As per United Nation reported before saying that stress is one of the top two modern killers. This is not something new as the majority of us hear about the stress and its effects but more from negative points of view-harmful to our life and health. So, what is stress? Stress is about your respond (body and mind) against the keep on the changing environment and how we react to the stress really matter most. The thing that stresses you out might not cause the same effect to others. As a matter of fact, stress does create a positive impact on our life too as it pushes us out of the comfort zone to do more than we think we can or maybe change the way of doing the (same)  things. One example is if you are in danger, the environment (stress) will trigger you to run away or ask for help. In this situation, stress actually is helping. The good or bad effect of stress is depended on how you think about it.

My teacher told me before that he used to set higher expectation (let say expect 10-20% more) to each member of his student (of course based on what his own understanding about each of them), then each team member will try to fight to complete it as per expected. When come to result, he will accept whatever level of outcome done by his team after reviewing about it. If he did not set the higher expectation to each of them, most people only did whatever they think they can, some just “simply do” it and some even give the outcome that even lower than what he or she can do.  So, stress can make you stretch, serious about it and do more than you can.

As per picture below, this is about the relationship between performance (personal or job) and the level of stress we faced. 

I am sure you will feel bored (feel being ignored, not important) if you are being given a routine and not challenging job at all, that why we all need a certain level of stress which leads to higher performance and you will feel excited, focused and energized about what you going to face. Of course, the optimum level of stress varies among us other so we must know clearly what is our limit-stress symptoms. Too much of stress make you feel “overloaded” and it will cause a negative impact to the performance and personal ill health. I have a friend who nearly ended his life due to the worry of not able to complete the degree final year project, of course, unable to graduate. He told me that even by continue working on it 24x7 for 3-4 months, it is impossible to complete it, the supervisor was too much.

Sometimes, we do not realize that we are overloaded with stress and even the doctor also cannot find the reason behind some sickness like a headache, stomachache and etc. Actually, there are few symptoms that will help to know whether we are in an over-stressed boundary, which are listed below:

(a) Feeling of anxiety, depression, tension, frustration and mood swing

(b) Abnormal of heart beat, high blood pressure, slow body metabolism and digest

(c) Poor concentration and short-term memory capacity

(e) Eating/Sleeping less, increasing intake of caffeine, alcohol, and cigarettes disrupted sleep patterns, absenteeism, and reduced work performance.

I had a constant headache for nearly 1 week when I started to accept a senior position in one MNC company before. The new position not only with high expectation but also need to pick up in a very short time, more and more tasks being loaded in and the working culture also was really different from my previous one. I need to continue taking the painkiller to cure the headache as a temporary fix and I also took “MC” twice in the same month. Finally, I managed to cope (familiar) with it after a while.

Today, maintaining a life and supporting a family is tougher than before, and I am sure that most of us face a certain level of stress now or in the past 1-2 years. Allow me to share one TED video about stress and this can save your life by changing your mindset about the stress. Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist who shared on “how to make stress your friend” in the TED Talk worth watching. It will totally overturn our mind that we used to treat the stress as harmful and enemy. Let me summarize for you as follow:

1. People who experienced a lot of stress but did not view stress as harmful were no likely to die.
2. Those who learned to view the stress response (body) as helpful; they were less stressed out, less anxious and more confident-biology of courage. Their blood vessels stayed relaxed even their heart was still pounding, but this is a much healthier cardiovascular profile-like what happens in moments of joy and courage.
3. When you choose to connect with others under stress, you can create resilience against stress.
4. For every major stressful life experience, like financial difficulties or family crisis, that increased the risk of dying by 30 percent but those who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress-related increase in dying. Caring created stress resilience.

There is another important tip which I find is very useful by Kerwin Rae on his video on how to overcome the stress.  According to Science, stress’s hormone “Cortisol” can reduce our IQ performance by 40-50% and of course bad effect to our health but by practicing grateful (hindsight and count your blessings) toward the thing that stresses us out will create DHEA (Antidote to Cortisol) which can eliminate the Cortisol and its effect to our body. We should practice grateful in every moment of our life not just too over the stress but it is a very powerful and positive energy that can attract wealth, abundance, and wellness into your life.  

There are so many stressors in our life such as physical environment, weather, relationship, family, money, career, study, sickness, emotional and etc. Let me elaborate on how career creates a stress to us. To me, career planning is about knowing whether you like to deal/work with people or not, you will fall sick if you hate to face with people but it is required in your daily job. I have a friend who falls into this category where he prefers to deal with the computer, machine, a robot without the need to entertain people (fewer people communication). He thinks people are too emotional and very tiring to deal with people.  

What our focus will be the money out of so many stressors because this is the top contributor to overall stress we face daily. Carnegie also told us that financial problem is one of top two family problems most people face. I will share more on next article.

Yong Chu Eu—Licensed Financial Advisor/ Head of Education Division of Fin Freedom Sdn Bhd (CFP, FAR, CMSRL, HRDF Certified & SIDC CPE Training Provider) ( ceyong@financialfreedom.com.my）

* This is the article that i contributed to Smart Investor but they thought it is too general and is about health than wealth so they rejected it so i put it here

#CPE #HRDF #CPD #SIDC # FIMM #stress #financialstress #balance #stressmanagement #financialplanning
#moneymastermy #finfreedom #learning #workshop #YongChuEu