Stress: It's not worth dying for

by Lionel Wijesiri

At the hospital where I was recuperating after a brief illness recently, I met a friend, who had been an in-house patient for three weeks. He is a brilliant HR advisor, having a flourishing business of consultations. For the purpose of this story, let us call him - Mr. Weerasinghe.

Too much stress is usually the result of a mismatch between your expectations and your environment -Google Images

Weerasinghe, expert on stress and common diseases of hard-working executives, suddenly became his own patient. The experience, which nearly killed him, changed his life.

At 43,Weerasinghe was having a network of over 15 business establishments seeking his professional advice on HR matters. For most business specialists this would have been a triumph. But not for Weerasinghe, who was three years behind his personal career timetable. Besides, his goal to create his own Consultation Company by his 45th birthday to do ground-breaking HR research was flinging into frustrating roadblocks.

"Desperately, I picked up the pace," Weerasinghe recalls. "I criss-crossed the country - lecturing, trying to build support among CEOs to invest in my organization."

Though he was always tired and exhausted, he was not concerned. He knew he had none of the traditional risk factors of heart disease: his father had lived to 79, his mother was still healthy at 85; he didn't smoke, wasn't overweight, and had normal blood pressure and cholesterol, no diabetes.

"I thought I was immune to heart disease," Weerasinghe says.

In April this year, after a disappointing legal confrontation over the formation of his new Company, Weerasinghe blazed with anger and couldn't seem to calm down. Next morning, after a sleepless night, he gave another long lecture to a group of Bank executives. Ironically, the subject was stress. Following a heavy lunch, he was doing a case study from a colleague's Power Point slides, but his mind was foggy, his eyes were blurry. He felt dizzy.

Suddenly, Weerasinghe says, "Intense pressure went from my breastbone up into my shoulders, neck and jaws, and down both arms. I had trouble breathing." He began to sweat and was getting bowel cramps and nausea.

"The game was over. I diagnosed my own condition as myocardial infarction." I telephoned my Physician and just plainly told her, 'I've just had a heart attack," and got myself admitted to hospital.

The Connection

During three months of recuperation, Weerasinghe reflected on his life. "For the first time I realized it had become a joyless treadmill. I asked myself: Is it worth dying for?"With a firm "No" ringing in his ears, Weerasinghe changed.

He started to take better care of himself, exercised, got enough sleep. "I had looked into the abyss," Weerasinghe says.

"After that, I decided to get rid of the small stuff; pretty soon I saw it was all small stuff."

Weerasinghe knew that more than 50 percent of people who are stricken with heart disease had, like himself, no classic risk factors. The missing trigger, he decided, must be unbearable stress. For years researchers had been looking for a clinically measurable connection between stress and heart disease. Now Weerasinghe was more determined than ever to help pinpoint the connection.

Formulae

Weerasinghe developed a 7-point formulae to cope with stress. This is how he elaborates them:

1.Clarify your values

It's important to run not on the fast track, but on your track. Pretend you have only six months to live. Make three lists: the things you have to do, want to do, and neither have to do nor want to. Then, for the rest of your life, forget everything in the third category.

2. Improve your 'self-talks'

We all talk to ourselves, and many of our self-talks are needlessly negative. Discipline yourself not to overreact emotionally. Why despair when sadness is sufficient? Why enraged when simple irritation be will get your message across?

3. Learn how to relax

All you need is a quiet room. Get comfortable. Then close your eyes, breathe rhythmically (preferably from your abdomen), and blot out distractions for 10 to 15 minutes. Do this twice a day.

4. Exercise regularly

Try to exercise at least three times a week for 20 minutes at 75 percent of your maximum predicted heart rate. To determinate that rate, subtract your age from 225 (if you're 40, for example, the rate is 185. 75 percent of that, 139, would be age 40'S exercise rate). Make sure your doctor approves, and start gradually.

5. Get the leisure you need

The best way to avoid burnout is to allow yourself proper leisure to renew your commitment to work and recharge your batteries. If you're a workaholic, consider: you owe it to yourself to take time off or else you jeopardize your chances of keeping on top of a rough job over the long haul.

6. Adopt dietary goals

Maintain normal weight. Limit fat to no more than 30 per cent of your calories; substitute cereals and breads for fats and sugars, moderate salt intake. Also, remember to take a real breakfast.

7. Avoid 'chemical haze'

One definition of stress is loss of control; the need to acquire control through artificial means accounts for the popularity of nicotine, alcohol, caffeine and drugs. My advice:Smoking-Don't! Stopping is the single best thing you can do for your health. Drinking-only in moderation, preferably, a glass of wine or little beer with meals.

Drugs - only if prescribed by the Doctor. Chemicals make you feel you are in control but you are not. Real control takes effort not escape.

Fight or Flight

Most of us react to stress in two ways: A sudden danger causes our adrenal glands to release adrenalin to prepare us for instant action, 'fight or flight'; heart rate and blood pressure shoot up, and blood rushes to the muscles.

When the threat is more long-term, the adrenals secrete cortisol which acts more slowly than adrenalin, raising blood pressure gradually-partly by wasting vital chemicals such as sodium and potassium (predisposing the heart to chaotic rhythms).

Blood-clot formation is thus made easier, and the amplitude of the fight-or-flight response is increased. Cortisol is responsible, too, for sensitizing small blood vessels to adrenalin giving a bigger bang for the buck of adrenalin.

Designed to save lives, these 'automatic' reactions have themselves become life-threatening in modern society, for they prepare the body for behaviour for which there is no means of expression. It's like racing the motor with the brakes locked.

Too much stress is usually the result of a mismatch between your expectations and your environment.

You can regain control by changing either one. Or sometimes you simply have to learn to flow rather than resist.