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■ BY GERARD FONTE
STRESS — OH NO!
IT'S CLEAR TO ANYONE IN THE ENGINEERING FIELD that stress is a part of the job. Whether
it's making impossible deadlines, working long hours, finding invisible bugs, or interfacing
with difficult people, engineering is a very high-stress profession. Coping with stress
requires understanding what it is and what it does to you. Some stress you can control,
some you can't. And there are some simple methods that can help you manage it.
WHAT STRESS IS
Sometimes stress is defined as
that "overwhelming desire to pound the
living daylights out of something."
Unfortunately, stress isn't explained
that easily. Stress certainly includes
frustration and anger. But it's also present when you get married or divorced,
get a new job or lose your present one,
and even when you play video games.
Sometimes stress is good. Sometimes
it's physical and other times it's
emotional. There are many different
types and causes of stress.
The technical definition of stress
is anything that causes the adrenal
glands (located at the top of the
kidneys) to release adrenaline
(sometimes called epinephrine)
into the blood stream. Now we
can see why good things, like getting a new job or getting married, also
cause stress.
Excitement
over something new
causes
adrenaline to be released, too. This
compound increases the heart rate
and blood pressure while reducing
"smooth muscle" activity (typically
digestion). Basically, it's preparing
the body for the "fight or flight"
response.
In cave-man times, the fight or
flight response was used with much
more regularity than today. And the
ability to battle harder or run faster
was certainly helpful then. However
nowadays, there are few fist-fights in
the board-room and employees generally don't physically run away from a
tough assignment. Fundamentally
that's the basic problem of stress: the
body is ready for action
but no action happens
or is allowed to
happen.
So, the adrenaline
circulates and the
heart rate increases
and the blood
pressure rises.
And because
there is no
action,
the body remains in that state for an
extended period of time. That's not
good. It's like increasing the voltage to
a motor in an emergency to get more
power. It works, but the motor wasn't
designed to run at the higher voltage or
speed for long periods of time. It wears
out faster.
Chronic stress (over four weeks)
rarely has a direct effect on the body.
Instead it aggravates existing conditions or lessens the body's ability to
defend against other situations.
Chronic stress can lead to stroke,
heart-attack, kidney failure, stomach
or intestinal ulcers, increased susceptibility to infections, headaches,
fatigue, indigestion, and on and on.
Truthfully, almost anything can be
related to stress. Again, this is
because the defenses of the body are
reduced. This makes it easier for any
component of the body to fail. And
the weakest component varies from
person to person and from time to
time. Additionally, chronic stress
engages a cortisol response. This has
a number of subtle effects ranging
from poor sleep to increased fat
production to increased peripheral
vision awareness. (This last effect can
cause great difficulty in concentrating
on things in front of you.)
Generally, there are three basic
immediate and direct responses
to very intense stress levels:
head, heart, and gut. The head
responders faint, the heart
responders have palpitations
or worse, and the gut responders need a new pair of pants. All
90
January 2006
