Stress. We all experience it in different ways, and we all have different ways of managing it.
But despite stress being so common — 90 per cent of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress-related complaints1 — it can be surprisingly difficult to notice until it becomes a serious problem.
For some, stress shows up in eating habits. Others might experience aches and pains. And others may start to notice disturbed sleep. So how can we diagnose stress and start to treat it when it seems to hide out?
While some people have a high sense of self-awareness and are able to detect stress easily, it’s often not the case. When it comes to detecting stress, there are four common types that are typically diagnosed by healthcare professionals:
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Physical Stress: This is often the most obvious form of stress. It might present itself in the form of headaches or other aches and pains, or you might notice an increase in your heart rate. Other common signs include getting sick more often than usual, or noticing tension throughout your entire body.
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Mental Stress: This form of stress is also quite common, and fairly easy to recognize. Mental Stress often presents itself in the form of memory problems, an inability to concentrate, or anxiety.
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Behavioural Stress: This can be more difficult to self-diagnose. Behavioural stress is indicated by a change in your typical habits, such as food intake (eating more/less than usual), sleep patterns, isolating yourself from others or avoiding your typical responsibilities.
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Emotional Stress: This is another tough one to diagnose. When the body is experiencing stress emotionally, it tends to prepare its “fight or flight” response, which can manifest in sneaky ways. Signs of emotional stress can include an increase in agitation or moodiness.
I can tell I’m stressed — now what do I do?
First, applaud yourself for practicing active awareness and detecting the type of stress you’re experiencing.
If you’re noticing mental stress, you may benefit from practicing mindfulness to help you tune into your good-feeling thoughts and emotions. If your stress is physical, you may benefit from calming strategies like a body scan or box breathing. If you’re feeling too stressed to try any of these techniques — that’s OK too. Seeking support from a trusted friend, family member or medical professional is often the best place to start.
Our mental health team also offers an integrated, holistic approach to mental health, combining best-in-class services all under one roof.
No matter what stage of life you’re in, .
1 Robinson, J. 2017. “The effects of stress on your body.” Web MD.
Stress generally occurs when you are trying to think about and process more things than you have the capacity for. It is easy to think that ‘stress is stress’ but there are various types of stress and each should managed differently.
Dr. Karl Albrecht is an authority on stress with his 1979 book, “Stress and the Manager” considered a landmark text. He covers the basic definition of stress and how it affects the body and also defines four common types of stress and how to manage them.
Albrecht’s four common types of stress are:
1. Time stress
With a prevalence of deadlines and demand for instant responses time stress is the most common type of stress. When you worry about time, or the lack of time, you experience time stress. You worry about all the things that you have to do and the lack of time to do them, creating a real fear that you won’t complete some or all of the tasks which in turn generates additional real and imagined issues.
The best way to manage or remove time stress is to ensure that you are working well within the time deadlines. Allocate more than ample time for each task in your to do list and prioritise to focus on the important tasks and leave those you can safely put off. There is a common view that single tasking is more efficient than multi-tasking and that you should concentrate on the most important tasks first (as per the Urgent/Important framework) and/or according to when you are at your best in the day.
I’m a morning person, so for me the first few hours of the day are critical for knocking off the urgent tasks and I leave the less important tasks such as checking email until later in the day when my energy levels are down. I try to remove as many things to worry about as I can so that I remove time stress.
2. Encounter Stress
As it suggests encounter stress occurs when you are worrying about interacting with a group of people where there are outcomes that are either unpredictable or predictably unpleasant. The “encounter” can easily drain or overwhelm you especially when you have lots of these personal interactions and situations.
The best way to manage or remove ‘encounter stress’ is either through limiting or removing the cause (the people) or by improving your interpersonal skills so that you remain confident and in control when dealing with them. People with high emotional intelligence generally have lower encounter stress because they are better able to interact with others and can build good relationships.
3. Anticipatory Stress
Anticipatory stress occurs when you are worried about the future, either in a general sense, or more usually around a specific event such as an unpleasant meeting or conversation. The general sense is usually vague and undefined often in the guise of a big black cloud with an overall sense that something will go wrong.
The best way to manage or remove Anticipatory stress is through thorough preparation (be prepared, don’t be scared) and/or by using visualisation techniques – picturing the day ahead and how it will likely pan out. There may be several possible scenarios and picturing these helps create some certainty and confidence that you have all the bases covered. You will feel more confident and in control and as a result less stressed.
4. Situational Stress
In my experience situational stress is the hardest stress type to control because you’re often caught unawares and in an unexpected situation where you feel a threat to your security, status or ego. Adrenalin, one of the body’s stress hormones, often kicks in and floods the body, preparing you for “fight or flight” and in the process it dismantles your high level executive thinking and sense of control. Often you will react emotionally as your mind has prepared you to do, which can be at best, embarrassing, and at the worst, dangerous depending on the situation and the other people involved.
The best way to manage or remove situational stress is by understanding the “automatic” physical and emotional signals that your body sends out when you’re under pressure and then using a “circuit breaker” to diffuse or divert your emotional reaction. This is different for different people and can be a phase or an action or another response. It takes time to find and to practice the most appropriate circuit breaker but its well worth it.
Another dangerous kind of stress not covered by Dr. Albrecht’s types of stress, is the longer-term effect caused by an imbalance of Cortisol. Christopher Bergland’s article in ‘Psychology Today’ is definitely worth reading.
Everyone reacts to stress differently and you will find the best ways to manage the different types of stress through trial and error. One of the proven benefits of being mentally tough is that it improves your ability to manage the various types of stress and certainly using the MTQ48 4C’s framework can reduce or eliminate Albrecht’s four types of stress.
For more on managing stress and developing mental toughness contact us.
What the Different Stresses Feel Like, and how to Overcome them…
Each of Albrecht’s Four Types of Stress feel slightly different when you’re experiencing them. Each of the different types also has specific responses that individuals and leaders can undertake that are most likely to help reduce the stress that people may be feeling.
Time Stress
The first of Albrecht’s Four Types of Stress is time stress.
What Time Stress feels like
Time stress can make you feel trapped.
When individuals are experiencing time stress, they feel trapped. They feel that they don’t have the time they need to complete their tasks, or do their job well.
When under this type of stress individuals often find themselves fixating on their imminent deadlines and volumes of work. This fixation uses a lot of their focus and energy. This means they have little energy and focus left to actually do the work that they need to do. Under this type of stress, individuals might also find themselves focusing on a sense of injustice or unfairness over their deadlines and the volume of work that they need to complete.
Overcoming Time Stress
Individuals can address some of their time stress through improving productivity and time management. Prioritizing, to-do lists, the Eisenhower-matrix, working longer and working at more productive times are all recommended.
Saying no to work isn’t always easy to do.
Ultimately though, most of those actions are short term fixes.
The best long term way to overcome time stress is to address the root causes of it. These are often to do with work volumes and effective communication. To overcome these issues requires developing the ability to say no to further tasks. It also requires open and honest conversations with leaders and managers so that they are aware of the situation.
From a leadership perspective, it’s not always easy to spot whether an individual is experiencing time stress. This is because many people may try and keep it hidden. As a leader it’s important to be approachable so your employees feel able to tell you about their time stress. Remember, sometimes you’ll say things in passing that morph into important deliverables and generate work and time pressure without that being your intention. When requesting work of individuals make sure you really are clear. You particularly need to say whether what you’re asking for is important and urgent, or just a nice to have.
Anticipatory Stress
The second of Albrecht’s Four Types of Stress is anticipatory stress.
What Anticipatory Stress feels like
When individuals are experiencing anticipatory stress they are usually stressed about a future event or activity. These events are typically something that they think could do wrong or have negative consequences for them. When this happens, individuals may find themselves fixating on the event or potential outcomes. They might fixate so much that they cannot focus on the things they should be doing.
The types of things that can cause anticipatory stress include upcoming deliverables, presentations and meetings, or future events like exam results or moving house.
Overcoming Anticipatory Stress
Individuals can overcome some of their anticipatory stress through contingency planning. This just means having a planned course of action for a range of possible future situations.
Other techniques that individuals may find helpful include positive visualization and meditation, as well as improving underlying confidence. Several common ways to to build confidence in relation to a specific future event include practice, feedback, preparation, dry-runs and building relationships where appropriate.
Coaching takes time, but is hugely helpful.
Leaders can play a large role in helping individuals to overcome anticipatory stress. One of the best things leaders can do is to actually focus on prevention rather than cure. They can do this through creating safe and supportive environments. Other things leaders can do include speaking to the individuals in their teams on a regular basis and exploring potential sources of anticipatory stress. When specific sources of this stress are identified, leaders can help coach their individuals through their stress through. To do this they should use effective, supportive questioning techniques. They can also help by reiterating the supportive and psychologically safe working environment of the team. Alternatively, they could help manage the individual’s workload in an effort to mitigate specific events, if the levels of stress associated with them are too high.
Situational Stress
The third of Albrecht’s Four Types of Stress is situational stress.
What Situational Stress feels like
Situational stress, by definition, happens in the moment. It often arises when individuals are triggered by a situation they can’t control, typically conflict, loss of status or emergencies. Other factors that could cause situation stress include each of the five factors of the SCARF model.
Everyone has come up against a bully at some point in their lives.
When individuals are experiencing situational stress, they usually feel threatened by what’s happening around them. As a result their automatic fight or flight responses kick in. This makes it hard for them to focus on achieving the best outcomes possible in the moment.
Overcoming Situational Stress
Situational stress is difficult to manage as it is often automatic and Amygdala driven, causing a “fight or flight” response. Developing your emotional intelligence is a great way to reduce the likelihood of this type of stress taking control of you in difficult situations.
As you become more emotionally intelligent, you may learn to recognize your symptoms of stress. You may also learn to spot in advance the types of situation which may become stressful for you. By being able to spot these situations, you will know when you need to take mitigating action.
Having an escape plan can be helpful.
Of course, you’ll also need to have mitigating actions to take. There are lots of things that individuals can do in these situations to help them through. Examples include asking for a break, building an exit strategy into a difficult situation, pre-committing yourself to be somewhere else so you have an excuse to leave, seeking to control the physical environment your events occur in (e.g. choose your room and attendees) or even the classic responses of “counting to 10” or “sleeping on it” before you made a decision.
A Leadership Perspective
From a leadership perspective, it’s particularly important to help your team members with situational stress. When individuals experience this type of stress they may make bad decisions, fail to act or even respond unprofessionally. This can all damage important relationships.
Visualizing your responses can help you effectively manage difficult situations.
As a leader it’s possible to help prevent these situations by having effective and open coaching conversations with your team members on a regular basis. In these coaching session you can help develop your team members’ emotional intelligence. You can also help them explore upcoming and potentially stressful situations with a view to having them individual visualize their responses to different eventualities and prepare appropriate contingency plans. This approach not only helps you develop your team, it also helps you maintain a clear handle on the challenges your team are facing are.
Encounter Stress
The fourth of Albrecht’s Four Types of Stress is encounter stress.
What Encounter Stress feels like
Individuals experience encounter stress when they worry about interacting with a person or group, or they are worn down by too many difficult interactions with specific people or groups.
This type of stress can lead to fixating on specific future encounters, can lead to avoiding specific encounters and thus not delivering specific pieces of work and can lead to further erosion of relationships.
The cool kids can be intimidating and stressful to be around…
