Exercise for a better mental state
It helps curb depression, obsessive thinking
Stress for Success
March 20, 2007

The hot head’s face turns red; that vein in his temple throbs; he's about to blow. If he’s older he might blow himself right into a heart attack! For his heart and overall physical health and the health of his relationships, he’d be wise to exercise out his angry energy.

The same goes for those who suffer from depression or anxiety. There’s not much that’s healthier for you than exercise. But if getting out of bed feels overwhelming, exercising can seem impossible. The degree of mood improvement with regular exercise, though, is so significant that many believe it’s more effective than counseling and anti-depressants.

Small amounts of exercise are better than none and can prevent a relapse after treatment for these conditions. Kristin Vickers-Douglas, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic psychologist, says, “Small bouts of exercise may be a great way to a get started if it’s initially too difficult to do more.” If ten minutes is all you’ll do, then do ten minutes.

It’s not completely understood why exercise decreases mood disorder symptoms. It’s probably due to cortisol reduction and increased endorphins and body temperature, which may have calming effects.

Plus, exercise is a great substitute for the obsessive thinking that drives all of these difficult emotions. Where ever your thoughts are going that’s where you are going; anxious thoughts create anxiety. By exercising you burning up your fight/flight energy in a positive way, distracting you from obsessive thinking about how miserable you are.

To get motivated to start exercising:
§ First, talk with your physician and/or mental health professional for advice and support.
§ Next, figure out what you enjoy doing. If you hate “exercise” participate in a sport that you enjoy. You’ll be more likely to continue with it.
§ Set realistic goals. Create a long-term goal with shorter-term intermediate steps. If your ultimate goal is to walk daily for 30 minutes, start with 5 -10 minutes every day for the first month, the next month walk for 15 to 20 minutes, and so on. Avoid unreasonable goals that you fail to achieve. This makes you feel worse about yourself, aggravating your symptoms.
§ Accept that if you “fall off the wagon”, most of us do, you just have to start again.
§ Stop thinking that you “should” exercise; that’s a weight you don’t need. Instead, convince yourself of the benefits.
§ Isolation is common among those who are depressed and anxious, worsening symptoms, so exercise with others. Social contact decreases your symptoms and helps you meet your exercise goal.

Take the advice of Dr. Mary Ann Chapman, “The key to breaking a bad habit (doing nothing) and adopting a good one (exercising) is making changes in your daily life that minimize the influence of the now and remind you of the later.” In other words:
§ Minimize the immediate reward of doing nothing (relief from not having to exercise)
§ Make the long-term negative consequences of not exercising (continued depression/anxiety/anger) seem more immediate

So instead of excuse after excuse to avoid exercise, remind yourself how tired you are of being emotionally stuck and exhausted.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com with your questions or for information about her workshops on this and other topics and to invite her to speak to your organization.

“Inactivity should be considered a disease state”
Stress for Success
March 13, 2007


Anyone who’s unaware of the benefits of regular physical exercise on mental and physical health has been living under a rock for decades. If you know the importance of it and still don’t exercise, then you’re probably living in denial. As someone once said, "Inactivity should be considered a disease state."

Research has shown over and again that exercise diminishes the ravages of stress on your body, decreasing a variety of diseases and increasing longevity. Exercise that prevents disease and builds muscles also helps you manage your stress better. It’s one of the two most powerful health enhancing practices; the other is deep relaxation.

It drives me nuts when people complain about being overweight, having aches and pains, not to mention illness and disease yet don't find the wherewithal to do what they need to do to protect their health! Remaining sedentary is another way of saying you choose to put your health at risk.

There are countless reasons why exercise is essential:
§ It channels the fight/flight energy you generate daily, thereby keeping cortisol and other stress hormones from wearing you down physically. THIS IS A MAJOR REASON TO EXERCISE!
§ Activities like hiking, biking, swimming, etc. increase your brain’s production of those feel-good endorphins you've heard about. Endorphins are thought to provide some pain relief and to promote a sense of euphoria. (Don’t get addicted to it, though.)
§ Stretching and yoga diminish muscle tension giving you more energy, calming you and helping you think more clearly. Muscles contract during your fight/flight response. Exercising releases your muscles’ stored energy allowing them to return to a balanced – and less stressed – state so you’ll have fewer tension headaches, arthritis and back pain.
§ Physical fitness increases your self-control, which increases your self-confidence in other areas of your life and minimizes symptoms of mild depression and anxiety. Anything that increases healthy self-control will diminish stress.
§ You’ll sleep better, too, (presuming you don’t exercise to exhaustion) so you’ll perform at higher levels.
§ Exercise also strengthens your body’s physical systems so you’re in better shape to fight any future illness and disease you may contract.

You don't have to start running marathons to benefit from exercise. According to the Mayo Clinic virtually any form can decrease the production of stress hormones and channel your fight/flight energy in healthy ways.

You can start small. If you know that you don’t get enough exercise, get more. If you now get winded from walking two blocks, walk two blocks until you don't get winded then increase to three, then four, etc.

Which exercise most appeals to you? Walking? Sports? (Please don’t say channel-surfing.) It makes no difference as long as it's regular and safe for you, your abilities and age.

Lastly, make your goal of getting more fit through exercise a step in achieving a larger life goal, such as living to see your grandchildren born! When you see how exercise can help you reach a bigger goal it gives it more meaning and therefore you’re more likely to follow through. Make it happen!

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Laugh your way to a healthy life
Stress for Success
March 6, 2007

There are certain skills that are the best at reducing stress, such as problem solving, deep relaxation, exercise, etc. Included in this list is looking at life with a sense of humor. It’s one of the best coping skills.

When both of my parents were ill at the end of their lives we relied on humor to soften the blow of the incredible stress of having both of them failing at the same time.

One of many examples I still fondly remember was my father in ICU for the first time. He couldn’t talk because he was on a ventilator but was trying so hard to communicate something to my mother and me. With no teeth in his mouth and a tube down his throat we had absolutely no idea what he was trying to say. The communication aides the nurses gave us didn’t work. For 30 minutes we guessed at what he was trying to say. After each guess he’d shake his head in frustration. Finally, my mother said to my father, “Are you asking why you can’t talk?” With great relief he nodded elatedly. We all burst out laughing uncontrollably. We climbed this mountain together and our reward, as it was all our lives, was a good laugh.

Life can be such a challenge and humor can help you deal better with almost any situation. It helps reduce stress because:

• Physically and mentally laughter’s the opposite of stress. It lowers blood pressure, increases blood circulation, reduces muscle tension and pain, and boosts your immune system.
• Humor facilitates mental flexibility and increases creativity by blocking negative emotions allowing you to think through problems instead of emotionally muddling through them.
• Laughing at yourself increases your objectivity about yourself, decreasing your defensiveness.
• Team building is facilitated by shared humor. (Not the divisive type like sarcasm or humor aimed at belittling anyone or any group will, of course.)
• “The shortest distance between two people is humor”, said the famed comedic pianist, Victor Borge. Humor improves most communication, especially when it’s potentially confrontational.
• It’s just fun.

Researchers are studying whether or not humor is good for your health. Michael Miller, University of Maryland School of Medicine, is one. Knowing that blood vessels constrict when you’re stressed making you more vulnerable to circulation problems, he wondered if laughter could loosen them. His study showed that blood flow decreased about 35% after experiencing stress but increased 22% after laughter, an improvement equal to about a 15-minute workout. Wouldn’t you love your physician to prescribe 15 minutes of laughter every day?

Other research has shown that stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline cause circulation changes. It stands to reason that laughter may cause the release of pleasure producing endorphins that may counteract stress hormones and increase blood flow.

Lee Berk, associate professor of health promotion and education who studies laugher at Loma Linda University in CA said, “Laughter is not dissimilar to exercise. It’s not going to cure stage three cancer but in terms of prevention it does make sense.”

Whether or not laughter and humor prove to reduce stress to the point of having a positive health effect, it just makes sense to put more humor into your life because it makes life more enjoyable. There’s so much stuff out there that’s funny … if you’d just look for it.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Professional Coach in Lee County. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Diseases affect blacks more
Emotional problems seem less common
Stress for Success
February 27, 2007

African-American have the highest incidence of diabetes, cardio-vascular heart disease, hypertension and stroke when compared to all other racial/ethnic groups in America.

From 1992 to 2000, 29% more blacks under the age of 60 died from heart disease and stroke than whites, according to the National Medical Association and Pfizer, Inc. (joint study, Pfizer Facts: Racial Differences in Cardiovascular Health.)

National Institute of Health (NIH) research “… links this excess prevalence and severity of hypertension among African-Americans to chronic and disproportionately intense societal stress, especially among low income inner-city residents."

Heart disease is largely a preventable condition. Research has long shown that stress reduction approaches including lifestyle changes not only prevent heart disease and hypertension, they may even reverse some damage.

For instance, NIH funded randomized clinical trials found stress reducing meditation was 2 1/2 times more effective in reducing systolic and diastolic blood pressure than typical relaxation. This is a significantly healthier way to reduce blood pressure since it has no adverse reactions and costs nothing compared to standard pharmacological treatment, (R. H. Schneider et al, Hypertension 26,1995 and 28,1996).

Given the fact that over 50% of Medicare recipients suffer from heart disease or hypertension, with a price tag of over $100 billion annually, deep relaxation is a hugely cost-effective option for everyone, black people included.

Interestingly, from the research I’ve done it seems that African-Americans’ discrimination stress manifests itself more through physical illness then emotional problems.

A study from the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, the world's largest academic survey and research organization, surveyed more than 6,000 African-American, Afro-Caribbean and non-Hispanic white adults and found noticeably different patterns of prevalence of major mental and physical disorders.

The survey evaluated physical health, experiences of discrimination and racial prejudice, including police harassment. The survey, funded by NIH, was conducted between February 2001 and March 2003 and found:
§ Lower rates of major depression for African-Americans (10.6%) than Afro-Caribbeans (11.3%) or white Americans (18.3%)
§ Blacks with significantly lower rates of panic disorder (2.7%) than whites 4.2%)
§ Generalized anxiety disorder for blacks (4.5%) vs. whites (7.9%)
§ Social phobia for blacks (7.5%) vs. whites (12.6%)

It's fortunate that as African-Americans you’re less likely to suffer from emotional symptoms of stress. It’ll be even better when you increase your awareness of the physical consequences of stress, regardless of the cause.

Since stopping others from discriminating is largely beyond a person’s control, it's in your best interest to take control of your health by making lifestyle changes that everyone needs and that have proved to protect you from the physical ravages of stress; improve your daily habits of exercise and nutrition and begin a regular program of deep relaxation.

The health protections these strategies offer are only part of the pay off. The more important benefit is derived from the practicing of these healthy habits and experiencing the subsequent positive results: you gain a greater sense of control, which will always lower your over-all stress.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

African Americans pay a physical price for discrimination stress
Stress for Success
February 20, 2006

Imagine yourself frequently:
۰ being followed by store employees who suspect you of stealing
۰ hailing cabs that don’t stop for you but pick up someone nearby
۰ being excluded at work
۰ having whites not looking you in the eyes, as is the case for too many young black males

If these things happened infrequently they’d be minor irritations. But what if you experienced these and other assaults daily? Would it eventually take a toll on you emotionally and physically?

If frequent enough, they’d certainly qualify in my book as chronic stress, which I've written about many times over the years as damaging to your health.

February is Black History Month and I encourage you to consider the daily psychological affronts that many if not most African Americans encounter especially in their public lives of working and shopping. I know that if I were the target I’d explode with rage.

I speak from experience. For 2½ years in the early ‘70s I was on the receiving end of daily harassment on the streets of Colombia where I was a Peace Corps volunteer. Daily on the streets literal throngs of men "harassed" me, (although from a Colombian’s perspective it was expected social behavior) through blown kisses, butt pinches and flirtatious words whispered so closely I could feel the man’s breath on my neck.

I found this “flirting” dehumanizing and degrading. (In their defense however, one Colombian man said he’d never get a date if he didn't act this way. He advised me to quit taking it personally, which I largely learned to do.) To keep my sanity, though, I ignored most of these encounters only occasionally fighting back in ways that allowed me to have some fun (don’t ask).

A life-time of these insults, however, takes a much greater toll on African-Americans than did my brief experiences and partly explains why, when compared to all other racial/ethnic groups in America, blacks have the highest incidence of:
§ Diabetes
§ Cardio-vascular heart disease
§ Hypertension and stroke

“This is not to say that every African American has poor health,” said researcher Vickie Mays, UCLA professor of psychology and health services. “However, African Americans – as a group – have not been able to gain as much ground (in health improvement) as other ethnic groups.”

When faced with high levels of stress some African-Americans may experience an “allostatic load", the cumulative wear and tear of stress on the body. When the stress to the cardiovascular system is prolonged and excessive to the point of allostasis, the immune system is suppressed, blood pressure increases and, over time, atherosclerosis can develop, resulting in coronary vascular disease. Chronic stress response is also associated with other diseases and obesity. (For more information go to www.MinorityHealthDisparities.org.)

How stressed would you be if daily you were the target of similar insults? Do you avoid eye contact with young African-American males or exclude black co-workers? If so, once aware, maybe you’ll start having more eye contact, including your black colleagues more often and even stop assuming that the color of skin determines a person’s honesty. It’s a start.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Employers should help workers attain life balance
Stress for Success
February 13, 2006

Today's work pace is drastically different from decades past. The historic 9-to-5-job that was mostly left behind at the end of the day has been replaced by a near-constant state of electronic-on-call, blurring the boundary between work and home for many. New technology from blackberries to the ubiquitous cell phone is largely to blame, keeping you from “turning off” until you flop into bed at night.

Additionally, many employees begrudgingly work longer hours and with both parents typically working there’s no one at home to keep everything running smoothly. It’s no wonder, then, that the March 2005 Families and Work Institute reported:
§ 44% of US employees felt overworked often or very often (only 29% rarely or never)
§ 27% felt overwhelmed by their workload

They found chronically overworked employees have an adverse effect on business outcomes by making mistakes and resenting their employers (with all its passive-aggressive payback behaviors like absenteeism). 39% with high levels of overwork reported anger at management versus only 1% of those with low levels. The overworked also have greater resentment toward coworkers for not working harder.

They also found:
§ A key contributor to feeling overwhelmed is high levels of multitasking
§ More than one-third of all workers don’t expect to take their entire vacation time
§ Employees who are provided with opportunities to learn, are supported on the job, and given flexibility to manage their work/life balance are less likely to feel overworked regardless of the hours or responsibility

It’s in an employer’s best interests to facilitate work/life balance whether through stress reduction and fitness programs or concierge services. It would also make their workplace much more appealing making recruitment and retention easier.

Poll your employees to identify their most common roadblocks to balance, then brainstorm viable strategies with them. For instance, if multi-tasking does rank high, what can be done to reduce it? Or can you at least provide brief, regular brakes to reduce the stress of it? If attending to family responsibilities ranks high, cross-train workers so someone can be covered when taking time off.

There will certainly be resistance, especially from “bottom line” people in your organization, to providing new life balance benefits, some based on misconceptions like:
§ Employees’ personal lives shouldn’t affect work
§ Hours at work equal results
§ Management will lose control
§ Benefits don’t make employees more productive
§ Family-friendly policies are mainly for women
§ Participation will be a career-limiting move
§ It's only for non-managerial positions
§ One approach is good for everyone

Find out why someone resists and satisfy their resistance. Clarify the goals, costs, benefits and challenges of new programs. Suggest a trial period vs. full implementation. Monitor, resurvey, and make necessary adjustments as the trial period moves forward.

In the meantime, if your employer isn’t likely to facilitate greater balance for you take responsibility for yourself:
§ Figure out how to multi-task less
§ Take all of your earned vacation time
§ Request flexibility from your boss rather than wait for her to act

A balanced worker is a more productive one, and one who’s more likely to stick around.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Is your Wheel of Life in balance?
Stress for Success
February 6, 2007

Certain stress reduction strategies are universally healthy for virtually everybody. One of them is having life balance. This can mean different things, such as balance:
• between work and home
• in personality traits, for example, an overly independent person would be wise to acknowledge the opposite trait, vulnerability, vs. push it away when it’s triggered • activity with rest to reduce the damage stress does to you physically and emotionally

To assess your overall life balance use the best Wheel of Life activity I've ever found by Ben Dean of MentorCoach that will identify areas of your life that are out of balance.

Draw a large circle on a piece of paper. Divide the circle into eight equal pie segments. Use the following categories to label each of the eight sections (or substitute other labels that represent your life more accurately):
• Career (or retirement)
• Financial security
• Health
• Social life
• Significant other/romance
• Spirituality
• Leisure time
• Physical environment

Regard the center of your wheel as a 0 and the outer edge a 10 to measure your satisfaction.
• 0 = no satisfaction
• 10 = complete satisfaction

For each section rate your level of satisfaction with it then draw a line representing your 0 to 10 score to create a new outer edge for that section. The new perimeter of the entire circle represents your Wheel of Life. How bumpy is your ride with your new perimeter?

Those sections you rated low in satisfaction are the areas to work on. For instance, if you rated six sections an “8” or higher and the remaining two, let's say, career and recreation significantly lower, to improve your life balance you need to engage more often in recreation that’s pleasing to you and to adjust your work life more to your liking.

Make a goal to increase your satisfaction with one section you’re presently discontented with by 2 – 3 points over the next three months. Then, regarding that section, what would you like more of and less of? For instance, with the work section, perhaps you’d want more:
• Uninterrupted time to focus
• Positive feedback on your work

Maybe you’d want less:
• Negativity
• Overtime

Next, figure out how to get more and less of what you say you want, making sure that it’s largely within your control to get. Expecting a boss, for instance, to give you more feedback is beyond your control. However, it’s within your control to ask her directly for the feedback you want.

In our rat-race society it may seem impossible to achieve balance. That’s why small steps are fine. For example, to improve your recreation score you could begin by turning off the TV one night a week and engaging in whatever recreational activity appeals to you.

Re-draw your Wheel of Life annually and make the necessary changes it implies. Eventually you’ll be in much greater balance.

Next week we’ll look at what your employer could do to help you move toward a healthier balance.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Spirituality matters health-wise
There are many reasons why it’s good to develop
Stress for Success
1/30/07

What strengthens your spirituality? Meditation? Religious services? Kayaking the beautiful Southwest Florida waterways? Volunteering? For me, I expanded my spirituality in recent years through singing in the SW FL Symphony Chorus and volunteering as a Cuddler at Lee Memorial.

There’s no "one size fits all" religious or spiritual practice; they all give your life more meaning and connect you to something bigger than yourself. And, they all give you significant stress reduction benefits.

Over the centuries we’ve largely lost touch with historic ties to spirituality that permeated earlier societies. That’s why Western medicine has only recently focused on the connection between spirituality and health.

Dr. Harold G. Koenig of the Duke University Medical Center has found that religion and spirituality have a profound effect on health. He says, "In all the world's major religions the virtues of forgiveness, gratefulness, kindness, and love are all encouraged and doing these kinds of things likely improves one's health." Dr. Koenig has found that spirituality gives people a sense of direction, connectedness, support, optimism and self-worth that helps them cope with their stress.

We know from much unrelated research that stress negatively affects your immune system leaving you more vulnerable to illness and disease. Spirituality gives you a sense of peace leading to improved immune function.

Developing greater spirituality is good for you for additional reasons:
• It helps you define what’s most important to you; what gives you meaning in life. This leads to better decision-making about where and how to invest your time and energy. You’ll focus more on what’s important to you and less on what’s not.
• When you’re connected to something that’s bigger than yourself it’s much harder to become depressed since depression is a very self-focused state. Feeling connected you’ll also feel less alone in the world, which brings you a sense of peace.
• Most spiritual practices involve other people allowing you to develop more meaningful relationships, also good for stress reduction.
• Interpreting life’s events in a spiritual way can make them easier to cope with.

To become more spiritual, start with an internal journey. Try prayer or meditation techniques. Keep a journal to express your thoughts and feelings to track this internal journey. You may want to travel this path with a trusted friend who’s also open to learning new things.
If your choice is to explore organized religion consider learning more about a variety of different faiths. One will almost certainly speak to you more personally than the others indicating which one to pursue.

If you choose to explore spirituality in a secular way, read about the world's different philosophies and about the history of world religions to better understand their philosophical underpinnings. Again you’ll be most drawn to that which touches you the most significantly. Also, explore the arts to see what tugs on your heart.

No matter your spiritual or religious quest, it’s the quest that matters. Exploring and finding what you’re looking for is a reward in itself, not to mention the benefits they bestow upon your well being.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

‘Island’ life suffocates your well-being
If dissatisfied socially, try these suggestions
January 23, 2007
Stress for Success

Al, a retired schoolteacher and widower has led a lonely existence since his wife of 35 years died. He stopped going to church, their previous circle of friends withdrew, and he has no close family. He eats alone, watches a lot of TV to pass time and talks mostly to the mail carrier and an occasional neighbor.

“No man is an island, …” said English poet John Donne. Al is alone on his island and puts himself at risk for illness and depression. As difficult as it may be to start a new life, it’s in his best interests to do so since studies show healthy relationships reduce stress translating into improved health and life satisfaction.

Not just widowers but anyone who is dissatisfied with their social circle would be wise to reach out to a variety of people who’d offer you one or more of the following:
• a great time laughing and enjoying life
• support and the gift of attention
• challenge how you see the world (if you surround yourself with yes-people you’ll never grow)
• desired advice

There are tons of places to meet new people. Leave your island and go do the things you’re interested in and love to do such as take classes, go to museums or sporting events, join a club or a professional organization, volunteer, travel, accept invitations and just start talking to people normally wouldn’t.

Then, to create healthier relationships with new friends and existing ones, try these ideas:
• Assume innocent intent: when you’re quick to assume someone has negative intent you’re looking for trouble and you’ll likely find it. For example, instead of assuming your spouse is lazy for not doing housework when asked, assume he prefers to do it when he’s ready (I know this is radical).
• Give people the gift of your attention: you invest your attention and energy into what you most value. Watching TV four hours/night means you value that more than anything else.
– A survey by PA State University and University of MD found that adults who average 16 hours/week of TV were the least likely to socialize with friends, take classes or play sports.
• Do more things for the sheer sake of fun!
• Be supportive, especially when it’s needed through phone calls, emails, flowers, cards. When your friend is going through tough times give her extra attention.
• Listen nonjudgmentally: the best support of all
• Show your appreciation: communicate in a variety of ways that you appreciate not only your relationship but also specific things about her, like her ability to make you laugh.
• Don’t make your friendship a competition: don’t take it personally if you call her more than she calls you. If you’re calling 100% I might question the friendship, but it doesn’t have to be exactly 50/50.

For the sake of your mental and physical health leave your island more often and invite people to visit you there. Connectedness is largely what it’s all about in this life. Without it you shrivel and fade.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Assess healthiness of your relationship
Stress for Success
January 16, 2006

Unhealthy relationships are as destructive to your well being as healthy ones are good for it. Relationships that are full of conflict and stress negatively impact your blood pressure (a risk factor for heart disease) and other physical problems. An ambivalent relationship, sometimes supportive and sometimes hostile, can actually cause more stress than those that are consistently negative.

So, whom do you surround yourself with? Is a particularly challenging relationship harming you? Are too many people sucking the life out of you --- inching you closer to possible illness?

To assess the health of your relationships increase your awareness of them. Listen to your intuitive answers to these questions regarding especially troublesome ones:
• How do I feel when I’m with him: inferior, superior or equal to him? Do I like myself when I’m with him?
• When I’m with him do I typically behave assertively, passively or aggressively?
• After I’ve been with her do I feel more uplifted or more depressed?
• Are our conversations natural or forced?
• Does she often criticize me? When she does, is she trying to help me vs. control me?
• Does she feel joy for me when something good happens to me?
• Do we share common values?
• Do we bring out the best or the worst in each other?
• Are we supportive of each other?
• Does he usually dominate conversations? If I were more assertive would he willingly listen to me?
• Do I have reason to trust him?
• Is the relationship worth the energy I put into it? Would it improve if I invested more positive energy into it?
If your answers tell you that a person is toxic for you, why do you stay involved with her? Do you have a history of associating with the same type of person? If so, consider professional counseling to help you break your pattern.
It’s perfectly OK to diminish or end relationships with those from whom you’ve grown apart and certainly with anyone who’s toxic for you, whether it’s a relative (not so easy) or a relatively unimportant person to you (usually easier). You’re the only one who can decide which ones promote your well being and which ones don’t.

Start letting go of an unhealthy relationship when the energy you put into it brings about fewer and less desirable results. Do it for the good of your health.
For a relationship you’ve decided to diminish, to what degree will you lessen it? Think outside all-or-nothing terms. There are many steps between continuing the relationship as is and ending it completely. For example, if you see this person weekly historically, could you cut back to monthly?

What’s more important, continuing with an unhealthy relationship or your well being? If your health wins out you have three options to change the unhealthy relationship:
1) discontinue or decrease it
2) wait for the other person to change in a positive way (don’t hold your breath)
3) change something you’re doing to help make it healthier.

It’s perfectly OK to diminish or end relationships with those from whom you’ve grown apart and certainly with anyone who’s toxic for you, whether it’s a relative (not so easy) or a relatively unimportant person to you (usually easier). You’re the only one who can decide which ones promote your well being and which ones don’t.

I’ll cover some ideas on how to grow healthier relationships next week.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Healthy relationships promote physical well-being
Stress for Success
January 9, 2006

Do healthy relationships really contribute to physical and mental well-being? Can they help you live longer? The answer to both seems to be yes.

A life without good friends would be a lonely and barren life indeed. But a life with them brings you fun, laughter and support, which are associated with less stress, increased longevity, and more happiness.

But how often do you run into a friend and say, "let's get together" and then never do? If you don’t set a date certain, you may never. In our crazy and frantic lives it can feel that it's just too difficult to make time to socialize.

It’s easier to spend hours a day on the computer or watching TV, both very solitary activities. Sure you can go into a chat room and “socialize” but it’s not the same as face-to-face relationships.

Here’s what's in it for you to spend more time developing positive relationships.

In a March, 2006 study presented at the American Psychosomatic Society meeting found a connection between hardening of the arteries and the quality of relationships. 150 older, married couples picked a topic of disagreement between them, such as money, and then were videotaped discussing it for six minutes.

“The comments of each were categorized as friendly or hostile, submissive or dominant/controlling. After the discussion, each couple had a C-T scan of their chest to look for evidence of hardening of the arteries.”

The more hostile the wife’s comments, the more hardening of her arteries; her arteries were even worse if she had a hostile husband.

Husbands who displayed more dominant/controlling behavior, or whose wives did, were more likely than other men to have more severe hardening of the arteries.

For women, hostility increases the risk of heart disease, and for men, dominant/controlling behavior does. Interestingly, women were unaffected by their own or their husbands’ dominant behavior, and men were unaffected by their own or their wives’ hostility.

This research suggests that learning to communicate in non-hostile and non-dominant/controlling ways could be as good for your heart as your marriage.

University of Virginia research found through brain scans that stressed women who hold their husbands’ hands show signs of immediate relief. Dr. James Coan, study author, studied several couples who rated themselves highly satisfied with their marriages. His results showed spouse handholding created a large decrease in the brain’s response to threat with a limited decrease in this response when holding the hand of a stranger.

Pets, too, can be good for your health. UCLA research is finding that having a pet might actually improve survival after a heart attack. Additional studies have found that having a pet relieves depression, reduces blood pressure and triglycerides, and improves exercise habits, all which can lower the risk of heart attacks.

On the other hand, relationships that are full of conflict and stress have a negative impact on your health affecting blood pressure, contributing to heart disease and other medical conditions. It's in your best interest to minimize or eliminate negative relationships in your life. This is the topic for next week.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Reduce expenses, retain workers
An array of ideas may help employers be more successful
Stress for Success

When your employees grumble about workplace stress around the water fountain, what do they say? Not knowing can cost your organization dearly.

With low unemployment rates, retaining employees has never been more important. Which employees can you afford to lose? Is it easy to replace them? How much does it cost? What’s the annual increase for your workers’ compensation and health insurance? Can you hear your bottom line chipping away?

Because a happy worker is more productive and more likely to stay, many employers are experimenting with ideas to reduce employee stress. Here are some:
• Train all to do their jobs more efficiently and safely
• Stop your supervisory personnel from driving away your staff by providing them with management training.
• Facilitate work/life balance by having a team manage a particular job function vs. an individual. If an employee has her child’s soccer game to attend, for example, other team members could cover for her, a wonderful motivator.
• Everyone needs downtime from work so encourage employees to take weekends off and vacations. At Price Waterhouse Coopers if an employee sends an e-mail on a weekend, a pop-up screen reminds him, "It's the weekend and it's important to disconnect and allow others to do the same. Please send your e-mail at the beginning of the workweek."
• Flextime: flexible and creative scheduling helps employees balance their work and home responsibilities.
• Give more personal time. HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation in Atlanta gives employees an extra 24 hours they call "being there" time. Employees use the time whenever they need a couple hours to take care of personal responsibilities without using vacation time.
• Offer regular stress reduction training to all
• If that’s not sufficient offer individual stress coaching
• Concierge services pamper your employees and decrease their errand-running stress. Employees pay for the services, such as dry-cleaning, but not for the concierge service itself.
• On-site childcare addresses many parents’ biggest stressor. You can offer it year-round, during the summer when school’s out or before and after school hours.
• Serenity rooms offer stressed-out employees a few minutes of solitude, particularly helpful for those who work in cubicles where there's absolutely no privacy.
• Massage therapy is one of the best ways to reduce stress. HomeBanc sends massage therapists to each office monthly to offer free neck and shoulder massages. ARUP Laboratories subsidizes on-site massage where employees pay $5 for a 15-minute massage.
• Provide snacks or meals during particularly stressful times of the year, for example during tax season for accounting firms.
• Wellness initiatives such as subsidizing health club membership, nutrition advice, health screenings for cholesterol and blood pressure, financial incentives to those who quit smoking, and work time to exercise or meditate

A cost/benefit analysis can tell you if ideas that seem appropriate for your workers could actually save you money when compared to the high cost of turnover and increased insurance rates.

So what are you waiting for? With stress mounting in our frenzied workplace costing you every step of the way, how can you reduce stress in your organization?

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Set goals, not resolutions
Stress for Success
December 26, 2006

Are you considering New Year’s resolutions? If you’re historically unsuccessful at this annual tradition consider setting goals, even small ones that become part of a bigger picture of where you want to be in the next few years.

“Start with the end in mind”, said Steven Covey, author of “7 Habits of Highly Successful People”. When you see how immediate effort can begin the movement toward a larger and more important destination it creates energy and motivation to accomplish your present goal.

So figure out where you want to be in the next three - five years and then create New Year’s goals to nudge you in that direction. If you don’t know where you want to be, answer the two magic questions repeatedly over several weeks, “What do I want more of?” and “What do I want less of?” in my personal and professional life. Whatever repetitively appears on successive lists paints a picture of your desired destination around which you form your smaller New Year’s goals.

For instance, with semi-retirement approaching in the next few years, I’d like to spend additional time on more economical vacations and seeking more adventure.

To have more economical vacations my New Year’s goal is to contact cruise ships (which I’ve considered doing for ten years) to exchange workshops for free passage for my husband and me.

To satisfy my life-long need for adventure (which has become my husband’s, too), we’re considering numerous volunteer efforts. One is with Encore, an organization that connects returned Peace Corps volunteers with international projects requiring our kind of talents. These commitments last three weeks to three months; perfect for us.

Don’t assume you have to accomplish your objective in one big step. My goal with Encore is to simply contact them and explore the possibilities. If interested, I’d then learn more about them and research safety and practical concerns regarding working overseas again.

By keeping our end in mind, spending semi-retirement time seeking adventure and travel, even if working with Encore and the cruise ships don’t pan out, there are other possibilities. In other words, we don’t have to give up on our end, we’d just have to come up with new ways, new goals, to get there.

Once you’ve defined your New Year’s goal and steps to achieve it, keep it visually in mind by making a colorful, visually appealing flyer of your action plan. Post it around your house, office and/or car to keep you focused on what you need to do daily to accomplish it. And reward yourself for each successful step you take.

In addition to your specific New Year’s goal, there are stress reduction goals, also beneficial for your longer-term destination:
• Strengthen relationships with family/friends
• Self-care through regular exercise and healthier eating
• Life balance
• Spiritual growth
• Effective goal setting and attainment

Making progress in these areas limits the damage stress does to you physically and emotionally so you arrive at your destination in better shape to enjoy it more.

These will be the topics for the next weeks. Happy New Year!

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Holidays can bring on blues
Learn about the common stressors and how to cope
Stress for Success
December 19, 2006
According to Madison Avenue, Christmas is always 100% happy, loving and generous. Your holidays can be very stressful if your reality falls short of this ideal.

Even if you measure up well, it’s a time of frenetic cleaning, decorating, baking, shopping, wrapping, going to and hosting parties, all leading to exhaustion.

A key to coping is to know that we’re all more vulnerable to stress right now and to keep the increased activity, overindulgences, and unrealistic expectations from overwhelming you.

The most common holiday stressors include:
• Relationships: historically tumultuous ones can be particularly toxic, especially if you’re with your family of origin where reverting back to childhood roles triggers each other’s hot buttons.
– If you’ve lost a loved-one the holidays probably leave you very lonely and depressed.
• Finances: money stress can occur any time but takes on new dimensions if you overspend on gifts, travel, etc.
• Exhaustion: the vicious cycle of stress causing fatigue, leaving you less likely to exercise and meditate, increasing stress. Overindulgence of food and liquor can push you overboard.

Here are some holiday stress coping tips:
• Treat yourself kindly: accept your imperfections. Do something you find special. Focus on the importance of Christmas vs. buying stuff. Appreciate the efforts you make to create a positive experience for your loved ones.
• Put your mind into neutral: commit to not letting other’s irritating behaviors upset you. Avoid difficult people, if possible. Save any confrontations for the New Year. If someone else gets easily upset, give him a break; he’s probably over-stressed, too. An excellent holiday mantra is, "This too shall pass."
– Instead of picturing everything things going wrong, picture them going well. Prepare yourself mentally to positively handle what could go wrong and appreciate the positive.
• Be realistic: let go of Hallmark expectations that everything must be perfect. If there's a spot on your tablecloth, put something over it vs. fuss about it. Virtually no one cares. And if someone does, don’t invite her next year.
• Stick to your budget: decide how much you can afford and stick to it. To avoid over-spending leave your credit cards at home and take only the cash you've budgeted. You can’t buy love or friendship. Explain to your kids if you can’t afford something they want. Knowing there are limits is good for them.
• Set appropriate limits: prioritize invitations, requests and responsibilities; commit only to what’s realistically achievable.
• Plan ahead: include your family in making a list of and dividing additional responsibilities. Decide who will do what. (If you do it all yourself you’ll teach them to do nothing.)
• Self-care: over-eat and -drink on Christmas if you must, but not for the next two weeks. Take daily 15-minute breaks to refresh each day. Get plenty of exercise and drink lots of water to keep up your energy.
• Be grateful: help those who are less fortunate; catch your loved ones doing something right; as you prepare everything remember your love for those for whom you’re doing it.

If you still have the holiday blues talk to someone you trust. Keep up your normal routine and know that this too shall pass.

Merry Christmas!

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

When enthusiasm’s at a low it’s in employers’ best interest to help
Stress for Success
December 12, 2006

Not all stress is bad. So how can a manager tell when employees have too much?

Your optimal stress level is the amount that makes you feel motivated to tackle the day's challenges. As a manager, when you notice an employee losing enthusiasm, stress may be the culprit.

Too much stress causes everything from physical illness and increased health care costs to resistance to change and high turnover, negatively affecting your bottom line. Too little stress can be just as damaging.

Everybody has it. Stress doesn't happen to only those who are weaker. According to 2006 surveys from ComPsyche and the Anxiety Disorder Association of America (ADAA), employees cite their top work stressors:
• Deadlines, 55%
• Management, 50%
• Workload, 46%
• People issues, 28%
• Juggling work/personal lives, 20%
• Lack of job security, 6%

The ADAA’s 2006 Stress and Anxiety Disorders Survey found the most common ways employees react to stress:
• Caffeine, 31%
• Exercise, 25%
• OTC medications, 23%
• Alcohol, 20%
• Smoking, 27%
• Eat (46% of women, 27% of men)
• Talk to family/friends (44%, 21%)
• Sex (19% for men, 10% for women)
• Illegal drugs (12% for men, 2% for women)

Fewer than 40% of employees whose stress interferes with their work have spoken to their employer about it mainly because they fear:
• It would be perceived as lack of interest or unwillingness to do something
• Being labeled “weak”
• It would affect promotion opportunities
• Being laughed at or not taken seriously
Of those who did mention their stress, 40% were offered some type of help, usually a mental health referral or a stress management class. Both of these can be helpful but only to those who speak up.

Since an estimated 40% of turnover is due to stress it’s in your best interest to determine what your employees perceive to be their main stressors before jumping in with a plan. Employee surveys, exit interviews and having them write about what bothers them the most at work (probably mostly about situations over which they have little or no control) can help you more accurately identify their major stressors.

Once identified, then put the requisite amount of energy into the goal of preventing or decreasing future stress. Your options range from an occasional brownbag lunch series (but don’t expect much benefit) to individualized plans to help them relax, improve their diet, coping, etc.

Also, educate yourself on what your competitors are doing to help their employees. Some provide concierge services to reduce employee stress while others pay for on-site yoga classes.

One of the most important things to do for all employees, over-stressed or not, is to give them more control over their biggest work frustrations. For example, an employee who’s very distracted by a coworker’s habits (including cracking gum and talking to himself) requested and received the right to work in a different part of the building when necessary.

Next week I’ll share other ideas that organizations are finding successful in reducing workplace stress.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.
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Workplace stress can hurt an organization’s bottom line
Stress for Success
December 5, 2006

As an employer, whatever decreases staff turnover would positively affect your bottom line, right? Well, consider this:
• 40% of all job turnover is due to stress!

This is huge, especially when you consider the looming employee shortage due to millions of Baby Boomers retiring and so many fewer Gen Xers to take their place.

Companies that weigh the consequences of not addressing worker well-being compared to the payoff of doing so are included in Robert Levering’s book, “The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America.” They have more than twice the earnings per share and more than twice the rate of stock appreciation as the average Standard & Poor’s 500 company.

To help you reduce employee turnover, here is general information about workplace stress. To reduce your specific problems you’ll need to get accurate information from your employees.

Stress leads to an increase in accidents as well as to illness and disease, therefore higher health care costs. When stressed your attention narrows, you become preoccupied, which leads to more injuries.
• Jonathan Torres, M.D., of Workmed Occupational Health Services, ME: workers with high stress are 30% more likely to have accidents than those with low stress. Sixty to 80% of on-the-job accidents are attributed to stress!
• Harvard Business Review reported on average, stress-related accident claims are two times more costly than nonstressed related ones.
• A study of 3,020 aircraft employees: those who “hardly ever” enjoy their jobs were 2½ times more likely to report back injury.

Stress also creates “tunnel vision”, which can cause errors of judgment decreasing creativity and the ability to cope with change. When stressed, humans revert back to familiar behaviors, not something that allows us to adapt in today’s environment of never-ending organizational change.

Other workplace problems created by or at least exacerbated by stress include:
• Interpersonal conflict: the St. Paul Insurance report found the main causes of burnout were interpersonal demands from working with teams and supervisors.
• Violence accounts for 17% of all deaths in the workplace according to a Northwestern National Life study.
• Customer service problems: stressed-out and tired employees don’t treat your customers well enough.
- A Harvard Business Review study by Reichheld & Sasser found a 5% reduction in customer defection translates into a 30% - 85% increase in corporate profitability.
• Loss of intellectual capital: to thrive organizations must be perceptive, agile and responsive to market and customer needs. Stressed-out employees don’t focus on excellence and innovation.
- Jack Quirk of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Maine: “Organization’s ability to make process improvements nearly always stops due to resistance. With overwhelming workloads … and going so fast, (employees) don’t have time to make the process better. It creates a terrible cycle of trying to work harder … because the volume you have to put out is increasing, but you aren’t doing anything to make the process more effective and efficient.”
- High-stress jobs with low control cause employees thought processes to become more rigid, simplistic and superficial, not a great mindset for innovation.
- Dr. Martin Seligman’s (University of Pennsylvania) research on “learned helplessness” has shown that the more helpless a person feels, the less likely she is to come up with effective coping responses.

For a happier, healthier workforce:
• How can you identify and relieve your employees’ main stressors?
• What can you do to give them more control, therefore less stress, over their day-to-day activities?
• How can you help your employees enjoy their jobs more?

Your answers – and more importantly your actions – that reduce their stress will improve your bottom line.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Workplace strain prevalent
Statistics point to employers’ need to make changes
Stress for Success

At a personal level, stress related problems are the new plague of our nonstop, hyper, 21st Century lifestyle. Ignore the negative consequences at your own peril.

At an organizational level, your bottom line is being eaten away by escalating health insurance premiums and workers compensation costs for many ailments that could be prevented by following stress management advice. For example, it’s estimated that occupational pressures are responsible for 30% of workers’ back pain. Eighty percent of workers feel stress on the job and nearly half say that they need help learning how to manage it. Forty-two percent say their coworkers need such help.

Whether or not your organization supplies you with any, part or all of your health care coverage, they should take note. Not only are most employees feeling stretched too thin, but there’s also the looming retirement of Baby Boomers, which will make it harder to fill their vacancies from the next and much smaller Generation X. More than ever, organizations need to make their work environments less stressful and more appealing to retain valued workers.

What follows is research regarding workplace stress. As you read through it, answer these two questions about your employees:
• What can you do to make your workplace less stressful?
• What can you do to give your employees more control (therefore less stress) over their day-to-day activities?

Large surveys done during the 1990s by Northwestern National Life Insurance Co., St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co., Yale University, among others found:
• 40% of workers reported their jobs were very or extremely stressful
• 25% viewed their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives
• 26% said they were "often or very often burned out or stressed by their work"
• Job stress is more strongly associated with health complaints than financial or family problems

With the increased pressure from living lives that are spinning faster and faster, one of the obvious consequences is increased workplace anger and even violence. The 2000 survey, "Attitudes in the American Workplace VI” and the 2000 Integra Survey found:
• 42% said yelling and other verbal abuse is common
• 18% had experienced some sort of threat or verbal intimidation in the past year
• 14% said they work where equipment has been damaged due to workplace rage • 14% have felt like striking a coworker in the past year but didn't
• 10% are concerned about someone at work they fear could become violent
• 9% are aware of an assault or violent act in their workplace
• 2% admitted to actually personally striking someone
• Additionally they found that 60.2% routinely have work-related neck pain; 44% stressed-out eyes; 38% with hurting hands; 34% with difficulty in sleeping

All of this job stress adds up to a price tag for the United States of over $300 billion every year, with stress causing:
• 40% of job turnover!
• 60 to 80% of on-the-job accidents!
• Annual double-digit increases in workers compensation premiums!
• Repetitive musculoskeletal injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, the nation's leading workplace health cost accounting for almost one third of workers compensation awards

If all this doesn't convince you of the importance of helping your employees manage their stress better, I don't know what will. The week after Thanksgiving I’ll share more of the research on other negative consequences of job stress, such as increased accidents and resistance to change.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

People around the world share the need to be thankful
Stress for Success, November 21, 2006
For who-knows-how-long people around the world have celebrated their annual harvests. Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October, the British have Harvest Festival in the fall, Jewish people celebrate Sukkot, the festival of thanksgiving that lasts nine days, and the Chinese have an equivalent celebration during the eighth month of their calendar. Whatever a culture calls it, a day of thanks is a wonderful opportunity to reflect upon your blessings and to be grateful for them.

The first recognized American Thanksgiving meal took place in 1621 with the Plimouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians celebrating their autumn harvest. The pilgrims continued with this annual celebration thereafter. Or did they?

According to James W. Baker, senior historian at Plimouth Plantation, the first feast was not even called Thanksgiving and wasn’t repeated so it wasn’t the beginning of a tradition. To them, a “thanksgiving” was a religious holiday to thank God for specific blessings. At this first feast the Pilgrims and their new neighbors participated in dancing, singing and playing games, which would never have been allowed at a religious event, making the original feast a secular celebration.

The Pilgrims shared this initial feast with the Wampanoags who had taught them how to survive in their new land. Without them the Pilgrims may not have had successful harvests or endured the harsh winter.

The original feast in 1621 was based on English harvest festivals and lasted three days. After the Plimouth colonists’ first harvest, Governor William Bradford declared a day of thanksgiving shared by the colonists and Indians. Then in 1623 a day of fasting and prayer during a period of drought was changed to one of Thanksgiving because the rain came during the prayers. Gradually the custom of annually celebrating the fall harvest took root in New England.

The Continental Congress during the American Revolution suggested an annual day of national Thanksgiving. In 1817 New York State adopted Thanksgiving Day as a yearly tradition, and by the middle of the 19th century many other states followed. In 1863 President Lincoln appointed Thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November, which he may have associated with the November 21, 1621 landing of the Mayflower at Cape Cod. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939, which was approved by Congress in 1941.

It’s a wonderful tradition and given its pervasiveness in cultures around the world it seems to speak to the human need to acknowledge our blessings. It connects us with family and community in a way that can help us to appreciate the importance of each other in bringing in our harvests, even the modern-day harvest for most Americans, which is through our jobs.

So enjoy your Thanksgiving week. Put your mind into a thankful place with even the craziness that sometimes can accompany such a busy holiday. Give your co-workers, customers and bosses a break. Be grateful you have a job. Forgive your family members or friends whose habits aggravate you. Be thankful you have them in your life instead. Look at life in general this week through grateful eyes. How does that change things? What would happen if we did it 365 days a year?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Limit lifestyle weight gain by dealing with your stress
Stress for Success
October 24, 2006

Cortisol, a fight/flight hormone released whenever you’re stressed, has become the newest excuse for packing on the pounds. However, the research jury is still out on whether high levels of cortisol actually cause weight gain. The minimum that seems to be true is that since the role of cortisol during stress is to provide your body with energy, it can cause an increase in appetite. In other words, stress might lead you to eat more.

"During the first couple of days following a stressful event, cortisol is giving you a cue to eat high-carbohydrate foods," says endocrinologist Ricardo Dr. Perfetti, M.D., Ph.D., of Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. "Once you comply, you quickly learn a behavioral response that you can feel almost destined to repeat anytime you feel stressed."

Another unresolved research question is whether elevated cortisol causes fat to deposit in your abdominal area. Some research shows that abdominal fat causes specific chemical changes that can lead to lower metabolism and cravings for sweets, possibly leading to even more weight gain. Additionally, with more stress and cortisol and less exercise you have a proven recipe for heart disease.

Whether your eating is driven by stress hormones, by habits or a combination of both, research shows that there are ways to interrupt the cycle and stop the weight gain.
Notice how the advice is the same as it is for living a healthier lifestyle.
• Solve your stressors or cope more effectively with them.
• Exercise is always one of the best ways to burn calories and to produce a variety of biochemicals that counter the negative effects of the stress hormones. Exercise helps control your insulin and sugar levels with as little as 20 minutes a day three to five days a week. Be careful, though, because too much exercise can raise your cortisol levels and increase your stress.
• Eat a balanced diet and never skip a meal. Eat six small vs. three large meals a day and include foods from all the food groups. This helps to balance your blood sugar levels inhibiting insulin production and reducing cortisol levels, all helping to control appetite and weight.
• Get enough sleep because when you don't, cortisol levels rise, increasing your hunger.
• Relaxation, much like exercise, produces brain chemicals that counter the effects of stress, whether you do yoga, deep breathing, or meditation, multiple times a week do whatever reaches that sea of calm that’s within you.
• Snack on whole-grain, high-fiber foods vs. the typical American habit of high sugar and simple-carbohydrates like cookies, crackers, chips, which increase insulin levels increasing stress hormones and making you feel hungrier. Cereals like oatmeal or multi-grain flakes, along with fruits, help keep your insulin levels in check, which help control blood sugar levels and ultimately, hunger, according to Pamela Peek, MD, MPH, author of “Fight Fat after Forty.”
• Avoid caffeine, cigarettes and alcohol because these can cause stress and cortisol levels to increase, and blood sugar to drop, which spurs hunger.
• Take vitamins regularly since stress depletes the B complex and Vitamin C, and possibly calcium and magnesium. These nutrients help balance the effects of cortisol and may even play a role in burning fat so take a good multi-vitamin supplement.

If you’re experiencing chronic stress don’t go on a strict diet. Canadian researchers found that severely limiting calorie intake can kick off a series of biochemical events that ultimately increase stress and can make you feel hungrier.

Here’s the bottom line about weight loss. It always has been the bottom line, which suggests it always will be --- until a miracle weight loss treatment is invented. There are two ways to lose weight, eat fewer (and better) calories and burn more of those calories by moving your body more. It’s truly that simple.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Take sting out of political differences to reduce conflict
Stress for Success
November 7, 2006


Today is Election Day. I hope you’re planning to vote.

And thank goodness the campaigning is almost over! I’m tired of how too many politicians and much news coverage highlight the wide and deep polarization of our country. Do you ever wonder who or what could possibly unite us short of another 9/11?

I’m old enough to remember the ‘60s’ and ‘70s’ anti-war, civil rights and women’s movements. Does it seem to you (if you’re old enough to remember), as it seems to me, that the political environment of today is much more volatile, polarized and downright hostile than during those raucous decades? There’s even a new TV drama, “Studio 60”, that’s building this relatively new American social schism between the religious conservatives and the more secular population into its plot line.

Like many families, mine has hotly debated countless contemporary political issues. It used to be fun until we started to take it too personally. Since we know we’ll never change each other’s minds we virtually never have those discussions (read arguments) any more.

We’ve also taken an important step. We’ve learned to accept that we all come to our beliefs with good intentions so we don’t demonize each other as ignorant or crazy (not often anyway). This is what I wish for our divided American culture.

It’s perfectly human to have disagreements with others. To take these differences to a much higher, more stressful and polarizing level all you have to do is negatively label each other. “You’re so ignorant, blind, uninformed, self-centered, etc.”

When you label another person negatively it’s like spreading fertilizer on the ground to grow a conflict. When you disapprovingly label another person you’re giving off negative nonverbal signals. The other person picks up on them and reacts more guardedly and defensively toward you and probably joins you in the negative labeling game. You pick up on that person’s resistance and label her even more. All of this leads to an escalating cycle that pits one against the other. The chance for rational discussion, or even emotional discussion that’s tempered, diminishes with each negative judgment.

To reduce political polarization and conflict escalation, counter every negative assumption you make about someone with the facts and behaviors of the situation that you believe justify your negative judgments.

For example, if you believe someone is “naïve” for a belief he has, challenge yourself to identify what he has “done” (factual behavior) that validates your label of naïve. Perhaps he (factually) does not follow the news and argues his position with statements that are clearly inaccurate. You’d get much further if you gathered the facts that dispute his arguments. Let go of labeling him “naïve” and simply present the “facts” to him, (not that this will do much good at changing his mind but it can take the sting out of the encounter).

There’s nothing wrong with political arguments. Discussions would probably be more productive but given how passionately many feel about their positions, argument is most likely a better description of what typically goes on. If you at least want to explore each other’s beliefs in search of common ground or if you insist on trying to convince him (good luck!) drop all negative judgments of him and address only his behaviors and the facts of the situation. Defenses go down and more actual listening to understand can take place. Tiny little bridges of trust begin to develop; slowly but surely respect grows. Be still my heart!
Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Cortisol and weight gain ties debated
Stress for Success
October 17, 2006


We Americans, always looking for the quick fix for whatever ails us, want so badly for products such as Cortislim to get rid of excess weight. My advice --- don't hold your breath, at least not yet.

Here’s the theory of the connection between weight gain and cortisol released into your system from stress.

Stress hormones, including adrenaline, which gives you instant energy, along with corticotrophin releasing hormone (CRH) and cortisol, provide the biochemical energy you need to fight or flee your stressors. High levels of adrenaline and CRH decrease appetite at first and for a short time. Cortisol helps replenish your body after the stress has passed, and lasts longer.

The problem, according to Sean Talbot, Ph.D., associate professor with the University of Utah’s Department of Nutrition and the author of the "Cortisol Connection”, is that, "too often today’s response to stress is to sit and stew in our frustration and anger, without expending any of the calories that we would if we were physically fighting our way out of stress or danger (as our ancestors did)."

Your neuroendocrine system doesn't know that you’re not physically fighting or fleeing, so it still responds to stress with the hormonal signal to replenish nutritional stores making you feel hungry. This can lead to weight gain and a tendency to store "visceral fat" around the midsection.

To complicate matters, the "fuel" your muscles need during the fight/flight response is sugar, a reason you crave carbohydrates when stressed, says endocrinologist Ricardo Perfetti, M.D., Ph.D., of Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. "To move the sugar from our blood to our muscles requires insulin, the hormone that opens the gates to the cells and lets the sugar in," says Perfetti, who directs the outpatient diabetes program. And high levels of sugar and insulin set the stage for the body to store fat. "So people who are under stress, metabolically speaking, will gain weight for that very reason."

But according to Mayo Clinic dietitian, Jennifer Nelson, R. D., and physician Dr. Berge Kenneth, there is no reliable evidence that cortisol blockers such as CortiSlim, CortiStress, and Cortistat lead to weight loss. The manufacturers of these products tell you that stress creates high levels of cortisol in your system causing you to accumulate excess fat. Ms. Nelson says what they don't tell you is that this occurs only when your body produces large amounts of cortisol due to side effects of medication or an underlying medical condition like Cushing's syndrome. There's no evidence that the amount of cortisol produced by a healthy person under stress is enough to cause weight gain.

Others, like Dr. Caroline Cederquist, board certified family physician and bariatric physician (the medical specialty of weight management), the majority of whose patients have abdominal weight issues, believes our high stress lifestyles create cortisol-induced symptoms, including the abdominal weight gain. This can also lead to higher cholesterol and blood sugar levels and elevated blood pressure, all factors for heart disease.

The research on the role of cortisol in obesity is still speculative. Blaming your weight gain on stress neglects the fact that you may have developed a habit of eating in response to stress, which is a learned habit, encouraged by brain chemistry. Next week we’ll look at advice from the experts for how to deal with excess weight whether your urge to eat is driven by hormones or habits.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Limit cortisol in your body to protect your health
Stress for Success

We’ve known for over a decade that your run-of-the-mill acute stress is not what you need to worry about. You're incredibly resilient to life’s daily challenges. If you care about your health, however, you should be concerned with chronic stress.

Researchers define chronic stress as elevated stress for four to six months or longer. Common examples of people with chronic stress are those whose lives have been disrupted after a traumatic event like a hurricane, long-term caregivers, hot headed people, and those caught up in the runaway American lifestyle multitasking their way through each day getting entirely too little rest.

Chronic stress is a health concern due to the damage done to your body from the ongoing release of your fight/flight hormones, including cortisol. Remember that the fight/flight hormones were intended to protect our ancestors from physical harm giving them the energy to either physically fight or physically run away from wild animals or people. But our ancestors physically acted upon their fight/flight far more often than we do today in our incredibly sedentary lifestyle.

Today most of our stress is mental, not physical, requiring mental solutions not physical attacks or retreats. Today it's inappropriate to punch somebody out or run away from them so when your fight/flight response is triggered you have to slam on the brakes. Over time this energy takes its toll on you physically.

The trick, according to Duke University research, is to balance your stress with rest. Your rest habits strongly influence the negative consequences of your stress. Rest away from your stress could be time out to work on a hobby or literal rest like a nap. The more stressed you are, and the more you’re already paying a physical price for your stress, the more important to your health it is to schedule multiple stress breaks throughout every day. They can be seconds worth of deep breathing to a full eight hours of sleep.

Last week I mentioned three stress breaks that release or relax your fight/flight:
• Deep relaxation
• Physical exercise
• Deep breathing

Here are some additional stress breaks, all of which can reduce your stress, thereby reducing your fight/flight response, including cortisol.

• Tense/relax your muscles: tighten every muscle in your entire body head to toe for about 15 seconds then relax. Repeat two or three times. This physically channels your stress hormones. If you have trouble sleeping at night because you're physically hyper do this nightly before going to sleep. Unless you're drinking 22 cups of coffee daily it should help you sleep better. Or, to avoid the instinct of flying across the table and choking your least favorite person or running away from her, repetitively tense and relax your muscles (just the ones that are hidden from view, of course). This creates greater physical balance therefore mental balance allowing you to think more clearly about how to handle her.
• Yoga: for stress reduction in general, this is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Doing yoga exercises throughout your day relieves the stress you hold in specific parts of your body while channeling your fight/flight energy.
• Laughter: a great way to reduce stress is to find humor in taxing situations. This isn’t always possible or appropriate but usually it is. There’s another benefit to laughter. Humorous thinking is basically the same as creative thinking. So when you’re unable to resolve a stressor, find the humor in it and you'll be closer to finding a creative solution.
• Journal: dump out your deepest thoughts and feelings into a journal.
• Hobby: throw yourself into a hobby that you love.

Anything that reduces your stress in a healthy way reduces your fight/flight response, therefore your cortisol. Next week we’ll take a different look at cortisol; its connection (or not) to weight gain.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Stress breaks help the body
October 3, 2006

Did you know that how you rate your own health predicts your future regarding disease and longevity more accurately than the most thorough medical records of you? It makes sense since you live with yourself 24/7. Just as when you drive the same car for a long time and know when something’s off, you also know when you’re not sleeping well or when your digestion is off.

This finding is from fascinating research that recently appeared in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

The researchers found that people who consider themselves healthy were found to experience a wider fluctuation of the fight/flight response, including the hormone, cortisol. This means that they aren’t normally stressed so when the fight/flight kicks in, it's noticeable.

Those who feel unhealthy have a higher level of cortisol all of the time, a symptom of chronic stress. In other words, due to their higher level of on going stress they don't notice when the fight/flight kicks in because it's not significantly different from how they typically feel.

Cortisol and other stress-related hormones weaken your health over time when your body isn’t able to relax and recover often enough from your stress.

In both acute and chronic stress over 17 different hormones are released. Acute stress is generally a short-term response by the body to stress and lasts from a few minutes to a few weeks.

Chronic stress occurs when stress is ongoing keeping the body on high alert and is the main cause of stress-related health problems. The hypothalamus and pituitary gland release a chemical known as ACTH, which stimulates the adrenal gland, to produce and release cortisol.

In my most requested keynote, “Slow Down You Move Too Fast”, I identify three groups of people who are at greater risk of illness and disease from the havoc stress plays on your body:
• People with chronic stress
• Hotheads
• Those who are caught up in the runaway American

Local vacations on a budget can lower your stress, too
Stress for Success
September 26, 2006

For the past two weeks I’ve addressed how vital vacations -- whether multi-week or long weekends -- are to reducing your stress and burnout, increasing your productivity, and protecting your health. But not everyone can afford to take time away for financial or scheduling reasons.

Not to worry, there are ways you can and should create time for yourself at home on a minimal budget. To make these local vacations work:
• Develop a vacation mindset. Choose activities that you enjoy. The more different they are from your norm, the better. Pamper yourself.
• Tell people that you’re taking off a specific amount of time and will be unavailable. Carving out and sticking to that specific timeframe allows you to enjoy it more and be conscious that you deserve it.
• Disconnect electronically from everything! Don’t answer the phone or check emails. Spend the day(s) away from your normal pressures and from all that’s typical in your life.
• Eliminate responsibilities and interruptions by arranging for pet care and even child-care if this is a private get-away.

Here are some ideas for local and inexpensive vacations.

Become a local tourist. To discover what there is to do right here in your own backyard, go to the Internet and type in the keywords, “Fodor’s Guide (your home town area).” You’ll discover things to do that you had no idea even existed.
• In planning your itinerary, avoid everything you typically do. So, if you choose to eat out a few times, avoid your usual restaurants. Go to new places with new flavors. Develop an adventurous and exploratory attitude.
• To really get away if you can afford it, check into a nearby hotel that offers some luxury and tranquility; one with a swimming pool and other relaxing amenities. Staying in a hotel keeps you from being reminded of all the work you have at home. Let others do your laundry, cook and deliver your food, and clean up afterwards. It's more self-indulgent.

Other things to relax you:
• Get massages. There’s much research reporting their stress reduction benefits.
• Read a book that you’ve been longing to find time to read.
• Stay in your pajamas all day long; an obvious reminder throughout the day that today is for you to do whatever you want. If you want to "waste" the entire day watching movie after movie, then do it! Do what ever would refresh you.
If you’re in need of rest vs. activity, consider an at-home spa (typically more for women but doesn’t need to be):
• Block out a generous amount of time with no interruptions. Privacy is very important.
• Play soothing music and light scented candles (lavender scents relax you more). There's nothing quite like music you love and candle light to put you in a peaceful frame of mind. They create an ambiance that’s totally different from the typical rat race existence.
• Pamper yourself with a lavender scented bath and soak until your body is relaxed. Use a pumice stone on your feet. Deep clean your face with a masque. And while you're at it deep condition your hair. After, use your favorite scented skin cream and take care of your nails to complete the picture.
Use these ideas throughout the year. Designate at least one day every month to do whatever you find the most restorative. Be nobody’s employee, parent or spouse. As long as it's a defined amount of time, you’re unavailable to others’ demands, disconnected electronically, and you do it with a sense of enjoyment, it’ll lower your stress.
So toss out your guilt for taking care of yourself and enjoy a break from your norm.
Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Time off work increases creativity, productivity
Stress for Success
September 19, 2006


"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power of judgment. Go some distance away because a lack of harmony or proportion is more readily seen."

This is even truer for today's hyper-lifestyle than it was 500 years ago when spoken by Leonardo da Vinci. He understood that getting away from work enhances your productivity and improves your perspective.

He’d probably be horrified with the fatigued, vacation-deficit American; and even more so with the workaholics who participate in a sick competition to see who can take off the least time!

The consequences of the average American working 47.1 hours a week with 26% having no vacation at all include burnout, exhaustion, stress, illness, conflicts, lower productivity and job satisfaction and increased job-hopping.

The more exhausted and burned-out you are, the more you need a variety of breaks.

If you’re an employer who discourages vacation time think again. According to Joanne Chan, over-tired employees’ MRI scans of their fatigued brains look nearly identical to those of sleeping brains! (Vogue, 2003)

I know of what I speak. In the late ‘90s I was burning-out professionally while at the same time taking care of my failing parents. The year-and-a-half of care-giving led to a point that even a month-long vacation wouldn’t have been enough. Additionally, my husband had been burned-out for a few years with his business.

So what cured us? We took off an entire year and traveled the U. S. and western Canada in a huge motor home. Even though our biggest task of any given day was to determine what to explore, it still took me a few months to notice my energy returning. It was an expensive choice but worth it because it restored our mental and physical health.

This isn’t a viable choice for many but if you fail to create time off you’ll pay the emotional, mental and physical consequences some day.

Convince yourself that vacations are simply very good for you. They:
• Promote creativity since changing what you focus on increases your creative juices; the more different your vacation from your normal life, the better.
• Shield you from burnout
• Keep you healthier by lowering your stress and recharging your batteries.
• Strengthen relationships by spending quality time with loved ones and hopefully having fun together.

To take advantage of a vacation’s benefits:
• Leave behind your work, laptop, cell phone, work worries and co-worker conflicts.
• Disconnect electronically completely! (Take a deep breath. Your gadgets will be there when you return.)
• Leave behind any guilt, too. Remind yourself that you’ll be more efficient and effective after a healthy rest away from the normal.
• Leave behind your work/productivity mentality. Some vacations are as structured as a military campaign. Your family may not find your military precision as relaxing as you do. Compromise.
• Have fun planning your vacation. Get into your child mode.
• Do things you love to do. So everybody has fun, plan your get away with your family.
• Wander around wherever you go. Open your mind to adventure and exploring new places.

Go ahead. Request the vacation days you’re due. Be armed with the researched benefits of time off: increased productivity, decreased absenteeism, sick days, employee turnover, medical claims and health insurance premiums. Bring out the big guns if your boss isn’t convinced. Tell him an exhausted employee is like a sleeping employee. Is that what he really wants?

Next week, we’ll look at some ideas of how you can have a great vacation without leaving home and spending lots of money.
Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.

Americans need more vacation to rest, recoup
Stress for Success
September 5, 2006


Va-ca-tion: a time set aside from work, study, etc., for recreation or rest; a holiday.

When's the last time you took a real vacation? If you're like many Americans it's been awhile. We take far too few and the vacations we do take are far too short. The average American takes a dismal three to four days off, according to Joe Robinson author of "Work to Live: The Guide to Getting a Life". One in seven of us takes no vacation at all!

According to Expedia.com’s annual vacation deprivation survey, Americans are leaving an average of four vacation days unclaimed per year.

This lack of leisure and vacation time is a growing problem in America. We’re desperate for time to relax and renew. More than 65% of Americans say they’re stressed and under pressure, in need of more fun, a long vacation, or just simply a break.

No wonder we feel this way. Our obsession with work is unmatched in the industrialized world. Until quite recently only the Japanese worked more weeks per year than Americans. No longer! We now work two and one-half weeks a year more than they and -- hold onto your hats -- 12 1/2 weeks more per year than the Germans! We’re the only industrialized country that doesn’t mandate paid vacation leave. Even China mandates three weeks per year.

A workshop participant said recently that if Americans had as much vacation as the Germans most would probably get part-time jobs to catch up on paying their bills. (It doesn’t seem to occur to them to simply spend less money. I digress.)

Why have we gotten ourselves into this vacation pickle?

According to Robinson, this American vacation deficit began with the recession of the early 1980s and accelerated in the late 1980s with technological advances such as fax machines, desktop computers, cell phones, and subsequently e-mail, blackberries, laptops, etc. These technological "advances" create a growing sense of urgency and impatience, called techno-stress. In the old days you could tell a customer that you'd “get it in the mail today”. It was even okay if it was sent tomorrow. But today people want everything now!

Additionally, organizations have dramatically downsized, leaving most employees doing more work and putting in more hours to get it all done. Between being overworked and dominated by high-tech devices the boundary between work and home has quickly eroded so you may find yourself never completely "off work". This leads to greater stress, irritability, exhaustion and inefficiency.

To add insult to injury our ubiquitous technological gadgets are often taken along on vacations keeping you from totally disengaging, minimizing a vacation’s positive effects on you.

American management also has an unfounded fear that if employees get too much time off they’ll fall behind on their work. But that misses the point: employees who work too much with too few breaks are operating off of too little sleep and tired brains so they’re making more mistakes and having more accidents and conflicts at work. A well-rested (a well-vacationed) employee conversely is more productive, creative and makes fewer mistakes.

If Americans are so desperate for more R & R, why don't we do something about it? Today’s business climate certainly doesn’t encourage plentiful nor lengthy vacations. Plus our own spending habits get us into the bind of having to work more to make more money. To get a much- needed rest, those with a vacation deficit need to make different choices.

Next week, we’ll explore some choices and ideas on how to make better use of vacation time, even if you can’t afford to go anywhere.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.