Since the campaign was introduced in 2002, Five-a-Day has become part of our shared language. We know that we should eat at least 5 portions of fresh fruit or veg each day. But how many people do you know who actually do?

Knowing what we should be doing, and doing it consistently are not the same. We don’t always do what’s good for us, and that’s the biggest drawback to trying to manage stress. Because whatever method you choose – prioritising, taking time to be mindful, talking things through with someone supportive – it requires doing something differently, and doing it consistently enough to maintain the results.

So when you’re relying on managing, the stress tends to yo-yo. Just like dieting, just as ineffective, and just as demoralising when you find yourself back where you started, despite the effort you put in. It frustrates me, seeing so much time and effort getting wasted, when managing’s not the only way. Because with the skills to change the way your mind’s processing a stressful situation, you can change its effects without relying on managing them. To experience a taste of how it can work, access my introduction to Skills to Keep Stress Useful CLICK HERE

James Dyson set a new paradigm when he invented the first bag-less vacuum cleaner.  I love mine – it does a great job, until the filters clog up….  Now you’re supposed to change them every few months, but I only ever remember when the performance suffers.

It’s a slow deterioration, so I only notice once it’s got so bad that it’s not picking up any more.  A simple change of the filters, and it’s back to its fully working best – amazing me with the difference (I’m easily pleased!).

The more people I’ve supported to Process Engineer their thinking, the more it’s struck me that this amazing step change in performance doesn’t just apply to vacuum cleaning.

How do the people you work with view stress?  There are plenty of research studies documenting links between stress levels and a host of unpleasant (and many potentially life-shortening) conditions, including coronary disease, asthma and IBS.  So it’s not surprising that stress gets a lot of press, and many people regard it as something to be avoided.  But is stress really that toxic?

In a recent US study⁽¹⁾, over 28,000 participants were asked how much stress they’d experienced in the previous year, and whether they believed that stress was harmful to health.  Then 8 years later, the study tracked how many participants had died. 

Stress is a growing problem for many employers, and the Stress Management industry is growing to keep pace.  But trying to manage stress can create problems of its own.

Because managing requires us to do something different, and we don’t always do what’s good for us. We know that taking time out to exercise, prioritise, breathe, or be more present can be good for us – but we don’t always do it. Life gets in the way, particularly when we’re stressed.

Fear is one of our most powerful emotions, vital for keeping us safe in a dangerous world, so it can be very effective in getting us to act.  But not always….

We’re all familiar with government anti-smoking campaigns – full of attempts to make smokers so afraid of the negative health effects, that they quit.  But recent research* (and £millions of government money spent in vain, it seems) has confirmed that fear-based strategies can make people smoke more, not less.  Remind people of their mortality, and they turn for comfort to the cigarettes.

The same effect comes into play around stress.  Frequent reminders of the potential health risks of too much stress not only draws attention to the bad stresses (so we notice even more of them); it makes people more likely to engage in unhelpful or unhealthy avoidance strategies.