If you are like most people you have stress. It's an inescapable part of everyday life and existence on this planet. Maybe you are worried about making ends meet because you live paycheck to paycheck each month. Or do you lie awake at night worried about your investments. The daily stock market fluctuations, or what Alan Greenspan is going to do this time around. Maybe you find your self focused on the large investment you just made into an individual stock tip you got from a source close to the source? That always cracks me up when I see the checkout tabloid claim that they got their information from a sources close to the source, kinda frightening if you ask me.
There's a lot to be worried about, your 18 year old daughter wants to marry her 19 year old boyfriend that just got out of prison for armed robbery and you lie awake all night worried about that scumbag inheriting all your hard earned savings if something unexpectedly should happen to you before they get divorced. And, oh yeah, you're worried about her making a big mistake too. Life is full of things to worry about, but I want to share something with you in regards to a type of stress that you may be creating without your knowledge. It's called anticipatory stress and folks, not only will it remove the enjoyment from your daily life, its a killer.
It starts out as what seems to be a healthy way to cope with stress. You find yourself on a Monday night sitting infront of your TV watching the CNN daily business report, minding your own business when suddenly a random thought jumps into your head. "Oh, jeez, I've got that big presentation to do next week and I haven't even started to prepare yet." Then the next thing you know, that one thought turns into two and you find yourself thinking, "hey, I've got to get those slides in by 3:00 Thursday or they won't be ready in time." And suddenly those two thoughts turn into four and before you know it, like the Internet, a jillion thoughts start cascading through your mind like a chat room on a Saturday night at www.lonely hearts.com. As you sit there your heart rate increases, your blood pressure goes up and you find yourself biting your toenails because your finger nails have been completely chewed off.
Now, you're experiencing anticipatory stress. It's a type of stress whereby your find yourself anticipating and worrying about things that might happen in the future but that are not currently happening. I'm sure that you think you are being a good business person by handling things this way, but honestly, it's a really poor coping mechanism that reduces your effectiveness and makes you feel more stressed out. Anticipatory stress is a learned response to stress that we learned early in life. And the way you learned to cope, handle, or deal with stress was taught to you by family members. Buy, what if your parents or other role models didn't really know how to effectively cope with stress? Is it possible that they could have taught you a poor coping mechanism without you even being aware of it? Think about this for a minute, did your parents drink too much? Were they heavy smokers? Did they use food to cope with stress and were they overweight? Did they use drugs? Whatever the coping vise, those usually develop as a way of coping with stress. And is it just possible that they people that taught you to handle stress didn't really handle it very well themselves?
Anticipatory stress is where we begin projecting into the future regarding things that need attention in the future. We falsely think that by worrying about things that haven't happened yet, we will be better prepared to handle all the possibilities when the future gets here. Anticipatory stress works at first. It's a way for you to feel ready for the upcoming project that you have to have done for a certain deadline. So you worry about that final exam, or the upcoming speech or book report. And by worrying about the exam, book report or whatever you fall into action and begin studying and practicing. Or you lie awake at night worrying about what you are going to say to your mom and dad in the morning regarding the car you just smashed into with theirs. You anticipate what they might say and then develop the best response you can think of, and while you examine that response it kicks in motion another question they will ask so you come up with another response for each and every possible scenario that could possibly happen. But what happens to many of us as we age, is we apply that worrying technique to everyday stuff and like a river it flows fast and furiously as we accumulate more stuff during our lifetime. Now that you own the big house, 2 cars, have to save money to put your kids through school and you want to add a swimming pool and remodel the kitchen. You know it would be smart to rent your summer home in Austin but you don't want people living and tearing up your place, you have a big business deal to close and your boss expects you to fly across the nation to deal with manufacturing problems and word on the street is that Alan Greenspan is hiking rates again and that could me that as inflation rises your business decreases and your company could start laying people off and if that happens. . . oh my GOD, do you see what I'm saying here?
But here's where things get really bad. As time goes on, year after year of you engaging in anticipatory stress thinking, eventually it will turn into what's known as chronic stress. Chronic stress is constant and unrelenting. And above all, it's painful. And part of being human is that we will do anything to avoid pain. So at some point unhealthy behaviors begin to set in. In an effort to deal with the constant onslaught of stressful thoughts, maybe you turn to drinking. You see, drinking obliterates thinking. So one evening after a hard day at work, you pour yourself a glass of wine and you know what, wow, it works, it reduces your stress and you feel relaxed. So, one glass of wine turns into two, and two into three, and one day a week turns into two and two turns into five. Then after a few years, you're no longer drinking wine, you're now on vodka martini's. And five years from the first day, the thing that seemingly reduced your stress, has now become the greatest stressor of your life. You have 2 DWI's, your wife is getting ready to leave and your boss is handing the promotions to everyone but you. It's not just alcohol that people turn to escape the anticipatory stress, it could be drugs. Drugs heighten your sense of euphoria or it could be food because it's a way to immediately make you feel good. But can you see how in an attempt to escape the stress, you may turn to other behaviors that ultimately will increase it. Those behaviors which worked for you in the beginning, like drinking wine, did indeed work, so you continue to engage in the same behavior even though it no longer is working.
Anticipatory stress is much the same way, it did and still does in many ways work for you to think ahead about some upcoming projects or things that need planning. But what happens to many people is they engage in too much forward thinking all the time. It's a learned response that ends up adding so much stress to your life that life doesn't seem to be enjoyable anymore. In fact, if you are busy worrying about something that hasn't happened yet, and you are spending time with your child, how can you really be with your child if your mind is off thinking about things that haven't happened yet? And this is what makes you feel detached and disconnected from people which in turn increases your sense of isolation which in turn increases your stress. Whew, I'm getting stressed just explaining all this to you.
Now, don't worry here folks, I'm not going to light incense and put on beads or anything like that. But negative emotions such as worry, anger, fear, boredom, disappointment etc. . . require us to focus inward. It takes a lot of energy and as each of you already know negative emotions are draining. We find ourselves feeling draining of our mental energy. And when we are focused inward and trying to deal with the negative emotions we cannot use attention effectively to deal with external tasks. So if you are always worrying about things that haven't happened yet, you cannot have the mental energy to focus on making good decisions or on enjoying the here and now. Positive emotions like happiness, joy, strength etc. . . don't require us to turn inward because we don't need the energy to ruminate and feel sorry for ourselves so we are free to enjoy focusing on whatever task we choose to invest in.
So what's my point to all this, if you find yourself focusing on the future, quit it and shut it down, it's not doing you any good to worry about tomorrow, today. Turn inward and covertly tell yourself that "I don't have to think about that right now!" And turn off the worry valve so that you can begin enjoying and focusing in on the here and now. Remember, you can't do anything about the things that haven't happened yet, so stay focused on the task at hand and you will find your stress level going down while your sense of well-being goes up. |
