“It can be enormously stressful to construct a world in which nothing stressful ever occurs.”
– Robert Sapolsky
Life is unpredictable. Stress is inevitable.
A large part of what I do as a coach is helping people to identify and become aware of stress points in their lives. Once we do that we will work towards mitigating stressors and tools to manage them. As with training and injury, there is no such thing as prevention, only limiting risk.
Since stress is inevitable (we are hard wired to utilize stress hormones as a way to keep us alive) we focus on mitigating it. Many people, however, spend an inordinate amount of time trying to prevent it. Excessive scheduling, order, even rituals that they think might prevent stressors from occurring. And through all of this “order” they create a life that eliminates any unknown. They keep stressful events from occurring.
But the human brain is not so acquiescent. In Behave” Sapolsky cites studies that show elevated metabolism in the frontal cortex and elevated circulating levels of stress hormone in those with “repressive” personalities (very cortical, poor emotional “reading” and expressiveness).
The lesson here is that we can’t prevent stress no matter how many safe guards we put in place to avoid stressful situations. Learn to manage and mitigate stress but make sure that the cure is not also the poison.
