Dealing With The Second and Third Generations of Stress
Author: Len Merson
Date: August 8, 2009
Let’s face it, there has always been stress associated with our lives. Yet, it is important to acknowledge that there are basically two forms of stress. We are all too familiar with the negative kind, however let us acknowledge that there is the positive variety as well. For example, remember the moment that you fell in love (interesting how we use the term “fell” to describe this feeling). Anyway, that was a stressful experience, albeit a positive one.
The very derivation of the word ‘disease’ is understood by simply placing a hyphen between the first ‘s’ and ‘e’, thus creating the term: ‘Dis-Ease’.
Insurance companies, health benefit consultants, major corporations, the medical community have now recognized that stress (negative) is the leading cause of illnesses and the astronomical cost of health care in our nation today.
Cardiologists, emergency room physicians and nurses will tell you that most heart attacks take place late Sunday night/the early morning hours of Monday. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. The worry, concern and stress begin building up for most by Sunday afternoon.
Stress in our family life and our personal life notwithstanding, we spend a majority of our waking life at our workplace. This has within it, the ‘First Generation of Stress’. Couple this with the fact that our incomes, which support our personal and family lives, are derived from our work. I refer to this as the ‘First Generation of Stress’.
Due to our country’s current economic condition there is, what I describe as, the ‘Second and Third Generations of Stress’.
This ‘Second Generation’ emanates from those many businesses that have had to downsize. One of my clients recently told me that, due to the slowing of his construction company’s business, he had to lay off two tenured staff members.
Even with business at this slower pace, the staff still had to pick up the responsibilities, duties…and knowledge…from these two ex-staff members. In my interviewing the remaining staff, each one told me how this has increased their stress levels greatly.
As if this wasn’t enough, the ‘Third Generation of Stress’ is the most damning. This is due to our nation’s employed getting up to go to work each day with their very first thought, “Is today the day that I am going to lose my job?”
In dealing with the ‘Second and Third Generations of Stress’, pep talks, platitudes and affirmations such as “This too shall pass”, “Worry is an insult to God”, while not to be discounted, do in fact require a great deal of faith and trust. It would be foolish to forget, especially at this particular time, that we do control our thoughts.
It is essential to remember just how many times, in each of our lives, we have looked into the face of impending doom only to discover that we did, in fact, make it through.
I fervently believe that this current economic situation we are all facing will ebb. Yet, we will still be left with the ‘First Generation of Stress’.
The Living Chaos Free Program is dedicated to Increasing Productivity (measurable) and Stress Reduction (affecting our personal and family lives as well). Ironically these two results- the increasing of productivity and the reduction of stress- have been, for the past thirty-six years, my personal mission with well over 77,000 people around the world.
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