional learning center that helps regulate the “executive skills,”
including self-control. And prolonged exposure to cortisol has been shown to shrink the
hippocampus by up to 14%.
In stressful situations, your weakest executive skills fail first and become more pronounced.
Fatigue and information overload tend to weaken them further. So, avoiding, releasing or
being able to manage stress is important.
“Self-control is more indispensable than gunpowder.”
- Henry Morton Stanley
An article in the September 2014 issue of the Reader’s Digest (A new way of thinking by Philip
Preille) reported that a few years ago a major U.S. study confirmed previous findings that
high levels of cortisol, when produced for too long, impair mental retention. The alleviating
factor is face-to-face contact with others and both building relationships and volunteering
has been shown to relieve stress.
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2.4 STRESS CURTAILS MEMORY

Stress can induce the release of cortisol, and excess cortisol impairs function in the prefrontal
cortex – an emotional learning center that helps regulate the “executive skills,” including
working memory. The overproduction of cortisol was found in seniors who were experiencing
memory loss. And it is believed by many neurologists that memory loss experienced by
seniors is largely a factor of stress, not age. Prolonged exposure to cortisol has also been
shown to shrink the hippocampus by up to 14%.
An article in the September 2014 issue of the Reader’s Digest (A new way of thinking by
Philip Preille) reported that a few years ago a major U.S. study confirmed previous findings
that high levels of cortisol, when produced for too long, impair mental retention. The
alleviating factor is face-to-face contact with others. All evidence reports to social activities –
anything from bridge clubs to evening classes, particularly volunteerism – to relieving stress
and improving memory. Seniors who double up on their volunteering activities live up to
44% longer than non-volunteers.
2.5 STRESS IMPEDES DECISION-MAKING

David Rock, in his book, Your brain at work, says that the prefrontal cortex, the part of
the brain responsible for thinking things through and making decisions, uses up metabolic
fuel faster than people realize, and that we have a limited amount of energy resources for
activities such as decision-making and impulse control. Making one difficult decision makes
the next one more difficult. Stress makes all decisions more difficult.
“When you shop till you drop, your willpower drops, too.”
- Roy F Baumeister and John Tierney
Decision-making is a cognitive process of making a choice between several possible alternatives

and often involves weighing the risks, rewards, and consequences of your actions. Research
indicates that this decision-making depends on specific neurons within the prefrontal cortex,
and anxiety and stress seem to disrupt these neurons, making it more difficult to make good
decisions. And to make matters worse, bad decisions themselves cause stress, compounding
the problem. So, I recommend you leave the more complicated and important decisions until
morning. And even, then take a few deep breaths before planning your course of action.
This is true in the case of learning as well. Stress disrupts understanding, reasoning, and
memory. Try to avoid taking courses, studying or making decisions while you are under stress.
14
2.6 STRESS LEADS TO BURNOUT

Some people are better than others at tolerating and even thriving under stress, but the
amount of energy and enthusiasm is limited, and they eventually burn out. David Ballard
of the American Psychological Association defines a job burnout as “an extended period of
time where someone experiences exhaustion and a lack of interest in things, resulting in a
decline in their job performance.”
Chronic stress can lead to burnout, which in turn negatively impacts your health, happiness,
relationships, in addition to your job performance and personal life. The signs of burnout
include physical, mental and emotional exhaustion, lack of motivation, a negative attitude,
and your attention span, among other things.
2.7 STRESS IS A CATALYST FOR COMPASSION FATIGUE

Dr. Charles Figley, director, Tulane Traumatology Institute in New Orleans, defines compassionate
fatigue as “a state experienced by those helping people or animals in distress; it is an extreme
state of tension and preoccupation with the suffering of those being helped to the degree
that it can create a secondary traumatic stress for the helper.”
Compassion fatigue is a type of stress caused by caring for others. It is characterized by

emotional and physical exhaustion like burnout except that it leads to an inability to
empathize or feel compassion. At greatest risk are caregivers, nurses, and others working in
the helping professions.
“Stress reduction is one of the most important things you

can do for your overall health.”
- Daniel J Levitin
Patricia Smith, a certified compassion fatigue specialist, and author of the book, To weep
for a stranger, claims that when caregivers focused on others without practicing self-care
themselves, destructive behaviors surface, including apathy, emotional outbursts and substance
abuse, which is not good for either the caregiver or the person being cared for.
15
2.8 STRESS INTERFERES WITH SLEEP

For people in business, a likely reason for insomnia is the increasingly stressful work
environment caused by speed, continual interruptions, expanding working hours, shrinking
relaxation and renewal time, and the hopeless feeling of being overwhelmed and under-
productive.
We spend about a third of our life sleeping for good reason. Sleep allows us to learn new
things and transfers the significant ones into our long-term memory. Sleep prepares and
replaces damaged neurons, calms disease-triggering inflammation, and keeps us mentally
sharp, creative and productive. It even controls the aging process, helps keep our weight
down, lowers our blood pressure and impacts our overall health.
Stress makes it more difficult to sleep, and stress is in turn increased by the lack of sleep,
causing a vicious spiral that must be stopped. Reducing the stress in your life is a good
place to start.
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MAKING STRESS WORK FOR YOU Sources of stress
3 SOURCES OF STRESS
3.1 RUSH-HOUR TRAFFIC

Rush-hour traffic can be a major stressor. The desperate need to get somewhere, combined
with a complete lack of control or getting there, has a negative impact on physical health.
New research continues to add to the growing list of problems associated with traffic related
stress, including anxiety, depression, irritability, and aggressive behaviour in the workplace
according to an article in the October 7, 2010 issue of the Toronto Globe and Mail.
Of course, it’s our keen sense of time urgency that gets us into trouble. Sometimes it’s a
result of poor planning – simply not allowing enough time to get from point A to point
B after having taken the driving conditions into consideration.
“A wasted minute does not lead to a wasted life.”
- Unknown
Sometimes it’s our impatience when we come to a standstill. But always it involves our lack
of control over the situation at the time. As a result, we become antagonistic and irritable
behind the wheel and in some cases even succumb to “road rage.”
3.2 ROAD RAGE

Uncontrolled anger can lead to rage. Pick up any newspaper or magazine about five years
ago and chances are you would have read about rage of one kind or another – air rage, car
rage and just plain rage. Time problems and impatience prompt much of the anger. The
pace of life is becoming even more hectic and people simply aren’t coping well. Reports on
road rage has been displaced by more dramatic news, but it’s still with us.
According to a 2015 poll, the most common road rage triggers were tailgating at 30%,
seeing others driving distracted, at 22%, and being cut off, also at 22%. At a time when
angry drivers cause one out of three car accidents in Canada, it’s essential that we manage
our anger as effectively as we manage our time.
Although most visible results of rule range are simply people honking their horns or giving
others the finger, a few cases result in violence, including running others off the road. But
the most damage inflicted is a result of the stress that impacts the health of those so easily
enraged by way of the fight or flight response discussed earlier.
17
Yet neuroimaging studies and psychological research suggest that people have a greater
control over the way they perceive and think about a situation than they realize. Brain
scans have shown how simply thinking about an anxiety-provoking situation in a different
way can lead to a significant reduction in activity in certain areas of the brain. One way is
to see your car time as an opportunity to reflect on things currently going on in our life.
Research suggests that allowing your mind to wander activates specific neural networks and
highly associative cognitive processes that may be critical for the creative process.
“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger

than the cause of it.”
- Marcus Aurelias.
Also, listening to music on the car radio when traffic is at its worst has been shown to
reduce stress. If you feel the need to make more productive use of your time, you can listen
to educational CDs on long driving stretches and capture any ideas using a portable digital
recorder as long as you don’t feel it is distracting you from your driving.
Another idea would be to form a carpool so you can take turns being productive or at least
be able to socialize during the commute. Or take public transportation so you could use
commute time for productive work as well. One person I heard about hired a student to
drive him to work in the morning and pick him up after work. He claimed the productive
work he accomplished in the back of his car more than paid for the wages and gas usage.
Ideally, you could decide to avoid the source of the stress altogether by moving closer to
work so you can walk or bike. Physical exercise enhances memory as well as reduces stress
and anxiety. This of course is not always possible. I was fortunate inasmuch as my profession
could be practised anywhere, and a move from Toronto, Ontario, Canada to Sussex, New
Brunswick, Canada dropped the average commute time from 80 minutes a day to about
eight minutes a day. Swiss economist Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer studied what they called
the “commuter’s paradox.” They found that people, when deciding where to live, consistently
underestimate the pain of a long commute. According to their calculations, a person with
a one-hour commute must earn 40% more money to be satisfied with life as someone who
can walk to the office.
3.3 WORKING CONDITIONS

Your workplace could be another source of stress. In a government survey in the UK revealed
that one in three absences at work are due to anxiety and stress. This could include burnout,
which is an occupational phenomenon. It’s a characterized by a lack of energy and purpose,
18
feeling exhausted, a cynical outlook, ineffectiveness on the job, and so on. Although some
of it could be self-imposed, such as pushing yourself too long and too hard without a break,
much of it could be due to working conditions, including poor supervision.
89% of employers polled in a survey of 335 human resources and health benefit managers at
Canadian and U.S. companies reported “heavy workload” as a complaint among staff. The
major causes of stress, besides excessive workloads, were lack of work-life balance, unclear
or conflicting job expectations, and inadequate staffing. Among U.S. workers, fear of losing
a job also ranked high as a stressor.
Among other things, how you behave at work could also cause stress A researcher from
Scotland’s University of Aberdeen claims of that rudeness in the office causes workers to
make mistakes, and in an editorial published in the British medical Journal, Prof. Rhona
Flin draws upon research that shows that being on the receiving end of rudeness can impair
one’s cognitive skills. In one study students who were insulted by a professor before taking
a test scored worse on memory exercises than those who were not. Also, students who
watched an experimenter berate their peers also performed worse than the control group
that was not exposed to a rude interaction.
3.4 INEFFECTIVE SUPERVISION

According to Robert Sutton, author of the book Good boss, bad boss: how to be the best and
learn from the worst, about 75% of the workforce reports that their immediate supervisor
is the most stressful part of their job. He claims if you have a good boss, you have at least
a 20% lower risk of getting a heart attack, and if you stay with this boss for four years,
you have a 39% lower risk.
In his book, Leadership Gold, John C Maxwell says that some sources estimate that as many
as 65% of people leaving companies do so because of their managers.
“People quit people, not companies.”
- John C Maxwell
People join companies because they want to work for that specific company for various
reasons. When the leave it’s usually not because of something the company did to them,
but because of the people they work for or those they work with. In most cases it’s the
boss. Managers have a lot to do with the amount of stress in an organization. Both John
Maxwell, quoted above and Robert Sutton, in his book, Good Boss, Bad Boss, believe the
same thing. And in 2007 Gallup survey of US employees revealed that 24% would fire
their boss if given the chance.
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If people have little or no feedback on how they are doing, receive no appreciation for
what they do, are kept in the dark and made to think they are not an important part of
the team, they will be stressed and dissatisfied.
What increases the stress even more, is being unfortunate enough to have an unreasonable
manager. According to Jo Owen, a corporate coach, in his book How to manage, says there
are plenty of people who are bullies, aggressive, have personality issues and seem to make
life a misery for everyone. I have met a few of them in my lifetime.
According to Sutton’s book, “in businesses where a higher proportion of employees reported
that their immediate bosses care about them, employee satisfaction, retention, and productivity
were higher, and so was profitability.” So, companies have an incentive to hire and maintain
good managers. But If you honestly believe the source of the stress is working conditions,
your boss or the work itself, you might consider a change of jobs – either internally or in
another company. Especially since enjoyment of your job is one of the things that relieve
stress in any organization.
3.5 TECHNOLOGY
Jo Owen, claims that technology, time and labour-saving devices, never save time for the
employees: they raise expectations. It’s not the employee, but the employer who benefits
from any time savings, while the employees work just as long and hard as he did before the
change. This is not a criticism of the employers; they must keep up with their competitors
just to stay in business. But it does tend to increase stress within the company.
Technology itself is not the only stressor. It’s how it’s used as well. As Katrina Onstad mentioned
in her book, The weekend effect, the new normal for smartphone-carrying professionals is
interacting with work 13.5 hours every work day, and the average smartphone user checks
his or her device about 150 times per day. She further reports that the USA ranks high
for a worker’s average annual hours at 1790, which is 200 more hours than France, the
Netherlands, and Denmark.
“A survey of workplaces in the U.S. that showed workers

were being interrupted every three minutes, and people
have an average of eight windows open at the same time.”
- Klingberg Torkel
Combine long hours with incessant screen time, multitasking, and a sense of urgency, and
you have the perfect mix for anxiety, stress and depression.
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Leslie A Perlow mentions in his book, Sleeping with your smart phone, one professional said
of his smartphone, “The reason I love it is that it gives me so much power. And the reason
I hated is that it has so much power over me.”
3.6 MULTITASKING
Multitasking can be stressful, and during stress our weakest executive skills become more
pronounced. Dr. Amir Allen Towfigh, a neurologist with Weill Cornell Medical Center
claims that multitasking can jam up your brain processing. He says our frontal lobes are the
main engines directing our attention, and they have a limited amount of processing power.
Multitasking puts further strain on your executive skills since it requires you to bring back
important pieces of information for each task as you switch back and forth between them.
And one of the executive skills is stress resistance, and you don’t want to mess with that.
3.7 TOO MUCH COFFEE

Although drinking too much coffee has been associated with stress, in moderation it seems to
give memory a boost. A brief article in the spring, 2014 issue of Health magazine describes
a link between caffeine and memory. Michael Yassa of John Hopkins University asked 60
people to view a series of images of different objects. Then, five minutes later, after receiving
either a placebo or 200 milligrams of caffeine, were tested the next day on their ability to
recognize images from the day before. More people from the caffeine group recognized that
an image was like, rather than identical with, one they had viewed earlier.
Separate research published in the Journal of Public Health Nutrition also showed that one
or two cups of tea a day can boost brain power and athletic performance. This held true
for children as well.
There are many recent articles associating coffee with increased brain function, improved
mood and a lower risk of disease. It contains antioxidants as well as several nutrients such
as Riboflavin and Vitamin B5.
Among recent claims is that coffee lowers the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease,
diabetes, depression and liver cancer. A 2012 study reported in the New England Journal of
Medicine even suggests that regular coffee drinkers live longer.
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But drinking too much caffeine or drinking it too late in the day can hurt some people’s
ability to sleep and/or function. And the caffeine, like other stimulants, can heighten physical
symptoms of anxiety.
Caffeine is probably the world’s most popular drug since 90% of the world’s population
consumes it. It does affect the brain. It is one of the few chemicals that crosses over the blood
brain barrier – the barrier between your bloodstream and your brain. Here it stimulates the
release of dopamine in your brain’s reward center, like other addictive substances. It puts
the brain on high alert increases your concentration and attention.
It is a good news-bad news substance, with most of the good news happening when taken
in moderation – for example a maximum of one or two cups of coffee a day. It can improve
mental functioning and mood with the additional benefits of alertness, better concentration,
faster reaction times and better accuracy on memory tests.
3.8 SELF-IMPOSED STRESS

If the source of stress at work is of your own doing, as it is with many self-employed
individuals and entrepreneurs who work or 50 hours a week, you might be able to remedy
that by taking a course in effective time management. You can’t do everything. And it’s a
fact that unfinished tasks cause anxiety and stress. The answer is not to work longer hours
and faster, but to do fewer things – those of greatest importance. If you need suggestions
for gaining control of your time, refer to my eBook, Time to be productive, published by
Bookboon.com.
“There are people who want to get everywhere at once

and get nowhere.”
- Carl Sandberg
Avoiding, releasing or being able to manage stress is important. You should re-examine your
workload. Simplify if possible. Delegate and outsource. Pace yourself. Too much exertion
without breaks taxes the executive skills, including working memory. In fact, studies have
shown that people who exert themselves mentally, such as resisting the temptation to eat
chocolate or whatever, gave up on problems sooner when presented with them immediately
afterwards. (Scientific American Mind, May/June 2011)
Finally, don’t take yourself too seriously. Laugher reduces stress hormones such as cortisol
and adrenaline, aids immunity, changes mood for the better, helps you think – and improves
memory. Sandra Kornblatt, in her book A better brain at any age, also gave an account of
how humor during instruction led to increased test scores.
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3.9 BEWARE OF SECOND-HAND STRESS

It’s bad enough having to cope with the hazards of second-hand smoke; but now it’s found
that second-hand stress can be hazardous to our productivity and health as well.
The suggestion that stress can be contagious is based on research that suggests a class of
brain cells called mirror neurons that appear to reflect the actions & feelings of others.
So, if you cringe at the sight of someone else getting hurt, empathize with your friend who
is grieving and feel uncomfortable when a co-worker is upset and anxious, blame it on these
specialized brain cells. No wonder our mothers warned us to stay away from obnoxious
people, surround ourselves with positive friends, and to be polite to people. (After all, we
don’t want to spread our bad feelings to others.)
And when mother said, “This hurts me as much as it hurts you,” she wasn’t fibbing. Studies
show that the pain we feel when others get hurt activates the same regions of the brain that
are activated when we get hurt ourselves.
Not only does this make sense of the fact that we sometimes get “bad vibes” from people
we meet, it also emphasizes the importance of being able to manage stress effectively – even
second-hand stress. Stress can affect our productivity as well as our mood and state of health.
It also proves that we can have a positive influence on others – whether family, friends or
business associates – by being kind, caring, compassionate and cheerful.
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MAKING STRESS WORK FOR YOU Personality and stress
4 PERSONALITY AND STRESS
4.1 THE RISKS OF TYPE A PERSONALITY

It’s been said that if traditional risk factors could be controlled, such as blood pressure,
smoking, cholesterol, heredity, etc. - only about 25% of all heart disease would be eliminated.
The other 75%, or most of it, is a result of personality and environment.
The effect that life crises, stressful events, and working environments have on you is dependent
to a great extent on your individual personality - the other factor which is believed to be a
major factor in heart disease. Rosenman and Friedman found that people exhibiting Type A
behavior are over twice as prone to heart attacks, five times more prone to a second attack
and have had fatal heart attacks twice as frequently.
The Type A personality is characterized by intensive drive and aggressiveness. He/she is

ambitious, competitive, feels a constant pressure to get things done and often races the
clock. He/she is restless, hates to be idle, and can’t stand lineups. He/she is impatient, a hard
worker, speaks, eats and moves quickly, and schedules more and more in less and less time.
“Some people feel they have already been to work before

they arrived at their jobs. “
- Kirk Byron Jones
In contrast, the Type B individuals are relatively free of any sense of time urgency, pressing
conflicts or impatience. They are equally or more effective, working smarter, not harder.
They also have significantly less risk of coronary disease.
Rosenman claims that “in the absence of Type A behavior pattern, coronary heart disease
almost never occurs before seventy years of age, regardless of the fatty foods eaten, the
cigarettes smoked, or the lack of exercise. But when this behavioral pattern is present,
coronary heart disease can easily erupt in one’s thirties or forties.“
This is quite a claim, and whether it is accepted without question or not, it does emphasize
the importance of how we react to the stressful environment and constant crises with which
most managers are faced. If you try to do everything yourself, are always running out of
time, and have an unrealistic sense of time urgency, you may possess a Type A personality
style. Type A managers are generally easily irritated, insecure, aggressive and competitive-
and stand a greater risk of having a heart attack.
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Dr. Meyer Friedman, co-author of the best seller, Type A Behavior and Your Heart, has shown
that Type A counseling does work. In a three-year experiment involving 862 people who
had one or more heart attacks, doctors discovered that those receiving Type A counseling
had fewer recurring heart attacks.
The advice given: walk, talk and eat more slowly, play games to lose, write down things that
spark anger, smile at others and laugh at yourself, do one thing at a time, admit to being
wrong, and stop interrupting. The participants were taught to slow down and get more done.
The Chicago Tribune reported that one manager receiving such counseling used to twitch,
sigh, answer questions without a moment’s thought, and get angry at slow drivers and long
lines. Now he listens to music in the car, stops at yellow lights rather than racing through
them and observes others while waiting in lineups, imagining what their lives are like.
“Trying to accomplish everything in as little time as possible

contributes to anxious feelings even as we pat ourselves
on the back for our achievements.“
- Gayarti Devi, A calm brain
It’s been over 60 years since Drs. Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman reported their findings
that heart attacks, high blood pressure, high cholesterol etc. could be attributed, in large
part, to personality.
Type A behavior, as they called it, is characterized by a keen sense of time urgency, ambition,
competitiveness, hostility and anger. Studies proved beyond a doubt that Type A people
experienced greater incidence of heart disease. In fact, Type A was just as great a predictor
of increased risk of heart disease as the traditional factors such as high cholesterol, smoking
and high blood pressure.
More recently, at least one study has shown that Type A’s produce about 400% more stress
hormones than Type B’s when doing a simple mathematical test. Some researchers called
Type A’s “walking time bombs.”
I don’t know about you, but it sure put a scare into me. Back in the 1960’s I had all the
characteristics of Type A. I talked fast, moved fast, raced the clock, burned the midnight
oil, and strived for success. Perhaps I even exhibited a little hostility and anger from time
to time. And after having been diagnosed with high blood pressure, and being hospitalized
with bleeding ulcers, and experiencing some family and business problems, including a
divorce, I set out to modify my Type A behavior.
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4.2 MODIFYING TYPE A BEHAVIOR

Not an easy task. Researchers were saying that it could take ten or more years to modify
Type A behavior. In fact, some even claimed that fifty percent of personality was inherited.
But Friedman and Rosenman offered hope. And I tried to follow their recommendations,
along with those of Hans Selye and others, to engage in non-competitive hobbies, plan and
delegate more, practice effective listening, recognize that I can’t do everything, and even
aspire to the “things worth being” as opposed to the “things worth having.”
Although about thirty years of putting “first things first“ in my life did increase my effectiveness,
improve my state of mind and life, and in fact, helped me to launch a whole new career
in time management, I still moved fast, talked fast, and had a keen sense of time urgency.
“When comes to talking, the mind he cares more about

speed than it does about accuracy. We literally speak before
we’re done thinking about what we are going to say.”
- Julie Sedivy
I marveled at how I had managed to stay alive, until I updated myself on Type A research.
It seems that not all aspects of Type A behavior are equally toxic. Just as cholesterol had
received a bad name when only the low-density lipoprotein portion of it was bad, so
Type A was similarly maligned. More recent research reported by Dr. Redford Williams
indicated that hostility and anger not only account for the increased risk of developing
coronary heart disease among Type A persons but may also increase the risk of suffering
other life-threatening illnesses as well. The other characteristics of Type A behavior - being
in a hurry, competitive and ambitious - appear only to be harmful inasmuch as they may
activate hostility and anger.
Rapid speech and time urgency are now being shown to be non-toxic. In fact, to quote
Dr. Williams, author of The Trusting Heart, “For people who are driven by a positive,
enthusiastic approach to the world, getting things done quickly appears protective and
slowing them down could even be harmful.“ So, Type A people, take heart. Having a keen
sense of time urgency is not necessarily harmful if it is simply an enthusiastic attempt to
get more accomplished. And enjoying your job is a modifying factor. However, if you are
exhibiting hostility and anger in your attempts to get ahead of the pack, you could be in
trouble. But be aware that your sense of urgency could easily result in frustration, irritation
or anger if you are impeded in any way.
“Most Type A persons retain, to some degree, a sense of

humour. This is a priceless aid to recovery.”
- Friedman & Rosenman
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Meyer Friedman, co-author of Type A Behavior and Your Heart, once claimed in an article in
Reader’s Digest that whenever a man struggles incessantly to accomplish too many things in
too little time, and struggles too competitively with other individuals, this struggle mark¬edly
accentuates the course of coronary heart disease. Although people wouldn’t dare race the
engines of their car day after day, and expect it to endure, they race their own engines at a
frightfully increasing pace - and leave survivors who are shocked at their abrupt breakdown.
4.3 ARE YOU A TYPE A PERSON?

Friedman and Rosenman developed a questionnaire for their patients to identify whether
they had Type A behavior. Dr. Redford Williams, in his book, The trusting heart, showed
that anger and hostility were the Type A characteristics that influence this behavior the most,
and developed his own questionnaire relevant to anger. Hostility itself consists of cynicism,
anger and aggression. For my workshops, I also developed a “hurry sickness” quiz.
The following questionnaire is a composite of all three sources, with the harmful characteristics
of speed, urgency, anger, cynicism and aggression taken into consideration. I feel it might
indicate whether you have a personality that, if not controlled, could negatively impact
your health and well-being.
Review them quickly, checking off those you would answer with a “yes” as being more
accurate than a “no” so that all questions are answered.
1. Do you have a habit of explosively accentuating keywords in your ordinary

speech and finishing your sentences in a burst of speed?
2. Do you always move, walk, and eat rapidly?
3. Do you feel and openly show impatience with the rate at which most events
take place?
4. Do you find it difficult to restrain yourself from hurrying the speech of others?
5. Do you get unduly irritated at the delay when you must wait in a line, or wait
to be seated in a restaurant?
6. Does it bother you to watch someone else perform a task that you know you
can do faster?
7. Do you often try to do two things at once such as talk on the phone while
driving or read business papers while you eat?
8. Do you feel vaguely guilty when you relax?
9. Do you feel guilty when and do absolutely nothing for several days or even
several hours?
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10. Do you attempt to schedule more and more in less and less time, and in doing
so make fewer and fewer allowances for unforeseen contingencies?
11. Do you anger easily?
12. Do you often rush even when there is no need to hurry?
13. Do you get upset when someone is late for an appointment with you or for a
meeting you are attending?
14. Does working with people who take their time really tick you off?
15. In a supermarket express line-up, do you find yourself counting the items of
the person ahead of you.
16. Do you have a poor opinion of someone but keep it to yourself?
17. Do you feel most people wouldn’t leave a tip a restaurant if they thought
nobody would notice?
18. Do you believe that no politician can be trusted?
19. If you heard a car drive by with the radio blaring, would you get annoyed and
angry?
20. Do you hang onto your anger until you become overloaded with resentment?
If you answered “yes” to more than ten questions, you possess a strong type A personality. 5
to 10 yeses would indicate a moderate Type A personality. Less then five yeses would indicate
a mild Type A personality and would not likely have a noticeable impact on your health.
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MAKING STRESS WORK FOR YOU Little things mean a lot
5 LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT
5.1 DON’T LET HASSLES GET YOU DOWN

Richard Lazarus, writing in the July, 1981 issue of Psychology Today, reported that those
minor, daily events such as losing a wallet or getting caught in a traffic jam can be more
harmful than those infrequent, major events such as divorce, retirement or being fired. Such
is the nature of stress.
5.1.1 THE HASSLE CHECKLIST
Below are a series of 25 hassles, most of which relate to time management. You might want
to use the following checklist to determine whether you are currently experiencing enough
small stressors to potentially cause health problems. Check those hassles which you have
experienced during the past week. It could be you are deluged with “minor” annoyances
that precipitate feelings of stress. Remember, it’s your reaction to these incidents that can
cause the damage.
__ You misplaced or lost something.

__ You spent at least 15 minutes searching for things.
__ You have been concerned about your physical appearance.
__ You have had too many things to do.
__ You have been concerned about your weight.
__ You were upset about the way in which someone performed his/her job.
__ You had a disagreement with someone at work.
__ You were stuck in a traffic jam on the way to or from work.
__ You were involved in or present during an accident in the office or plant.
__ You were dissatisfied with the quality of a job you performed.
__ You didn’t have time for breakfast one morning.
__ You had to prod others to get on with what they were trying to say.
__ You became annoyed at having to wait for someone.
__ You had to stand in line at the copier, cafeteria, or to see someone.
__ You were put on “hold” while telephoning someone.
__ You were interrupted in the middle of an important job by your boss, an employee, or
peer at least once every day.
__ You frequently had to respond to the telephone or text messages at inconvenient times.
__ You were anxious to get rid of a caller or visitor who persisted in dragging out the
conversation.
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__ You had to attend a meeting when you could not afford the time.
__ You were held up on a task with which you were anxious to proceed because of slow
decision-making or response on the part of someone else.
__ You were given a rush job to do, with an unrealistic deadline.
__ You had to juggle priorities more than twice due to more pressing jobs cropping up.
__ You forgot something, which caused embarrassment as well as inconvenience.
__ You said “yes” to something which you later regretted.
__ You had to perform an unpleasant task.
If you have checked off 10 or more of these hassles, you could be susceptible to stress-
related disorders, such as insomnia, ulcers or heart attack. Chronic stress kills brain cells and
effects memory, so a hassle-free life is a healthier life. In stressful situations, your weakest
executive skills fail first and become more pronounced. Fatigue and information overload
tend to weaken them further.
But remember, it’s your reaction to these hassles that causes the damage, so don’t take them
too seriously. Put them in their proper perspective. For instance, what effect is being stuck in
a traffic jam and being late for work going to have on your career, your future, and your life?
Those minor, daily events have a great effect on our needs and our health. These effects vary
according to their frequency, intensity and our reactions to them. When under pressure,
those petty problems can have a much greater effect than if they had occurred at less anxious
times. Stress is not caused by the event itself, but by our reaction to it.
“A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work.”
- Unknown
Among the top hassles revealed in a survey were misplacing or losing things and too many
things to do. Time management will certainly help with these two. Organizing yourself and
your environment should alleviate the first problem and getting rid of the trivia in your
life and concentrating on priorities should relieve the other hassle.
Regardless of how effectively we manage our time; there will always be some hassles in our
lives. Lazarus suggests that uplifts may serve as emotional buffers against disorders brought
on by hassles. Uplifts include such activities as enjoying yourself with good friends, spending
time with the family, eating out, and getting enough sleep.
And don’t forget the importance of your reaction to hassles. Don’t take them seriously. None
of them have a major impact on your life.
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5.2 SUMMARY OF STRATEGIES FOR DEFUSING

THESE DAILY HASSLES
1. Organize yourself and your environment, get rid of the trivia in your life, and
focus on the meaningful priorities.
2. Apply some of the uplifts that Lazarus suggests may serve as emotional buffers
hassles and tend to offset the hassles. Uplifts include such activities as mentioned
earlier and others such as watching a funny sitcom on TV, having a night out
with your spouse or taking a nap.
3. If you can shrug off the hassles or even laugh at them without letting them get
you all tense and upset, you’ve got them licked.
4. Check those hassles that you have experienced during the past week. It could
be you are deluged with minor annoyances that precipitate feelings of stress.
Remember, it’s your reaction to these incidents that can cause the damage.
5. Don’t take them too seriously. Put them in their proper perspective. For
instance, what effect is being stuck in a traffic jam and being late for work going
to have on your career, your future, and your life? Also, be sure to pamper
yourself with enough of those uplifts that Lazarus has recommended.
5.3 ATTITUDE CAN TAME STRESS

According to research conducted by Suzanne C. Kobasa, a graduate student at the University
of Chicago, attitudes towards stressful events are much more important than the events
themselves. A study of 670 male managers revealed that the high-stress low-illness group
was high in all three attitudes, as measured by personality tests. A second study, which
followed 259 executives over a two-year period, gave the same results. People whose attitudes
were high in control, commitment, and challenge, were healthier at the start and remained
healthier than their peers.
Studies have indicated that the following attitudes protect people against stress:
Control: feeling in charge of a situation.

Commitment: committed to their task and believing in themselves.
Challenge: looking at change as a challenge, not as a threat.
A happier, healthier lifestyle is more important than ever, and along with it, an attitude
that tends to stress-proof your life. It’s important to get enough sleep, daily exercise and
social support. But it’s equally important to be aware of the good things that happen to
you – those positives amid negative events.
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Be more conscious of the things that go right in your life, and remember that when things
look bleak, humor helps. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Laugher reduces stress hormones
such as cortisol and adrenaline, aids immunity, changes mood for the better, helps you
think – and improves memory. Sandra Kornblatt, in her book, A better brain at any age,
also gave an account of how humor during instruction led to increased test scores.
“Your body’s response when you laugh can even help reduce
tension and relieve pain.”
- Karyn Gordon, Chatelaine.com
Exposure to non-stop negativity can disrupt learning, memory, attention and judgment
according to Robert Sapolski, professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford
University. Researchers have linked negative emotions to increased risk for illness, and
positive emotions to health and longevity.
5.4 TAKE THE OPTIMISTIC ROUTE

Christopher Peterson, the University of Michigan psychologist, interviewed 172 people to
determine their degree of optimism and pessimism. One year later he questioned them again.
The pessimists reported twice as many illnesses and trips to the doctor as did the optimists.
Researchers interviewed sixty-nine women who had mastectomies for breast cancer. Three
months after the surgery the women were asked how they viewed the nature and seriousness
of the disease and how it affected their lives. Five years later, 75% of the women who had
reacted with a positive fighting spirit were alive, while less than half of those who reacted
either stoically or helplessly were still alive.
According to researcher Dr. Theo Tsaousides, author of the book Brain blocks, our brains
process positive information faster and better than they process negative information.
Applied to a desire to become stress-free, it makes more sense to set positive goals such as
“Maintain a healthy diet,” “Exercise 20 minutes daily”, and “Spend time outdoors every
day” as opposed to negative goals such as “Don’t get upset when things go wrong” or “Don’t
lose your cool when angered.”
“Do not let what you can’t do interfere with what you can
do.”
- John Wooden
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The former goals, when expressed in realistic, measurable statements can be achieved, while
the latter ones are impossible to reach in their entirety. Our brains may be hardwired to set
and achieve goals, but they need all the help they can get, which includes not only writing
goals that are specific, measurable, realistic and time framed, but expressed as positive
statements as well.
Stress management is not only what you do when you’re in a stressful situation, it is an
attitude you develop about life’s problems. Being assertive, not passive and accepting life’s
challenges with a positive attitude. View the relaxation exercises, walking, healthy diet,
adequate sleep and other lifestyle activities as vitamin pills you take at your convenience.
They are the catalysts that help you maintain a positive, upbeat and energetic outlook on
life. They help to build your stress resistance.
5.5 RELATIONSHIPS ARE A MUST

Dr. Friedman suggested that we begin to value friendship again. All evidence reports to
social activities – anything from bridge clubs to evening classes, particularly volunteerism –
to relieving stress. Seniors who double up on their volunteering activities live up to 44%
longer than non-volunteers. And the friends we seek must be people who don’t necessarily
admire us as much as they love us. We should re-evaluate our use of time, making fewer
appointments and ceasing to harass ourselves. He suggests we repeatedly ask ourselves the
question, “What difference will it truly make in five years if the departure of my plane is
delayed?”
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MAKING STRESS WORK FOR YOU Managing the stress in your life
6 MANAGING THE STRESS

IN YOUR LIFE
6.1 TIME TO TAKE CONTROL

Being able to reduce stress is important since it can weaken the immune system, raise
cholesterol levels, accelerate hardening of the arteries, disrupt the digestive system, and lead
to overeating and obesity. And according to Tiffany Chow, in her book, The memory clinic,
it can also increase the risk of developing dementia.
When you’re under stress, you don’t think clearly. You could find yourself in the state of
panic, getting more stressed by the minute. But once you have calmed down and feel in
control once again, things go back to normal.
“The latest research shows a direct link between stress and

an impaired ability to solve problems.”
- Kevin Paul
The source of our emotions is believed to be the amygdala, two small almond shaped
regions of the brain. It’s our “fire alarm“ that signals danger both real and perceived. It
really can’t tell the difference between a life-threatening emergency or simply the need to
get to a meeting before it starts.
When you feel stressed, you don’t have to immediately start deep breathing or meditating.
You merely must take control of the situation. This involves looking at the stressful situation
objectively and determining how critical it really is. For instance, if you can’t find the agenda
you received for the morning’s meeting, is it really going to matter? You could probably
share a copy with someone else or even take a quick snapshot of someone else’s copy with
your smartphone.
Once you know that you can deal with the situation, and you calm down, it’s amazing how
often you will then remember where you placed the original agenda in question.
That sudden feeling of panic when you can’t remember something or feel unprepared for
a presentation or think you may be late for an appointment cannot be prevented. It’s a
product of your automatic nervous system, which regulates the release of adrenaline, blood
pressure, heart rate, hand temperature and other physiological changes. It’s an automatic
response to a perceived danger, real or otherwise. Don’t expect the part of your brain that
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pushes the panic button to distinguish between a slight concern and a major crisis. That’s
not its job. You must activate another part of the brain located in the prefrontal cortex to
take on that task.
You must use your brain’s executive centre in the prefrontal cortex to pay attention to the
alarm, think it through clearly, focus on what is important and take any necessary action.
You don’t relieve stress by just taking deep breaths and telling yourself to calm down, you
must pay attention to the signal, and take control of the situation.
The opposite of stress is not being relaxed, calm or half-asleep, it is the feeling of being
in control. You’re in control when you feel that you can handle whatever life happens to
throw at you at the time.
Don’t be a slave to your smartphone. According to the Newsweek article referenced above,
studies show that taking three or four hours each day away from the Internet and digital
communication is not only a healthy distraction, but also a partial antidote to stress.
And believe it or not, orderliness seems to help as well. UCLA researchers discovered that
the sight of clutter can induce the production of stress hormones. So be sure to organize
both your working and living environments.
The secret to handling stress is to take charge. You do that with your mind – the real you.
“Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around

us in awareness.”
- James Thurber, author
A popular stress-reducing activity that is gaining momentum is coloring books for adults.
Psychologists claim it can be as effective as meditation in lowering stress levels. Discover
what works best for you and develop a daily or weekly routine that incorporates stress-
reducing activities.
Don’t forget to re-examine your workload. Simplify if possible. Delegate and outsource.
And of course, pace yourself. European experiments have shown that short, three-minute
breaks every hour helps rejuvenate people more than two fifteen-minute breaks.
I suggest that you stop making or accepting phone calls, checking email or initiating new
work 15 or 20 minutes before you normally leave work. Use that time to organize the
unfinished work, your working area, prepare for the next day, and make the transition from
work to home. Kenneth Ziegler, author of Getting organized at work, claims that taking work
home in your head doesn’t help your job performance as much as it hurts your personal life.
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6.2 TIME TO SAY NO

A small word like “no” can have a huge impact on our mental and physical health, energy
level and the degree of stress that you are subjected to. Getting involved in business,
community and social projects can be a great way to expand your personal relationships
and your areas of competence; but it can also catapult you into a busy, busy life where you
are so occupied with other people’s projects that you don’t realize you are neglecting your
own ambitions and the needs of those closest to you.
There is a reason that people say if you want to get something done, you should ask a busy
person. It’s usually because a busy person hasn’t learned to say no.
It’s so much easier to say yes to other people’s requests. We don’t hurt their feelings, it
avoids conflict, it satisfies our need to be liked, and it feels good at the time. Every time
we say yes, we are momentary heroes. But most often, what we agree to do now torpedoes
what we really want to do the most.
Just because someone asks you to or three times doesn’t mean you have to change your
answer to a yes. A polite no is a complete sentence; but you might want to add a comment
that doesn’t leave the door open for a change of heart later, such as “but I’m flattered that
you asked me.”
Don’t say “Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you later.” They will have false hopes,
and you will have an even harder time saying no as they continually press you for your
decision. And giving an excuse such as, “I’m too busy right now; perhaps in the future”
would leave the door open for negotiation. You may get, “That would work out okay; the
project doesn’t start until the spring.” Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Holding a
definite “No” in abeyance is both stressful and energy draining.
If you feel you must give a reason for saying no, mention how saying yes would impact
other people. Few people would argue against spending adequate time with your family or
fulfilling ongoing obligations, for instance.
“To buy a “yes” for you, you need to spend a “no” on

someone else.”
- Craig B Mardus
It’s important to have your personal goals as well as your personal policies in writing and in
your mind. Focusing on your goals ensures that you have a good reason for refusal always
on the tip of your tongue. For example, I can readily respond with sorry, “I’d love to help
you out; but I have a commitment to get another e-book to the publisher by the end of
the month and I just don’t have the time to spare.”
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Saying no at work tends to be more of a struggle for women than for men, according to
studies done by Katherine O’Brien at Baylor School of medicine in 2014. Age is also a
factor. Seniors find it easier to say no – probably due to experience and because they have
less need. Most people are somewhere in between, with the less assertive people being more
likely to say yes.
Practice should help everyone. Thinking how you will word a refusal, and speaking it out
loud a few times, will at least make it more familiar and a little easier. And the more you
say no and discover that people don’t resent it half as much as you had imagined, it won’t
be such an ordeal.
6.3 MINDFULNESS-BASED STRESS REDUCTION

Activities such as meditation, yoga and relaxation, all commonly used to relieve stress, can
change brain structure so that brain processes are more efficient. Meditation has been shown
to have a positive effect on the immune system and cardiovascular function as well as the
brain. In one study, those who meditated showed less activity in the brain area associated
with negative emotions such as anger and anxiety and more activity those areas associated
with optimism and confidence - and these emotions have an impact on energy.
Mindfulness improves selective attention, allowing us to focus on what’s important rather

than be distracted by our surroundings. If your mind tends to wander, mindfulness tends
to correct your focus. It also helps you to stay calm under stress, lowers your heart rate and
allows you to recover faster from stressful events.
Daniel Goleman, author of the book Focus: the hidden driver of excellence, says that mindfulness
strengthens connections between the prefrontal executive zones and the amygdala, particularly
the circuits that can say “no” to impulse. Thus, we can more easily say no to others who
would have us take on additional tasks and projects that would leave us overloaded and
vulnerable to stress.
Goleman provides some actual examples of the mindfulness training helped people and
companies boost both self-awareness and empathy, which in turn translated into changes at
work – everything from the use of self-regulation strategies to improve the listening skills. I
recommend you read his book if you wish to pursue this topic further. But let me leave you
with a few questions, which Goleman paraphrased from Gill-Crosland-Thackray’s Mindfulness
at work: what are the benefits? that may indicate your need for the practice of mindfulness:
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Have trouble remembering what someone has just told you during a conversation?
Have no memory of your morning commute?
Not taste your food while eating?
Pay more attention to your iPhone than the person you’re with?
Are you skimming this book?
“Mindfulness boosts the classic attention network in the

brain’s frontal-parietal system that works together to allocate
attention.”
- Richard Davidson, Neuroscientist
Meditation or mindfulness can also help you change the way you perceive potentially
stressful situations. A Newsweek special issue, Your Body (October, 2014) suggested that
taking 15 minutes a day for silent meditation can help lower stress levels and prevent it
from increasing in the first place. Studies showed that even taking a few deep breaths can
lower cortisol levels.
There are also several e-books on mindfulness and published by Bookboon.com that you
might want to look at first. They are brief and focused on the one topic only. But let me
leave you with the following mindfulness exercise that I included in my e-book, How to
keep your life in balance, published in 2017 by Bookboon.com.
Have a 15 or 20-minute mind-clearing session each morning after you get up and are fully
dressed. Don’t do it while you are still in bed and half asleep. This is too important. It will
determine how the rest of the day goes. And life takes place in a series of days.
After completing your morning ritual of breakfast, getting the kids off to school, putting out
the garbage or whatever your morning routine entails. Then sit comfortably in your favorite
chair, and without trying to rid your mind of the random thoughts that will invariably
invade it, do the following six things in succession.
1. Relax, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and just be aware of the miracle that is
you.
2. Give thanks for all that you have and have had in the past. Don’t rack your
brain trying to think of everything - just those that come to mind quickly.
3. Forgive anyone who has hurt or offended you.
4. Offer up ten-second prayers, blessings or good wishes for at least three other
people each day.
5. Think positive thoughts about your future - opportunities and endeavors,
6. Decide and confirm how you will spend the next hour of your life. This may
already be scheduled in your planner or you may choose something different.
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Whether you call this exercise meditation, mindfulness, or “being in the now” is immaterial.
What is important is that you continue to do it each day, modifying it as you go along,
until it becomes your unique morning routine. And how you spend the next hour of each
day will eventually create the life that you will lead.
“Getting angry is actually punishing yourself for the mistakes

of others.”
- Unknown
Anger, aggression, irritation, frustration and disappointment are all emotions that create
stress and interfere with enjoyment of the present and planning for the future. This clutter
from the past can be swept away by focusing on the moment. When you clean house you
are not concerned about where the dust, black marks and grime came from; you are focused
on getting rid of them. When meditating, your mind is the broom that can sweep these
corrosive emotions from your brain. What’s past is past and cannot be changed; but you
can build a new foundation for a happy, productive and self-fulfilling future.
By being in the “now” you are releasing the past and beginning a new day. Giving thanks for
all that you have today acknowledges your assets and resources, whether physical, emotional
or spiritual, and provides a positive mindset. Forgiving others releases any hold they may
have on you and frees your brain to follow your mind’s directions. Your brain is the body’s
computer and it cannot be user-friendly while it is bogged down by malevolent viruses.
Your mind is the organizer directing your morning meditation and determining the day’s
plans. You are not your brain; you are your mind.
Each day is a new day, and how you spend the first hour will set the tone for the hours to
follow. Start with your priorities. If your top priority is health, and you want to be relatively
health-free, your first scheduled activity after a healthy breakfast might be a healthy walk.
Or you might schedule a walk or other exercise later in the day. The important thing is to
schedule the important things – those things that add meaning to your life and achievement
to your goals. Getting them done is a function of the brain. And so is the attention that
you give to each task and activity.
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MAKING STRESS WORK FOR YOU Building stress resistance
7 BUILDING STRESS RESISTANCE
7.1 LEARN TO TOLERATE STRESS

There is such a thing as building stress tolerance. That’s one of the brain-based executive skills
discussed in my ebook, Strengthen your brain’s executive skills, published by Bookboon.com.
To build stress tolerance, make sure you schedule adequate leisure time, build quality
relationships with others, laugh often, and keep healthy and physically fit. Get plenty of
sleep, and don’t take yourself too seriously.
According to Ann S. Masten a professor of child development at the University of Minnesota,

an individual’s resilience can be viewed as the capacity to adapt to adversity at a given point.
So, whether it is fighting off infection or weathering the onslaught of stress, building resilience
over the years, mainly through experience, will help individuals adapt to the situation.
Prolonged or overwhelming stress can wear you down regardless of your degree of resistance
or resilience, so it is best to avoid or deal with the source of the stress whenever possible.
But this is not always possible.
“Reducing stress is a stage that you pass through on the

way to becoming a balanced person.”
- Jeff Davidson
Chuck Martin, Richard Guare and Peggy Dawson, in their book Work Your Strengths,
include stress tolerance as an executive skill. I would think that being strong in many of the
other executive skills would help you to tolerate stressful situations, including emotional
stress such as that caused by illness. But being able to manage stress is critical since it can
weaken the immune system, raise cholesterol levels, accelerate hardening of the arteries,
disrupt the digestive system, and lead to overeating and obesity.
Stress tolerance is the ability to thrive in stressful situations. With strong stress tolerance,
you can take things in stride, and work well under stress. If you don’t handle stress well,
panic during crisis, and feel uncomfortable when things don’t go smoothly, you are weak
in this skill.
Working memory, allows you to hang onto memories long enough for them to be consolidated
as long-term memories in the hippocampus area of the brain. And if we don’t protect the
hippocampus from excessive stress, we may lose the ability to file these new memories,
putting us at risk for Alzheimer’s.
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Things we should not do to relieve stress is turn to drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. Tiffany
Chow, in her book, The memory clinic, claims that smoking is a risk factor for heart disease,
heart attacks, and high blood pressure and she mentioned that one study reported that it
doubles the risk for dementia.
It’s usually impossible to relax, do deep breathing, meditate or go jogging when you’re in a
stressful situation. But you’re not supposed to relax. The “flight or fight“ response that you
experience under stress is not something that you can avoid. It’s a product of your automatic
nervous system, which regulates the release of adrenaline, blood pressure, heart rate, hand
temperature and other physiological changes. It’s an automatic response to perceived danger.
If it were someone threatening you with a knife, the response could save your life. Your
increased strength and heightened awareness could get you out of danger. And the adrenaline
would be used up as you act.
But with an unrealistic deadline or an overload of projects, you’re not engaged in physical
activity. The excess adrenaline causes you to feel terrible. You experience palpitations, dry
throat, trembling. You’re nervous and upset. You weren’t meant to feel the adrenaline; you
were supposed to be too busy to feel anything.
Relaxing is not what you should be trying to do. Relaxation is something you acquire
when you’re not under stress. It’s preventative medicine, so to speak. It makes stress easier
to handle. What you need now is action. You need to take control of the situation, change
your attitude, be assertive and accept life’s challenge.
“Your happiness ultimately arises not from the circumstances

of your life, but from the conditioning of your mind.”
- Eckhart Tolle
Combine healthy attitudes with action and you have stress management. When you are
faced with a stressful situation, look at it as a challenge. Take a positive approach and look
at the bright side. You can’t do the impossible. The important thing is to be active, take
control and be assertive. Activity dissipates the adrenaline, and along with it, the worry and
ravages of stress. A Yale University study revealed that those who changed their outlook on
stress after watching a video urging them to rise to whatever challenge faced them showed
improved psychological symptoms and better work performance.
Talking continually to others about your problems and frustrations may appear to be a way
of blowing off steam and relieving stress. But it gets the cortisol flowing all over again –
further increasing your stress level.
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To build stress tolerance, make sure you schedule adequate leisure time, build quality
relationships with others, laugh often, keep healthy and physically fit, participate in relaxation
exercises and massages, get plenty of sleep, and don’t take yourself too seriously.
You might also maintain a positive attitude, turn off your smartphone, and drink black tea
to help develop a resistance to stress. According to a Newsweek article, studies show that
taking three or four hours each day away from the Internet and digital communication is
not only a healthy distraction, but also a partial antidote to stress. It also referred to a study
by University College London that found that those who drank four cups of black tea a day
for four weeks had a lower cortisol level in their blood when facing a stressful situation.
And believe it or not, orderliness seems to help as well. UCLA researchers discovered that
the sight of clutter can induce the production of stress hormones. So, get organized.
7.2 THE STRESS REISTANCE QUIZ

A healthy lifestyle prepares people to cope with stress more effectively. So, a big part of
stress management should be done away from the playing field. A lot of factors determine
how well people will cope with stress - everything from how much sleep they get to how
they view the world. I developed the Stress Resistance Quiz to give my clients an idea of
where they stand at this moment in time. The Quiz is on the next page. If you end up
with a negative number on the quiz, you are more prone to illness when confronted with
stressful situations. If the result is positive, you have greater stress resistance. The larger the
positive number, the greater your resistance to stressful situations.
“Much of the stress arises from a mismatch between what

we desire and what we can have.”
- Dr. Randolph Nesse
If you get a poor score, it’s a sign that you should start making changes in your life. you
will never be able to avoid stress altogether; but you can prepare yourself so you will be
able to more effectively cope with it. Immediately following the quiz is a list of things that
tend to reduce the effect of stress in life. I usually distribute this list to my clients after
they take the Stress Resistance Quiz and encourage them to practice as many of these stress
relievers as feasible. In many cases I find that the people who have a poor score on the quiz
also do poorly on other tests as well, such as the Type A Quiz and Hurry Sickness Quiz.
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Circle the answer which most accurately represents the truth 1 2

1 Do you anger easily? No Yes
2 Do you laugh easily? Yes No
3 Are you disorganized? No Yes
4 Are you involved in volunteer work? Yes No
5 Are you a perfectionist? No Yes
6 Do you have a personal goal in writing? Yes No
7 Do you have a trouble saying no? No Yes
8 Do you own a pet? Yes No
9 Do you procrastinate frequently? No Yes
10 Do you have faith in a higher power? Yes No
11 Do you live a sedentary lifestyle? No Yes
12 Do you practice relaxation exercises daily? Yes No
13 Do you eat quickly? No Yes
14 Do you take regular vacations? Yes No
15 Are you surrounded by negative people? No Yes
16 Do you have a hobby other than work? Yes No
17 Do you trouble delegating to others? No Yes
18 Do you eat sensibly? Yes No
19 Do you have a „Type A“ personality style? No Yes
20 Are you a good listener? Yes No
21 Do you drink more than 2 cups of coffee per day? No Yes
22 Are you happy in your job? Yes No
23 Do you have financial problems? No Yes
24 Do you find it easy to confide in others? Yes No
25 Do you have problems at home? No Yes
26 Do you have many good friends? Yes No
27 Are you over weight for your sex, age and height? No Yes
28 Do you often show your emotions by crying? Yes No
29 Do you smoke? No Yes
30 Are you an optimist? Yes No
31 Do you frequently drink alcoholic beverages to relax? No Yes
32 Do you have a good posture both at work and at home? Yes No
33 Do you worry a lot? No Yes
34 Do you spend time each day planning? Yes No
35 Are your mornings usually hectic? No Yes
36 Do you pace yourself during the day? Yes No
37 Do you have a low self image? No Yes
38 Do you manage your time well? Yes No
39 Do you get upset when you make mistakes? No Yes
40 Do you have regular physical check ups each year? Yes No
41 Are you impatient? No Yes
42 In general do you trust other people? Yes No
43 Do you feel most fulfilled when you have a lot to do? No Yes
44 Are you fairly easy going about life? Yes No
45 Do you get annoyed when you’re criticized? No Yes
46 Do you walk or job at least four times per week? Yes No
47 Are you slow to forgive others? No Yes
48 Do you enjoy activities for their own sake? Yes No
49 Do you prefer to participate in sports and other activities that are competitive? No Yes
50 Do you keep lists of things to do? Yes No
Total circles in each column
Substract the total circles in column 2 from column 1
If you have a negative number, you are likely to become ill when confronted with stressful
situations. If the result is positive you have greater stress resistance. The larger the positive
number the greater your resistance to stressful situations.
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I accumulated the list of stress relievers while doing research on the topic and developed
the quiz based on the information If you want to use the Stress Resistance Quiz or other
quizzes in this e-book, you are welcome to do so, but please give appropriate credit.
7.3 25 WAYS TO RELIEVE STRESS

Relaxation Response: Sit quietly with your eyes closed and breath through your nose. Become
aware of your breathing, and as you breathe out, say the word one to yourself. Continue for
15 to 20 minutes. (Read The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson.) It lowers your blood
pressure, reduces your heart rate, slows down your breathing and lowers your cholesterol
and blood sugars.
Laughter: Endorphins are released, and stress hormones drop. A useful way of counteracting
nervous tension. Note that toddlers (who don’t seem to take life so seriously) laugh about
400 times per day compared to an adult’s 15 times.
Volunteer work: A 10-year study showed that the death rate was twice as high for men who
did no volunteer work.
Assertiveness: Saying no in a non-hostile way will prevent you from taking on more than
you can comfortably handle and give you greater control over your own life.
Pets: Pet owners in general are under less stress. Just the physical action of petting a dog or
cat has been shown to reduce the heart rate and blood pressure.
Delegation: Recognize you can’t do everything and ease stress by getting help. People who
don’t delegate well are candidates for heart attacks.
Setting goals, planning: Lifespan seem to be shortened for those people who do not have
much control over their lives. Goals and planning take away indecision and add control.
Getting organized: Disorganization wastes time and creates stress. A disorganized work
environment causes many of the hassles described by Richard Lazarus. According to Daniel
Gilbert, in his book, Stumbling on Happiness (Random House, NY, 2007) at the root of
most stress is the feeling of being out of control.
Walking: A brisk, 40-minute walk can reduce anxiety levels by about 14 percent. The Physical
Activity Guide released by Health Canada indicates that about a quarter of the deaths from
heart disease in 1993 was the result of physical inactivity.
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Adequate sleep: An actual nationwide survey from the National Sleep Foundation showed
that 63 million people, one third of the population, are exhausted during the day, and 22
million working days a year are lost due to the increased incidence of colds alone.
Spirituality: Research indicates that belief in a higher power can help relieve stress. One
study at the University of Michigan showed that active Christians tend to be healthier than
passive Christians.
Socializing with optimistic people: Negative, hypercritical people add stress to any relationship.
Negative attitudes and emotional states affect the body’s immune system. Dr. Edward Creagan
in his book How Not to Be My Patient (Health Communications, 2003,) refers to research
indicating that pessimists have a 19 percent shorter lifespan than optimists.
Slowing down: Drive a little slower, pause before eating, let the phone ring a few times
before answering, stand still while going up an escalator and so on. Those who don’t rush
through the day in a panic, but pace themselves and work efficiently, actually survive longer
according to Matthew Edlund, author of The Body Clock Advantage. (Adams Media, 2003.)
Vacation: Don’t make your job your whole life. An article in the Toronto Star back in 2001
indicated that nearly half of full-time workers surveyed said they were too busy to take a
vacation.
Hobbies: Variety in your work and a total change of scenery will reduce the amount of stress
in your life. Non-competitive hobbies such as fishing, hiking are usually more relaxing.
Not procrastinating: Unfinished and undone jobs create stress and the worse stress gets, the
more we tend to procrastinate. Practicing time management strategies will put you back
in control.
Making lists: If you have trouble sleeping, making lists before going to bed unclutters the
mind and reduces tension. Mental clutter is just as stressful as physical clutter. Writing
things down and having a plan to get them done unclutters your mind, relieves anxiety,
eliminates the fear of forgetting and makes you feel better.
Diet: Stay away from spicy, greasy foods, coffee, excessive sugar and chocolate. Psychologists
in London tested the stress levels of a group of people and then started them on food
supplements. Those who had poor dietary habits prior to the study felt less stress after
adding the supplements to their daily intake of food.
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Forgiveness: Consciously choosing to forgive someone is shown to reduce stress and modify
“Type A” behavior.
Not being a perfectionist: Perfectionism results in reduced job performance and can result
in health problems. Perfectionism causes undue stress.
Reducing hostility: Anger is the single most damaging stress-related personality trait. Angry
people don’t live as long. When you emotionally explode in anger, you trigger a series of
internal events that strain your body, mind and emotions to a significant and sometimes
dangerous degree.
Talking it out: Writing things down and discussing problems with others eases stress. Married
people live longer than single people. Don’t be a loner.
Listening more: Listening decreases the likelihood of stressful arguments. Empathize with
the protagonist and give them the benefit of the doubt.
Exercise: A great way of working off stress as well as improving physical fitness. Endorphins
are released in the brain. In better shape to withstand stress as well. Health Canada reported
that two thirds of Canadians between 25 and 55 aren’t active enough to meet minimum
Health Canada guidelines.
Putting life in perspective: It’s not the actual problems as much as your reaction to them.
When you find yourself getting upset, ask how important this incident will be ten years
from now – or even one year from now.
7.4 BALANCING HIGH-TECH AND HIGH TOUCH

Another way of building stress resistance is to balance high-tech and high touch.
Research shows that things left undone cause stress. And an expanding to do list, which
never seems to empty, is a constant reminder of all the things left undone – important or
otherwise. This is true whether it is a hardcopy or electronic list.
If we had only today’s work to contend with – and had closure at the end of each day - we
wouldn’t experience the anxiety that so many people are experiencing. This is especially true
in today’s environment where we seem to have an endless series of things to do.
To add to our woes, prioritizing is more difficult, since priorities often change daily. It’s
virtually impossible to list things in order of priority and have them stay that way.
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“Computers have enabled people to make more mistakes

faster than almost any invention in history, with the exception
of tequila and handguns.”
- Mitch Ratcliffe
One executive mentioned online that he had solved this problem by switching back to
something he had used as a child – a pen and notepad. He felt it gave him more control
than the various apps he had tried. And he can jot down the things he has to do daily.
He is not the only one who feels more comfortable and more in control using paper. The
Caveman Principle, as explained by Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at the
City College and City University of New York, says that given a choice between high-tech
and high-touch, we opt for high-touch every time. For example, would you rather see a
celebrity performer sing at a concert or watch a DVD of the same performance? Or how
about a live sporting even vs. a re-run on TV?
Balancing high-tech with high- touch can strengthen our brain-based “executive skills,
and technology writer Danny O’Brien, who interviewed top achievers, found one thing in
common that may account for their increased productivity. They all used some sort low-
tech tool, such as a written “To Do” list or a plain paper pad.
Writing down your “to do” list on paper frees up working memory, allows time to evaluate
their importance, and provides a motivational sense of accomplishment as you cross off
each item.
Mikael Cho, cofounder of Crew, said in an article on the Internet, “The separation from the
digital space (where I do most of my work) to the physical, helped me feel less overwhelmed.”
Physically writing things down also increases your focus on what you are doing at the time,
avoids mental multitasking, and helps you to make a better decision when selecting the
priorities for each day.
Here’s an example that I noted in Thomas Friedman’s book, Thank you for being late. Eric
Teller, CEO of Google’s X research and development lab, could not be more high-tech. It
seems to be in his genes. His paternal grandfather designed the hydrogen bomb and his
maternal grandfather, an economist, won a Nobel Prize. Yet, when explaining Moore’s law
and the accelerating rate of change of science and technology, “Teller began by taking out
a small yellow 3M notepad” and “drew a graph with the Y axis labeled ‘rate of change’ and
the X axis labeled ‘time.’…..”
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You could hardly call a 3M notepad high-tech, and yet it was more convenient and faster
than whipping out his iPhone and activating a graph app. And probably more effective in
getting his point across.
Don’t be embarrassed if you still use a paper planner or scratch pad or sticky notes. Paper
has not become obsolete. In fact, we recently designed a “scratch pad on steroids” that
allows you to quickly jot down ideas, notes from emails or phone calls, record your day’s
priorities and To Do’s make notes and reminders and so on. It’s called a “Daily Priority
Pad,” comes in two sizes, and you can check it out at our website, www.taylorintime.com.
“To be on the cutting edge, you need an edge to cut with.

The edge is your belief in yourself sharp and ready to go.”
- Sara Ryan, artist
There’s another reason we should be balancing high-tech with high touch. It became obvious
when reading The Glass cage: automation and us, (2014) by Nicholas Carr. Evidently on
January 4, 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration released a one-page safety alert for
operators to all U.S. airlines and other commercial air carriers encouraging operators to
promote manual flight operations when appropriate. To quote from Carr’s book:
“The FAA had collected evidence, from crash investigations,

incident reports, and cockpit studies, indicating that pilots had
become too dependent on autopilots and other computerized
systems. Overuse of flight automation, the agency warned,
could ‘lead to degradation of the pilot’s ability to quickly
recover the aircraft from an undesired state.’ It could, in
blunter terms, put a plane and its passengers in jeopardy.
The alert concluded with a recommendation that airlines,
as a matter of operational policy, instruct pilots to spend
less time flying on autopilot and more time flying by hand.”
This could apply to all of us. As we rely more and more on technology, will skills such as
cursive writing, basic math, problem solving, and even creative thinking slowly diminish?
Balancing high-tech with high touch can help strengthen our executive skills, those brain-
based skills such as the ability to concentrate, focus and keep things in short-term memory.
After all, the goal of technology was to increase productivity, not to eliminate paperwork.
Using a paper planner and writing down my “To Do” list serves to ground me. I can touch
it and feel it and see my scheduled projects for the week the moment I open my planner.
Writing down an appointment solidifies that meeting in my mind, while dictating it to a
handheld device makes little impact, little commitment, and little chance I will even recall
it the next morning.
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A pen in hand generates focus, attention, commitment, and a “do it now” mindset - something
many of us lack. Written down, a name or number stays in working memory longer and
has a greater chance of making it into long-term memory for later recall.
Similarly, I prefer to make handwritten notes while on the telephone, write notes on an
“Action Sheet” in meetings, and, heaven forbid, even write personal notes on hardcopy
birthday cards and send them by snail mail.
There is a place for digital devices. I do own an iPad, an iPhone and a laptop. And like
many people I do online banking, use e-transfers, make calls with Facetime, shop online,
have a PayPal account, participate in social media, and correspond by email. But I also
use a paper planner and a hard copy follow-up file system, a telephone log booklet, paper
checklists, note pads and sticky notes. I also read hard copy books. Paperwork adds structure
to my life.
Because we live in a digital age of speed, I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I handwrite
all my books and articles before dictating my handwritten material to my computer using
voice-activated software. But I quickly regain my self-esteem when I recall the story of the
tortoise and the hare. The objective was clearly not to run the fastest, but to win the race.
49
MAKING STRESS WORK FOR YOU Keep your life in perspective
8 KEEP YOUR LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE
8.1 GET OFF THE FAST TRACK

Marilyn Machlowitz, in her book, Workaholics, quotes a case study recorded by Robert
Coles, a Harvard psychiatrist. It involves Helen, aged 10, whose words contain a lesson for
any of us who unthinkingly devote most of our time and energies to our jobs:
“There’s only one reason I like to go to our country home -

because Daddy is there. All week we don’t see much of
him. Sometimes I’m lucky if I see him for five minutes in
the morning before I go to school... and a lot of times he
doesn’t get home before we go to bed. I miss him. So does
my brother, Geoff. He says he wishes Daddy would lose his
job, then we’d have him here at home. Geoff says he even
prays that Daddy will lose his job.“
Keep your job - and your life - in perspective. With so much emphasis on success and
achievement it sometimes becomes difficult to relax and enjoy life. Don’t set your sights
too high. Do the best you can, but don’t kill yourself. Job burnout is a result of too much
stress, and most jobs are stressful enough without adding your own unrealistic goals and
expectations.
“Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient

what should not be done at all.”
- Peter Drucker
Set realistic goals. And realize that you can’t do everything. Work on priorities - the 20
percent of activities which will bring you 80 percent of the results. And always have some
way of working off mental and emotional stress. Engage in a regular exercise program. Have
interests other than your job. Make it a habit to talk over your problems with a close friend.
Above all, remember that who you are is more important than what you do.
Don’t get trapped in the rapid stream of life with its rushing flood of activities. We live in
a dangerous world where nine tenths of the accidents on streets and in homes are caused
by careless rushing. We accelerate through life attempting to accomplish too many things
in too little time. We dash from one job to the next, one appointment to the next, bent
on beating unrealistic deadlines.
50
As a result, we suffer stress, hypertension, stomach disorders, headaches, insomnia. Many

of us are rewarded with heart attacks, bleeding ulcers, nervous breakdowns. We are filled
with anxiety, worry, despair, frustration and even fear. We are gradually committing suicide.
And for what? Are we racing toward that illusive goal called success? Are we trying to keep
pace with the professional sprinters of the world? Is everyone our competitor? Are we trying
to prove something? Impress someone? Gain riches?
Step off the racetrack for a minute. Take time from your busiest day to reflect on what you
are doing and where you are headed. As you speed ahead, are you leaving neglected families,
injured friends, and heartbroken loved ones in your wake? Are you really accomplishing the
goal you thought you were aiming at? Or has the race itself obscured the goal? Are you so
engrossed in the race that you have lost sight of the finish line?
Sometimes, we get caught up in the current of those around us. Move to a large city and
soon you are whisked along at the pace of the city dwellers. Join a large corporation, and
you soon move at the pace of the organization man. Start your own business and you
accelerate to the speed of an entrepreneur. Are we really individuals? Are we really in control
of our own lives?
We can be. But only if we make a conscious effort to choose our own track. Move at our
own speed toward the finish line. The things which are meaningful to others may not be
meaningful to you. Life is a beautiful track; it consists of more than a finish line. There is
scenery. And fun. And laughter. And love. There are the sounds of children. The smell of
flowers. The touch of loved ones.
Life need not be a race. It could be a stroll. If you love life, don’t speed past it so quickly.
Slow down. Pause a while. You can’t stop completely. But you can drift along in a lower
gear, enjoying all that it has to offer. You don’t have to be caught up in the tyranny of the
urgent just because everyone else seems to be.
8.2 KEEP ON TOP OF YOUR WORK

The more things in your life that you leave undone, the more anxiety and stress you experience.
Completed work does not produce stress. People feel great and are energized when they get
things done. It’s the uncompleted items that distract them and drain their energy.
If you simply don’t care whether something gets done or not, you’re not under stress either.
I’ve never seen children have anxiety attacks because they hadn’t cleaned their room yet. But
in the business world, such an attitude would hardly be conducive to a successful career.
51
Being a responsible adult does have its disadvantages. We do care about the multitude of
things that should be done. And if we have more to do than we have time for, how do we
get out of this Catch 22?
The first thing you might do is to write down everything that you think you must do.
When items are reduced to writing, we don’t think of them so often. They no longer pop
into our minds unexpectedly, causing incessant anxiety.
“There are many ways of going forward but only one way
of standing still.”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
The next step is to decide which ones can be eliminated without having a significant effect
on our business results or our career or personal or family well-being. Most people have
a multitude of things that they feel should be done drifting in and out of their minds.
Capture them and delete them before they delete you. Once you have decided not to do
them, they can no longer be a vehicle for stress.
Of the remaining items, quickly do those that will take less than five minutes to complete.
This does not follow the recommended time management principle of doing the most
important things first, but it will sure make you feel good to see all those crossed-off items.
And with most of the items off the list, you can focus on the ones that are important.
Your list may still not be down to a manageable size. If not, see which items can be delegated
or outsourced. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Then prioritize the remaining items. Schedule
time to work on the high priority tasks – those that will have significant impact on your
personal and organizational goals.
The more urgent ones should be scheduled earlier in the week. If they are huge, time-
consuming tasks, break them down into chunks. Blocking off two or three hours each
week to write a complicated but essential report, for instance, will see it completed within
a month or so.
Finally, put the remaining non-priority items on a weekly To Do list, either in a week-at-a-
glance paper planner or your electronic handheld device. Be realistic. Don’t cram them all
onto a “Things to do today” list. Spread them over the ensuing week or two. If they don’t
all get done, it’s no big deal. You have already blocked out the time to work on the ones
that are really important.
Basically, you are getting the brief, easy-to-do items done, delegated or deleted quickly, and
you are blocking off time in your planner to work on those items that are important. Blocking
off time in the future to work on specific tasks or projects is referred to as “scheduling.”
52
The balance of the items, those of minor importance, can be added to a “To Do” list,
where they will likely die a natural death if you never get the time to work on them. This
happens because scheduled tasks are commitments, while listed tasks are just intentions.
“Success is the result of choosing your priorities and directing

your activities to meet them on a daily basis.”
- William Bond
If after all this, a few things still don’t get done, rest assured it’s not your fault. Your job is
to do what’s possible, not what’s impossible. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Worry or anxiety
weakens your immune system as well as your executive skills, and leaves you open to energy
loss.
Making choices do consume energy. The frontal lobes of our brain are constantly weighing
the pros and cons of every bit of information, trying to determine the best choice. But
once the choices have been made, the stress disappears, and it is no longer an energy drain.
8.3 PATIENT PEOPLE SHOW IMPROVED PERFORMANCE

It has been said that patience is a virtue. This certainly holds true in practice. It is even
truer in this fast-paced society where “rushaholics” are in the majority and companies seem
to believe that faster is better. Although patience is sometimes mistaken for sloth, it’s the
patient ones who are the most effective managers.
Patient people fully intend to accomplish all their goals, but they don’t expect it to happen
overnight. They recognized that time is their ally, not their enemy, and that all goals can
be accomplished given a realistic timeframe.
Patient people do not multitask. But they do utilize idle time and waiting time rather than
get frustrated by the delays. They don’t attempt to do two activities at the same time if
both activities require their attention. They don’t drive while applying makeup or read the
paper while eating dinner or compose email messages while participating in a meeting or
talking on the telephone.
They utilize idle time by working on other tasks. For example, they set the table while
the bread is toasting instead of peeking impatiently into the toaster every few seconds to
see how the bread is doing. They respond to email while a report is being printed, sign
documents while waiting for their laptop to reboot, and review their text messages while
waiting to see a client.
53
Patient people do not exhibit an extreme sense of time urgency. They don’t push elevator
buttons three or four times, never run up “up” escalators or rush to occupy the empty
segment of a revolving door. They don’t interrupt others while they are talking, never tailgate
when driving and seldom complain when someone is late for an appointment. They always
have priority work on hand that they can work on whenever they have a few idle minutes.
What patient people may lose in physical speed, the make up for in mental agility. They plan
before they act, think before they speak, and research before they report. Consequently, they
make good decisions, wise choices and sound judgments, achieving above average results.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything gets done.”
- Lao Tzu
Patient people tend to exhibit “Type B” personality style, a more laid-back, contemplative
style characterized by methodical goalsetting, planning and delegation. They are competitive
without seeming aggressive and goal oriented without seeming overly ambitious.
Being patient, they are good listeners and usually excel at personal relationships. Being calm,
they exude confidence and easily gain trust and loyalty. Patient people make good leaders
as well as followers. And they are seldom stressed out or in a panic mode.
How can one gain patience? This takes time since it involves changing behaviours – a slow
process of acting out again and again the new behaviours you want to acquire. But small
changes will lead to bigger changes and even those individuals exhibiting an extreme Type
A personality style can modify their behaviour over time. Start small and let the successes
of those incremental changes motivate you to persist.
For example, drive a little slower, pause before you answer, occasionally be the last one off
the bus. Let the dryer go through its full cycle, resist the urge to open the microwave door
before the buzzer sounds, and let a staff member finish their explanation before answering
your own question.
Stay in bed until the alarm goes off, sit quietly in the car for a few minutes before entering
the house, and don’t rush to turn on the TV set. Take a longer more scenic route to work,
walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator and spend five minutes talking to your
assistant before tackling those voice mail messages.
In other words, slow down. Change your routines. Take a break. And above all, realize that
a wasted minute does not lead to a wasted life.
54
BOOKS REFERENCED IN “MAKING

STRESS WORK FOR YOU“
Benson, Herbert. The Relaxation Response. William Morrow, 1976.
Carr, Nicholas G. The Glass Cage: Where Automation Is Taking Us. Vintage Books, 2016.
Creagan, Edward T., and Sandra Wendel. How Not to Be My Patient: a Physicians Secrets for
Staying Healthy and Surviving Any Diagnosis. Write on Ink Publishing, 2014.
Devi, Gayatri. A Calm Brain: How to Relax into a Stress-Free, High-Powered Life. Dutton,
2013.
Friedman, Meyer, and Ray H. Rosenman. Type A Behavior and Your Heart: Fawcett Crest,
1992.
Friedman, Thomas L. Thank You for Being Late: an Optimists Guide to Thriving in the Age
of Accelerations. Picador, 2017.
Gilbert, Daniel. Stumbling on Happiness. Vintage Books, 2006.
Goleman, Daniel. Focus: the Hidden Driver of Excellence. Harper, 2015.
Kornblatt, Sondra, and Jo Crichton. A Better Brain at Any Age: the Holistic Way to Improve
Your Memory, Reduce Stress and Sharpen Your Wits. Royal New Zealand Foundation of the
Blind, 2010.
Leahy, Robert L. The Worry Cure: Stop Worrying so Much and Start Living. Piatkus, 2006.
Machlowitz, Marilyn M. Workaholics. Signet,1981.
Martin, Chuck, et al. Work Your Strengths: a Scientific Process to Identify Your Skills and
Match Them to the Best Career for You. AMACOM, 2010.
Maxwell, John C. Leadership Gold. Thomas Nelson, 2008.
Memory Clinic. Roman Books, 2016.
55
Onstad, Katrina. Weekend effect: the Life-Changing Benefits of Taking Two Days Off. PIATKUS
Books, 2018.
Perlow, Leslie A. Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change
the Way You Work. Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.
Posen, David B. The Little Book of Stress Relief. Firefly Books, 2017.
Ratey, John J., and Eric Hagerman. Spark: the Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the
Brain. Little, Brown, 2013.
Rock, David. Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and
Achieving All Day Long. Collins Business.
Smith, Patricia. To Weep for a Stranger: Compassion Fatigue in Caregiving. Createspace, 2009.
Sutton, Robert I. Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best ... and Learn from the Worst.
Piatkus, 2017.
Tsaousides, Theo. Brainblocks: Overcoming the 7 Hidden Barriers to Success. Prentice Hall
Press, 2015.
Williams, Redford B. The Trusting Heart: Great News about Type A Behavior. Times Books,
1989.
Zeigler, Kenneth. Getting Organized at Work. McGraw-Hill Professional, 2008.
56

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1 Stress and how to recognize it 8

2 How we are impacted by stress 12

4 Personality and stress 24

5 Little things mean a lot 29

6 Managing the stress in your life 34

7 Building stress resistance 40

8 Keep your life in perspective 50

Books referenced in “Making Stress Work for You“ 55

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

His website is www.taylorintime.com

1 STRESS AND HOW TO

1.1 WHAT IS STRESS?

“Stress occurs when a person perceives excessive demands

- Daniel G Amen, author of The end of mental illness, 2020

1.2 HOW TO RECOGNIZE STRESS

“For fast-acting relief from stress, try slowing down.”

- Lily Tomlin, Comedienne

1.3 WORRIED? ACTION IS THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION

“Pessimist: one who, when faced with the choice of two

Action is the best course of action.

2 HOW WE ARE IMPACTED

2.1 STRESS CAN AFFECT YOUR HEALTH

2.3 STRESS AFFECTS PERFORMANCE

“It’s much easier to be very busy than to be very effective.”

2.3 STRESS WEAKENS WILLPOWER

“Self-control is more indispensable than gunpowder.”

- Henry Morton Stanley

2.4 STRESS CURTAILS MEMORY

2.5 STRESS IMPEDES DECISION-MAKING

- Roy F Baumeister and John Tierney

Decision-making is a cognitive process of making a choice between several possible alternatives

2.6 STRESS LEADS TO BURNOUT

2.7 STRESS IS A CATALYST FOR COMPASSION FATIGUE

Compassion fatigue is a type of stress caused by caring for others. It is characterized by

“Stress reduction is one of the most important things you

2.8 STRESS INTERFERES WITH SLEEP

3.1 RUSH-HOUR TRAFFIC

“A wasted minute does not lead to a wasted life.”

3.2 ROAD RAGE

“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger

3.3 WORKING CONDITIONS

3.4 INEFFECTIVE SUPERVISION

“People quit people, not companies.”

“A survey of workplaces in the U.S. that showed workers

3.7 TOO MUCH COFFEE

3.8 SELF-IMPOSED STRESS

“There are people who want to get everywhere at once

3.9 BEWARE OF SECOND-HAND STRESS

4 PERSONALITY AND STRESS

4.1 THE RISKS OF TYPE A PERSONALITY

The Type A personality is characterized by intensive drive and aggressiveness. He/she is

“Some people feel they have already been to work before

- Kirk Byron Jones

“Trying to accomplish everything in as little time as possible

- Gayarti Devi, A calm brain

4.2 MODIFYING TYPE A BEHAVIOR

“When comes to talking, the mind he cares more about

“Most Type A persons retain, to some degree, a sense of

- Friedman & Rosenman

4.3 ARE YOU A TYPE A PERSON?

1. Do you have a habit of explosively accentuating keywords in your ordinary

5 LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT

1 Stress and how to recognize it 8

2 How we are impacted by stress 12

6 Managing the stress in your life 34

1 STRESS AND HOW TO

2 HOW WE ARE IMPACTED

5.2 SUMMARY OF STRATEGIES FOR DEFUSING

6 MANAGING THE STRESS