Work stress is unavoidable, but accepting it can increase strength, intelligence, and happiness, says Kandi Wiens, an Ivy League expert and author of Burnout Immunity.
The Most Underrated Skill of Successful Individuals
In her latest book, Wiens explains the science behind chronic stress and resilience. She says the most underrated skill successful individuals utilize to prevent burnout is shifting their stress response from "fight-or-flight" to challenge when perceiving a threat.
During fight-or-flight, your body goes on high alert and releases hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, blood vessels constrict, and inflammation increases to prepare for potential injuries. While this response is helpful in life-threatening situations, it is less so when facing challenges like tight deadlines or micromanagement. Our bodies often struggle to distinguish between real and perceived threats, leading to a continuous state of anxiety or overreaction.
Wiens said that rather than defaulting to fight-or-flight mode, high achievers view challenges as opportunities to overcome. She arrived at this conclusion through her study of individuals thriving in high-stress environments, such as business executives and police chiefs.
Adopting this alternative stress response can enhance resilience in stressful situations, improving overall health, emotional well-being, and productivity at work.
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Responding to Stress as a Challenge Instead of A Threat
The first step in easing away from the full-on fight-or-flight mode is developing self-awareness. Wiens explains that when faced with an uncontrollable stressor, individuals often create narratives in their minds to address the uncertainty, leading to self-criticism and catastrophic thinking. However, resilient and successful people challenge their assumptions and interrupt the cycle of negative thoughts by questioning themselves about the truth of the situation and the assumptions they are making.
For example, if faced with a restructuring announcement from your boss, you may naturally worry about job security, which is understandable. However, continually fixating on this worry will not ease your anxiety, explains Wiens. Instead, shifting to a challenge-response can prompt you to approach your manager for clarification on the status of your job. Depending on their response, you might proactively explore opportunities in other parts of the organization or seek advice on finding a new job elsewhere. Wiens emphasizes that viewing stressful situations as challenges rather than threats facilitates clearer thinking and better problem-solving and enables you to address the situation constructively rather than becoming consumed by potential negative outcomes.
To foster a challenge-response, Wiens suggests asking yourself these questions when facing stress at work:
- What are my strengths in this situation?
- What resources do I have?
- How did I handle the same stressors in the past?
By reframing a stressor as a challenge, you are effectively training your brain to concentrate on the positive aspects, which include the sense of achievement or satisfaction you will experience upon overcoming the challenge.
In her book Burnout Immunity, Wiens also discusses healthcare workers who not only managed to avoid burnout but flourished in the high-stress environments of hospitals, even during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, because they viewed the circumstance as a challenge rather than a threat.
Similar to the fight-or-flight response, the challenge response impacts your cardiovascular system. However, rather than causing blood vessels to constrict, the challenge response leads to the dilation of blood vessels, resulting in increased oxygen flow to the brain and muscles.
Both responses can cause your heart rate to increase and blood to pump faster, especially before situations like giving a presentation or having a difficult conversation with your boss. However, it is important to recognize that your body is trying to provide you with extra energy to succeed in these moments, so embrace and channel it positively and make the most of it.
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