Are you feeling the pressure?

What are the microstresses in your life?

We often think that for something to be ‘stressful’ it has to be a life changing challenge or ‘big’ issue, but research shows that this is not the case and, in fact, the accumulative effect of microstresses can be more detrimental to our performance, health and happiness.

So, what are microstresses?

They are the mini-challenges we all face every day; the meeting we have prepared for that is rescheduled at the last minute; the tech issue that absorbs 15 minutes of a busy day; the ‘quick request’ from a colleague that makes us late to meet a loved one; the tube delays that mean we miss our workout class.

Microstresses broadly fall into three categories:

1.       Events that drain your capacity to get things done.

2.       Events that deplete your emotional reserves.

3.       Events that challenge your identity.

We all have them, and studies show that with the pace of modern working practices, we have more than ever. And, they are not going away.

Why do we all need to be more aware of microstresses?

It could be said that these mini-challenges we face are “just a part of life” and we should just learn to accept them. While that is one valuable approach that we can adopt to mitigate the risk of these events, it is not the whole picture. If we want to build robust resilience to the microstresses that we are inevitably going to face every day, we need to do more.

The reason is that while the brain has an innate, and very effective, biologic mechanism to deal with and recover from stress, called allostasis, this process isn’t always activated when the brain doesn’t register an event as stressful enough. As Joel Salinas, a behavioral neurologist and researcher at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, says, these microstresses “fly under the radar of our fight-or flight vigilance systems.”

This means that the body and brain don’t process and recover from these events in the same way that they do after more challenging or stressful events. The seemingly insignificant effects can therefore leave our brain and body out of balance for hours, and even days, after the event itself. And, over time, the cumulative effect of these events depletes our cognitive, emotional and physical resources, leading to brain fog, forgetfulness, low mood, physical exhaustion, and illhealth.

So, what do we need to do differently to manage microstresses?

Like all stress, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. While there are ways to structure and schedule life to reduce microstresses to some degree, we are never going to be able to remove them from our lives completely. Instead, there are 3 simple things we can do to manage them and reduce the potentially damaging impact they can have on our performance, health and mood.

1.       Stay Alert

By being more aware of the microstresses in our lives, we have the choice to either (a) take action to reduce or remove them, or (b) accept them and purposefully commit time to recover from them. Taking action to reduce or remove them might include saying no to requests, finding a practical solution to a technical issue, or talking to someone about how you work together. Purposefully committing time to recover might include taking time for a 15-minute walk at lunch, talking to a coach or mentor about the impact of the situation, or prioritising your sleep over your inbox.

2.       Pursue a multi-dimensional lifestyle

When we are passionate about our work, it can be easy to underestimate the importance of making time for our hobbies, interests, and personal pursuits. They do not only bring us joy, and help us recover after stressful events, they also act to buffer against microstresses, helping us to build cognitive and emotional resilience so we can sustain peak performance and health when the pressure is on. Ensuring your make time for personal interests is paramount to professional success.

3.       Diversify your connect

Informal conversations, discussing shared interests and understanding others’ perspectives

act to reduce the impact of microstresses so that your brain can continue to function during and after these events. For optimal micro-stress resilience, it is important to cultivate relationships with people outside of your daily working routine, with people who have a different perspective to your own, and with people who positively engage your attention.

A final thought…

Stress is a part of life and, cumulatively, microstresses are arguably the biggest stress of all.

To be resilient, it is important to accept that stress affects us all to some degree. Even if we don’t notice the effects immediately, the brain and body register these events, so we need to process these events if we want to prevent negative future repercussions.

The only way to do that is to accept and take ownership of your microstresses, whatever that means for you. Pointing fingers and blaming others isn’t going to remove the stress from your life, in fact it will probably cause you more.

If you want to learn more about how you can take control of your Micro-stressors, I recommend Rob Cross and Karen Dillons’ book ‘The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems and What to Do about It’. This was the book that inspired this article. Alternatively, read their short article on @harvard Business review.