The Age of Stress as a Precedent

The cover story of Time Magazine on June 6th, 1983 declared America “In the Age of Stress”. It depicted us as a society consumed by demands for our resources and threats to our well-being.
Since that time in 1983 when the official diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was first categorized by the Board of Medicine and Psychology there has been little effort made to define the parameters of stress, thus leaving us (the lay-person) to define ANYTHING with an overwhelming effect…. as stress.
Because stress is a natural form of physical reaction to our environment, I feel it vital to understand the nervous system, its fundamental (base) response, and its contradictions.
The word “stress” has been so overly used and emphasized, as to describe everything from marital discord to juvenile delinquency, that I find it prudent to discuss the implications of typical (physical) stress vs. the “stress scapegoat”.

Stress has now become a way to blame our fears and psychological malaise on every unpropitious occurrence. These situations could easily be handled if we understood our personal reactions and childhood traumas, and knew the difference between a natural Fight/Flight response or an overly stimulated psyche.

Stressors are events or situations that induce stress. It is found that stressors for high-level decision makers or corporate employees have been shown to be; time pressure, potential layoff threat, workload, and environmental conditions such as noise and weather.

Here are just a few significant stressors you may already be experiencing:

• Serious threat to important values and goals, life, health, environment;
• Danger and fear of loss for one’s own livelihood
• Strain of responsibility;
• Fear of failure-catastrophic consequences of failing to solve the crisis;
• Having reduced ability to be effective, resulting in less control over consequences;
• Rapid changes requiring continuing assessments;
• Time pressure which is not always accurate;
• Insecurity-regarding assessment of the situation and solutions;
• Little information-or information overload;
• Group pressure, and/or subgroups emerging.
continue reading…

In the modern world, we face a variety of social and technical problems requiring the concentration and consideration of a rational thought process. So, the question at hand is how you make a decision under stressful conditions by using rational thought processes when your natural instincts tend toward a quick and possibly irrational decisions or responses.

The biggest difference in decision making under stress vs. decision making without stress is – irrational vs. rational thinking. When you are able to make a decision under a non-stress filled condition, you are able to think and act more rationally. A decision made under stressful conditions is much more irrational.

The “stress response” is aimed at an immediate physical reaction. For example; activities, which are planning, or situations that require your focused attention such as meetings or training workshops, will loose their importance and priority.

The reason for this is simple, under stress; the quickest physical reaction dominates the most appropriate action. There are natural tendencies under these conditions for the brain to reduce the search for, and acceptance of, new information, and to return to “dominant responses” which will oversimplify the alternatives available, to reduce the perceived time to make a decision, and to perceive threat and hostility more strongly than during normal decision making without the stress response activation.