Every adult has some level of stress in their life. It’s inherent to being an adult. You start out in life carefree and not even knowing what the world is about. The only thing you know as a newborn is your surroundings, stress has started to creep into your life with the barrage of noises, sights and sounds. You become overwhelmed and start crying but someone comes and comforts you. You start to go to school as a child and find out that your home environment is not the same as everyone else’s. There are situations and life lessons taught to others that your family was never aware of. Sometimes this has a positive effect and sometimes this leads to conflict which then causes stress. As you get older, more types of stress are introduced such as pressure from school, peers, and culture. By the time you’ve graduated college or stepped out in a trade, you and your body have fully experienced multiple kinds of stress. And because of those experiences, you have developed both mental and physical behaviors to deal with stress. These are known as coping mechanisms. Are you aware of your coping mechanisms?
In this blog series we are going to define how stress and burnout are mutual companions and the coping mechanisms that are commonly used. Some coping mechanisms are proactive and can actually help. Others, which are reactive, will feel like they’re helping and are only making your stress levels worse. But even with proactive coping mechanisms, if they are used in a reactive way, can change to stress-inducing ones. The old adage “everything in moderation” plays in here.
The medical definition of stress is “the body's response to physical, mental, or emotional pressure.” As defined by the National Cancer Institute. It goes on to say “Stress causes chemical changes in the body that can raise blood pressure, heart rate, and blood sugar levels.” These chemicals are adrenaline and cortisol. It is your body’s natural response to a “fight/flight/freeze” scenario. “It may also lead to feelings of frustration, anxiety, anger, or depression. Stress can be caused by normal life activities or by an event, such as trauma or illness. Long-term stress or high levels of stress may lead to mental and physical health problems.” As your stress levels increase your body enters a constant state of stress or long-term activation of the stress response system as stated by the Mayo Clinic. The article describes the physical and mental aspects of long-term stress and is a must-read article if you want to learn more about the negative effects of stress in your life.
When stress hits the long-term activation stage a new term can be applied. The term is burnout. In a post by Psychology Today, burnout is defined as “…a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress….burnout is an extended period of stress that feels as though it cannot be ameliorated.” While this article by the National Institutes of Health traces the original term “burnout” to the 1970’s where it was used to describe the psychological symptoms that some people in stressful, “high-helping” professions, such as medicine, experienced. When these professionals sacrificed themselves continually over a long period of time they experienced symptoms such as exhaustion, inability to cope, and general lack of desire/passion in their professions. Today, the concept of burnout is definitely not limited to specific occupations/professions. This can happen to anyone, in any profession, but can also happen outside of work if you are experiencing long-term stress such as caring for a chronically ill family member.
Our bodies stress reaction is meant to last for a short period until the risk no longer exists. But when the risks are repeated or perceived as ongoing, our brains and bodies never have a chance to complete the stress cycle and return to a normal state. The stress response in most cases is supposed to be accompanied by an action - run, fight, or freeze. When we don’t do something definite in response to the stressor, we are not closing the loop. This is the reason we turn to some sort of coping mechanism. We are attempting to close the loop and tell our bodies to turn off the stress response. We have a “gas” and “brake” function built into our hormonal system. When there is a stressor, our bodies hit the gas (sympathetic nervous system) but our brains eventually need to press on the brakes (parasympathetic nervous system).
The problem many people experience in a long-term stress situation is that the perceived stressors never stop – the brain is just giving the constant message to keep the gas flowing! What happens when you keep your foot on the gas constantly? Well, eventually you run out of gas! While this is not true physically speaking (we don’t run out of stress hormones), it is usually true of how we are feeling – we are BURNED OUT. Our brains/bodies know this is not a good situation so we will start trying to cope in some way. We are attempting to apply the brakes! The question is, will we consciously choose proactive coping mechanisms that will help us in our burnout recovery, or will we fall into a reactive coping habit that will end up causing further damage? We look forward to hearing from you on what coping mechanisms you have used to counter both short term and long-term stress!
Excellent read. My coping mechanisms, unfortunately, are not the healthy ones. Eager to see future posts. Thanks for the resources!