Stress / Anxiety

If we do not tackle our stressors and anxiety, it can result in long-term mental health challenges. Some things that happen to us develop intro traumas. We are all different. Traumatic events are not universal. We don’t experience life the same way. There are various situations we find ourselves in. Some make us more resilient, and others wear us down over time. As responsible business leaders, it is important to understand your own ( as well as your team’s) stressors and how you can cope with them.

In the assessment below we look at two aspects of stressors. On the one hand, what we feel and or experience as anxiety and how our ability to think clearly and work productively is affected.

Anxiety is an emotion which is characterised by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response to a real threat, whereas anxiety is the anticipation of a future threat. It is often accompanied by nervous behaviour such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints, and rumination.

Stress is a feeling of emotional strain and pressure. Stress is a type of psychological pain. Small amounts of stress may be beneficial, as it can improve athletic performance, motivation and reaction to the environment. Excessive amounts of stress, however, can increase the risk of strokes, heart attacks, ulcers, and mental illnesses such as depression.

Panic is a sudden sensation of fear which is so strong as to dominate or prevent reason and logical thinking, replacing it with overwhelming feelings of anxiety, uncertainty and frantic agitation consistent with a fight-or-flight reaction

Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognising a danger or threat. Fear causes psychological changes that may produce behavioural reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear in human beings may occur in response to a certain stimulus occurring in the present or in anticipation or expectation of a future threat perceived as a risk to oneself