Happiness, change and stress: how are they related?

In the documentary Happy, it is mentioned that we need CHANGE to be happy. We need novelty, growth and learning to feel good and enjoy life.

Thus, a little bit of stress is good for you, because all change is stressful  

But too much stress can negatively impact our well-being. Such as...

• Ongoing stress without proper recovery and integration time.
• Demands to adapt that surpass our capacity.
• Meaningless change or change that is forced on us that we don't align with.

All these can drain us of our energy and hurt our mental and physical health.

But what if the impact of stress had more to do with our MINDSET?

As Dr Huberman mentions in a recent IG post about Dr Alia Crum's work on stress and mindset: 

"if we adopt the mindset that stress is inevitable and that indeed it can enhance our ability to focus, highlight our priorities, and grow us over time, that it will do just that."

Some resistance is normal when we face something new or difficult. A stress response is normal and desirable to trigger our ALERTNESS, raise our ENERGY, and prepare us to ADAPT and LEARN.

As per Kelly McGonigal (author of The Upside of Stress), if we see stress as a sign of that our heart is into it, that our body is getting ready to focus, adapt and learn, than we can embrace the discomfort and leverage it to perform and feel good. 

However, to turn change and the related stress response into something that makes us HAPPY and WELL, we need more than a positive mindset.

We also need connection, meaning, and a sense of control

• Connection: We all need to feel seen, heard, and cared for. Provide safe spaces for empathic listening and respectful dialogue as well as peer support. Feeling safe with others is key to turning down the stress response in our body. Helping others also turns on "the biology of courage and hope" (McGonigal), i.e. it makes you feel good.
• Meaning: We are meaning-making machines. If what is happening to us does not make sense or does not fit our current understanding of reality, it can be stressful and make us resist. Support your people with space to share perspectives and make sense together. Give them time and space to process and readjust their understanding of the world and their place in it.
• Sense of control: With more control on how, where and when we do our work, we can better manage conditions for our optimal performance. But most importantly, when we sense we have some control over our situation, our brain can calm down the survival response that tends to make us feel anxious and worry in face of uncertainty. We don't need full control over the situation, just a sense of control over some aspect of our experience to feel better.

You can also provide support and guidance to build healthy habits and a positive mindset so that your team and employees can master their energy and stress and enjoy their work and life more.  

Would you like to support your team or employees in developing better habits and provide them with a safe space to support one another as they seek to improve their individual and collective well-being? If so, contact me.

With a combination of wellness workshops, in-house coaching, facilitated dialogue circles and guidance on organizational change, I can support you and your team in changing habits, changing conversations and building the capacity to initiate a culture change.

Let's partner to help employees feel more connected and find meaning in face of uncertainty and constant change!