Let go of stress!

Barbara Studer, how does stress arise and what does stress mean from a scientific point of view? Barbara Studer: Stress is an excessive demand on our resources, to which our body reacts by releasing stress hormones in the body that cause the heart rate and blood pressure to rise. Stress can be measured in the body.

Is stress negative per se? Not in principle. To a certain extent, we even need stress. A healthy amount of stress is very beneficial. It makes us more resilient and activates the body. When my heart beats faster, I have more oxygen in my blood and muscles. When I feel a "little" stress - this is called acute stress - I am ready to perform, which is a positive thing. In such acute stress phases, your mindset also helps you: if you see the importance of your work and have a positive attitude towards a project, for example, this will help you through acute stress phases. However, if the stress lasts for weeks and months, it can lead to chronic stress - and this is very harmful.

Where are the boundaries between healthy and harmful stress and what are the signs of stress? The boundaries are individual. But the symptoms can be generally defined. These manifest themselves on four levels: physical, emotional, mental and behavioral. Physical symptoms include headaches, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, tension and susceptibility to infections. Emotional symptoms include hardly being able to feel joy, very strong mood swings or anxiety and being easily irritable. On a mental level, the consequences of stress are forgetfulness and difficulty concentrating - a sign that the brain is overloaded and can no longer process information well. The fourth type of symptom manifests itself in behavior and ranges from sleeping and eating disorders to resorting to sedatives and social withdrawal because you no longer enjoy being with other people.

When should you see stress symptoms as a warning sign? As soon as you notice that you are experiencing symptoms on at least one of the four levels. Of course, you also have to classify these symptoms for yourself: If you have some neck tension, this is not necessarily due to stress. However, stress symptoms should always be taken seriously. If they become more severe or if several symptoms occur together, the alarm bells should definitely ring. The sooner you react, the better.

How can you relieve your body and mind of stress? Firstly, you need to set boundaries with the outside world and protect yourself from the excessive workload. It is important to communicate clearly and openly that you are suffering from stress. Please don't make it a taboo! On the other hand, you need to find ways to relax and regain your strength. Everyone is different here. I recommend thinking about where you really thrive, what is really good for you. For some, it's dancing, painting, music or a walk in the woods. Nature is a very effective source of regeneration: after just ten minutes in the forest, the level of the stress hormone cortisol in the blood drops by around 15

It is often said that you should train your resilience (mental resistance) in order to arm yourself against stress. Is this a good recipe? You can actually do a lot yourself to become more resilient and stress-resistant. There are many approaches here. The most important thing is to take time to reflect on yourself and become aware of yourself. If I know what is important to me, what I look forward to, am aware of my resources and also know my limits, I become more resilient. But a positive mindset, investing in good relationships or a healthy lifestyle also strengthens your own resilience. Training resilience is a lifelong process. However, it must also be said that if the demands are too high or the workload is unrealistically heavy, employees can be as resilient as they like: You will experience stress.

How should the employer react if a person is suffering from chronic stress? For employees suffering from chronic stress, it is very important that they experience that the employer takes their needs seriously and reacts quickly, for example by reducing the workload or allowing the person concerned to take longer breaks, etc.

What happens if you don't react to stress early? Chronic stress has been proven to damage the brain, psyche and health. The later I react, the more stress has already accumulated and the more difficult it is to recover from it.

To what extent does chronic stress damage the brain? It is measurable that chronic stress, or too much cortisol in the blood, causes damage to the brain. Chronic stress can cause the hippocampus, which plays a central role in memory formation, to shrink. This also explains why many people who suffer from stress have memory problems.

According to the Job Stress Index, 30.3 percent of Swiss employees are emotionally exhausted because the workload and their own resources are not in balance. What responsibility does the employer have to prevent emotional exhaustion? What are stress avoiders ? It is particularly important to show employees appreciation and to invest in a work culture that is characterized by openness and transparency. Employees need to know that they can talk about their situation. This not only helps those affected, but also the company, as it prevents long absences.

Why do the individual limits of resilience vary greatly from person to person ? There are various facets to resilience. For example, a team colleague can cope with a lot of time pressure, while her colleague cannot, but is very good at managing different projects at the same time, which his colleague is not so good at. This always depends on your own abilities: If something comes easily to you, you are also more resilient in that area. Personalities with emotional stability can also cope better with stress than people who are less emotionally strong. A third aspect is health: a person who gets enough sleep, eats healthily, has good relationships and challenges their mental abilities can cope with more.

How does it show at work if you or your colleagues suffer from stress? If people are less focused, more dissatisfied, more irritable and less motivated, make more mistakes, work less efficiently, are absent more often and their performance drops, this can be the result of stress. Incidentally, this also sometimes manifests itself in facial fatigue. What I have also experienced myself in my team is that people who suffer from stress only work through things, but are hardly creative anymore.

How do you deal with the fact that stress levels vary greatly from person to person as a line manager and within the team? In a good team, you know and value the strengths of the individual members. One person may not be as resilient, but they are strong at planning ahead and protect us as a team from mistakes that we would make without them. If, as a manager, you promote the view that all strengths, however diverse, are needed in the team and that it is important that we support each other with our weaknesses, you are already doing a lot of things right in terms of avoiding stress.

Both work-related and private factors can lead to stress. How do I deal with it when I realize that some of the stress comes from my private life? Does private stress simply have no place in the workplace? There is usually one main source of stress. This means that the stressors are primarily in the area of work, such as time pressure, or in the area of private life, such as relationship conflicts or worries about a loved one. But it can also be a combination. It is also a fact that work influences private life and private life influences work. You can't separate the two. We are not machines. There must also be a limited amount of space at work to talk about your private situation. This can promote mutual understanding.

How would you describe an ideal work-life balance? There is no general ideal, there is only a personal ideal work-life balance. You have to find out for yourself what this looks like. Some people prefer to keep work and private life strictly separate, others allow them to flow into each other. Ultimately, a good balance is achieved when you enjoy both your work and your private life. If you become too busy in one area or the other, you become dissatisfied, which shows that the balance is not there. You have to keep tweaking your work-life balance. Perhaps there are times when you have to go full throttle at work and take the pressure off in your private life, and times when you are burdened with challenging issues in your private life and need support at work. It's a constant adjustment.