April: Understanding Your Stress Responses

Posted April 1, 2024

Uncovering Stress Responses at Work

One of the greatest work hazards in 2024 is the covert ways in which we celebrate and reward people by pushing them into burnout at work. I understand that this is a bold statement. In actuality, I am by no means comparing this to the overt work hazards associated with being a firefighter or someone who is physically risking their health. 

What I am suggesting is that we applaud people for their “sense of dedication” to their work or their “loyalty to a company,” but we have to look closer to see exactly what that means. Are these labels coming from a desire to be excellent, to grow, and become a better version of yourself? (That is a good thing!) Or is it motivated by a fear of losing your job, not being enough, or letting people down? Are you running off adrenaline because you are simply addicted to stress hormones? Is the most normal feeling for you the feeling that comes from high stress? You probably answered yes to some of the stress response questions, and that's okay; many of us are operating with a dysregulated nervous system and don’t even know it. 

Understanding the types of stress you experience and why you are driven to perform and work the way you do will answer the question of whether you are operating from a stress response, aka a dysregulated nervous system, aka stress hormones like adrenaline. 

Personally, I am all for peak performance. While there were plenty of unhealthy aspects of the recent Emmy-winning show, The Bear, it was mesmerizing to get the chance to watch almost everyone who worked at the restaurant evolve into a better version of themselves. 

The question is, what do we do once we acknowledge we’ve been working ourselves to exhaustion? 

April is Stress Awareness Month, and this month we are focusing our content on understanding the difference between becoming good at what you do vs. using work to feed an adrenaline addiction causing burnout. We will also look at ways to interpret the signs of working too hard as the result of a toxic work culture and pushing yourself unknowingly because you don’t realize you’re operating from people pleasing or a fight response. 

That’s right, people pleasing, aka fawning, is a stress response just like a fight response, aka meeting a deadline at all costs. These 2 stress responses, fawning and fight, are the 2 stress responses companies celebrate the most. Companies give their employees a round of applause sometimes without realizing the associated behaviors are not sustainable long-term. Your career and company culture are a marathon, not a sprint. And so understanding how to find peak performance without sacrificing physical and mental health is one of the most important things we should have learned in school but sadly didn’t. But don’t worry, It’s not too late. Once you start to minimize the time you spend in a stress response, not only will you feel better, but your work will be better too!