The value of stress management strategies

The core value of stress management strategies is never to completely eliminate stress, but to help people maintain rational decision-making in high-pressure environments, reduce long-term health losses, and at the same time transform moderate stress into action gains, ultimately achieving long-term sustainability in career and life.

I encountered the most extreme scenario when I was doing project management at an Internet company in the past two years: the Double 11 pre-sales system needed to be iterated, and the 3-week construction period was compressed to 12 days. On the 8th day of the team's continuous work, two post-95s in the same group encountered a completely different situation: one was holding back his strength and drank energy drinks all night long for 3 days. The day before the final iteration went online, he went to the hospital with acute gastroenteritis, which actually slowed down the overall progress; the other one fixedly took 10 minutes at three o'clock every day to go downstairs and walk around the campus twice, even if the leader caught him and said he was "fishing". Finally, the payment module he was responsible for went online with zero bugs, and the status was not broken when the project review was completed. This is the most intuitive expression of value - you don't need to bear all the pressure, as long as you can leave your own buffer zone when the pressure hits.

Interestingly, academic circles have always had two completely different directions regarding the value of stress management. Researchers in the cognitive-behavioral school are more inclined to "value inward" and believe that the core of stress management is to adjust the way individuals attribute stress events. For example, dismantle the catastrophic cognition of "I will be fired if this project fails" into "The risk point of this project is in the third test session. I can find colleagues in the test group to do a rehearsal in advance" and transform vague fears into concrete actions. A 2023 survey by the American Psychological Association of 1,200 practitioners in high-pressure industries showed that people who use cognitive adjustment strategies for a long time have a 42% lower probability of occupational burnout than those who work hard, and their decision-making error rate also dropped by 27%. Researchers from the somatic adjustment group do not engage in this "psychological construction" at all. They believe that the value of stress management is to directly reduce the stress response at the physiological level. No matter what you think, first reduce the soaring cortisol and then proceed - mindful breathing, jumping jacks for 5 minutes, or even pinching a stress ball for 10 minutes. As long as it can reduce the tension in the body, the effect will be achieved. Relevant experiments conducted by the School of Psychology of Beijing Normal University in 2022 also verified this. For subjects who did 3 sets of abdominal breathing every day, 1 minute each time, for two consecutive weeks, the average cortisol level dropped by 18.7%, and the improvement in sleep quality was more obvious than taking ordinary sleep aids.

Of course, there have been a lot of doubts about the value of stress management. Many people think that this is a tool used by capitalists to PUA employees-it is obviously a work overload caused by the company's lack of manpower and unreasonable assignment of work. Instead, they blame employees for "not being able to do stress management". In essence, the cost of improper management is passed on to the individual. I actually partly agree with this statement. In the past two years, I saw a company put "stress management ability" into the performance appraisal indicators, and then deducted performance if the KPI was not met, and finally forced employees to complain collectively. Talking about the value of stress management without the premise that "stress is within a reasonable range" is just a hooligan.

I myself have been through a lot of stress management pitfalls in the past two years. I read what methods on the Internet said were effective and tried them on myself, including the Pomodoro Technique, morning diary, and mindfulness meditation. I made a page full of implementation lists. As a result, I became more anxious because I had to complete these "stress management tasks." I sat there meditating for 10 minutes with all the unfinished plans in my mind, and the more I sat there, the more annoyed I became. Later I discovered that there is no one-size-fits-all method. Now when I am so bored that my mind can no longer move, I go to wipe my desk, wipe away the dust from the gaps between the keyboard and the fingerprints on the monitor. After 10 minutes of manual work, my mind is empty. After wiping, my thoughts will clear up immediately. It is much more useful than sitting there meditating for half an hour.

To put it bluntly, stress is like the fire we use to make soup. If the fire is too small, the soup will not be able to cook out the flavor, and people will have no motivation to achieve results and strive for goals; if the fire is too high, the soup will be thrown out and the fire will be extinguished, and the casserole may even crack, causing even greater trouble. Pressure management is the knob that adjusts the heat. Its value is never to let you turn off the heat completely and drink cold water, but to help you find the most suitable heat and slowly simmer the soup without making a mess.

I had dinner with a friend who runs a mental health clinic before. He said that half of the young people who come to prescribe sleep aids now do not know how to adjust the heat - they either forcefully turn it on to the highest heat, and finally burn out the pot, causing anxiety and depression; In the final analysis, the value of stress management has never been about turning you into an invulnerable workplace superman. It is that even if you have to rush three projects this week, pick up your child from school, and deal with Party A's weird revision opinions, you will not be so panicked that you can't eat or sleep. It is enough to be able to smooth everything out in a down-to-earth manner. After you finish work, you can still have enough energy to catch up on two episodes of your favorite drama. It is enough to sleep peacefully and wake up the next day to be energetic and go out.