I was recently asked to write a piece for an accountancy magazine on ’stress management’. The term ’stress management’ is upsetting to me in the first place - suggesting that the objective is to manage the stress you have rather than find ways you eliminate it - as if you have no choice but to be stressed.

I was asked to respond to the following five questions:

What are the most common causes/symptoms of stress in offices?
What are the Special challenges that stress poses for young, ambitious high-fliers?
What are the best ways to prevent and/or combat stress (and why) - and the worst?
Our readers are accountants - who may be regarded as more immune from stress than those in other occupations - is that nonsense and why/why not?
How should employers help their workforce de-stress? What benefits do enlightened employers provide that contribute to successful stress management?

If you want to read my rant…

What are the most common causes/symptoms of stress in offices?

There is only one cause of stress…

I was recently on the M25 in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It was likely that i would be late for my next appointment, there was nothing I could do about that at the time, so i telephoned ahead and explained that I would be arriving late. I than sat back, turned up the radio and settled down for some valuable thinking time. After a couple of minutes I became aware of the red-faced, white knuckled stress junkie in the car next to me. He had clearly not accepted his current situation and was certainly not using his time productively. I dread to imagine what was happening to his heart rate. Here’s the interesting thing - if you asked him, he would tell you that the traffic was stressing him out; that traffic is stressful. Well if traffic is the cause of stress, how is it possible for it not to be stressful to me? I’m in the same traffic jam. To refer to external ’causes’ of stress is psychologically dangerous - we are perceiving the stress as something that is happening to us, rather than something that we ourselves are creating by the inflexible conditions we have set around the activity we are currently engaged in.

What are the Special challenges that stress poses for young, ambitious high-fliers?

The problem for many young high-fliers is that stress can be a great motivator. Some leadership programmes even suggest that it is good to create some ’stressful conditions’ so that your people perform. it’s not a sustainable strategy that will last your whole career. If you want to avoid burn-out, or becoming less and less effective later in your career, it’s important to develop strategies for high performance that are motivating and sustainable without the necessity for stress.

What are the best ways to prevent and/or combat stress (and why) - and the worst?

The most immediate physiological effect of stress is that your breathing becomes shallow or stops completely (and your blood pressure and heart rate increase). Even though your cardio-vascular system is working harder, there is still not much oxygenated blood reaching the brain and you IQ takes a tumble. Stressed people make stupid decisions.

It may sound ridiculously simple, but the easiest way to reduce or eliminate stress is to breathe. It’s harder than it sounds - The chances of remembering to or even being able breathe evenly when you are stressed are pretty slim. The most effective way to achieve it is to build an exercise activity into your day. It’s difficult to be stressed when you are dancing or swimming (assuming that you can swim, if not it may be quite easy). Staying at you desk, unaware of the stress you are creating, or hoping to find the answer that will make the stress go away is simply idiotic. The next time you feel stress in you body - move, walk, breathe and see what it does to your thinking.

Our readers are accountants - who may be regarded as more immune from stress than those in other occupations - is that nonsense and why/why not?

the levels of stress that an individual experiences bears no relation to their occupation. People in supposedly low-stress jobs sometimes find themselves at breaking point whilst some others in supposedly high-stress jobs take it in their stride. To suggest that the job causes the stress is a fundamental error in causality - the individuals’ perception of their job and the conditions they set for themselves in going about that activity are the cause the stress, not the job itself.

I can, however, point to some conditions around a job that individuals are more likely to struggle with. The most common psychological bind created by the imposition of organisational structure is positions of high responsibility (or more accurately, high levels of consequence if an error is made) and low decision latitude (having very little flexibility around how they do their job).

How should employers help their workforce de-stress? What benefits do enlightened employers provide that contribute to successful stress management?

Flexible working conditions, the ability to get up and move around, recreation areas, gym membership, early morning yoga classes, good nutritional choices at work, more decision latitude (specify what needs to be achieved and allow the individual to find their optimal way of doing it), thinking time, coaching and personal development opportunities.