Most of us believe we're pretty hardy. We're Canadian aren't we? We deal with freezing winters and hot summers and love to battle the elements.
But you also need mental hardiness to help manage the challenges of our modern life, particularly stress. We each have a defined set of coping skills that influence our resiliency to cope with and handle life stress.
Psychological hardiness is one coping skill that defines how well we cope with stress.
Psychological hardiness influences our thinking skills under pressure. How we think defines what we do under stress, and how calm we are influences our body's response, such as the degree we feel tense or anxious.
The more developed our psychological hardiness skills, the more likely we will remain calm in stressful situations.
This concept was introduced as a personality style but new evidence suggests there are elements that make it a trainable coping skill as well. The Your Life at Work research done by The Globe and Mail and Howatt HR continues to find evidence that improving coping skills can have a positive impact on your health.
Life is filled with daily challenges involving your finances, relationships, health and work. When most people use the word 'stress' they refer to 'distress.' This toxic stress over time can have a negative impact on the mind and body, releasing too many harmful hormones and keeping the body in a state of anxiety. The facts are clear: stress kills.
Why do some people deal with stress better than others? There are four elements that predict how we will cope with a stressful situation:
Cognitive reaction: How a person perceives a stressful situation defines the degree to which the situation is considered a threat. Two people in the same situation can have different reactions.
Behavioural response: This refers to how you act in a stressful situation. One person might do everything in their power to avoid a stressful situation; another person might embrace it as a challenge and willingly confronts the situation to find a resolution.
Health support systems: This refers to the level of support that can give a person the strength to deal with stress at home and at work. It's common for people in healthy and supportive relationships to have more hardiness and use these positive relationships as a source of courage and strength. In addition, positive support systems can actively encourage healthy lifestyle choices, such as exercising, eating right, and avoiding bad habits or addictions.
Body's response: The level of control a person has to dampen their physiological arousal such as the fight or flight response influences how the body responds to stress. This might be done through meditation, slow breathing or other exercises.
Coaching tips for developing hardiness
This month's Your Life at Work theme is psychological hardiness. When you complete the Your Life at Work survey you can also complete a separate Hardiness Quick Survey. Two reports are generated that you can either print or save.
One way to monitor changes in your psychological hardiness is to complete the above survey every two weeks or so. Chart your score on an X-Y axis so you can track your progress. It typically can take 12 weeks of focus to start to notice consistent positive change in your psychological hardiness. Like a muscle, it takes practice, patience and persistence to develop these skills.
Pay attention to your daily choices Each day write down three choices you make on your own that you are proud of – everything from the time you wake up to what you eat, how you interact with colleagues and family, your accomplishments, or other activities you're proud of. It's helpful to become mindful of the decisions you make and what benefits you gain or gaps you find. The more you become aware of your ability to make positive choices, the more you will able to control of how you feel in situations. The point is, you need to know that you own the good and bad choices you make.
Stop unhealthy feel-good behaviours
Distress is painful. It's common for people when they are under stress to seek out feel-good behaviours that temporarily improve your mood or satisfy a craving, such as eating a bag of chips or chocolate bar. It could also be more detrimental, such as turning to alcohol or drugs to improve your mood.
However, unhealthy actions weaken psychological hardiness, provide no long-term guarantees, and often put health at risk. One master for a fulfilling life is self-control. Moving away from quick fixes and delaying gratification increase the opportunity to learn how to dig in when needed to push through tough times. Life has good and bad moments. What we do with them influences our mental and physical health.
Eliminate negative actions
Take stock of negative traits that may have been learned from your environment, such as complaining and gossiping when things are not going your way, and generate stress. Develop your personal ethics by making a commitment not to spend energy in a negative way. When you slip it's okay to just acknowledge it and stop.
By learning to shift from negative to positive thinking you will be able to train your brain to have a more optimistic outlook. Keeping a daily journal of the percentage of time you are positive compared to negative is helpful. Being positive more often than not can help you cope better with stress.
Bill Howatt (@billhowatt) is chief research and development officer, work force productivity, at Morneau Shepell, Halifax. He is also president of Howatt HR Consulting and founder of TalOp, in Kentville, N.S.
Bill Howatt