Cope despite the stress

CREATE a picture in your mind of the typical company executive, and chances are he or she will demonstrate many of the signs of stress. For many busy managers, stress has become a status symbol, but it also robs us of our ability to function at our optimum.

“I noticed that many executives with the necessary cognitive abilities were still being overwhelmed by the demands of their jobs, and thus underperforming. Long observation convinced me that stress played a role in causing this performance gap in individuals who had all the qualities needed to do the job,” said Dr Lloyd Chapman, executive coach and partner at consultancy Point One.

Chapman had this advice on dealing with stress:

Stress can affect all of you. It is easy to dismiss stress as purely psychological, but it has very real physiological effects too. Stress affects the heart rate through intricate biofeedback mechanisms and can ultimately affect the body’s ability to learn effectively;

When you are under too much stress, your cerebral cortex is unable to function correctly, which means you are unable to learn or make good decisions. This is dangerous because many executives have to make important and far-reaching decisions when they are under immense stress, which has robbed them of their ability to make good decisions; and

It may appear that there is no solution to this conundrum, but we can affect our cognitive ability through our breathing. In the same way that your heart rate reflects the physiological effects of stress, so controlling your heart rate (through being aware of your breathing) can help you to become calmer, making you better at learning and decisionmaking. — Margaret Harris