How to Run a Business and Survive with Your Sanity Intact

My Story

Stress Test

It Could Be Worse

How to Get Your Stress Under Control

Take-A-Ways

• Identify your major stressors

• Understand how chronic stress harms your body and brain

• Analyze your current coping mechanisms

• Strategize about ways to reduce stress

• Commit to one SMART stress-reduction goal

Partner Up: Circle Top 2 Stressors

Let’s Discuss

Calling all Workaholics & Perfectionists

Are You a Workaholic?

• Take the Bergen Work Addiction Test

• Uses core symptoms of drug addiction

How Many Hours Do You Work?

• Average number of hours worked by entrepreneur: 70 per week

• Most workers only use 51% of their paid vacation time

• 61% of Americans work on vacation

Are You a Perfectionist?

Tell-Tale Signs of Perfectionism

Trait #1

You are highly conscious and hyper-critical of mistakes.

Trait #2

You have to be the best at everything, even if it’s something you’re not interested in.

Trait #3

You spend a lot of time to make everything absolutely perfect.

Trait #4

You are your harshest critic.

Trait #5

You mull over a less than optimal outcome and wonder what you did wrong.

Trait #6

You react defensively to constructive criticism.

Trait #7

You focus exclusively on achieving the goal at all costs.

Stress Bell Curve: Optimal v. Your Reality

Good Stress and Bad Stress

Eustress

• “eu” = well or good

• Term coined by endocrinologist Hans Selye

• You feel challenged, but not overwhelmed

Optimal Stress

Stress Hormones Are For Survival

Your Body on Stress: Fight-or-Flight

Good in the Short Run

• Adrenaline (immediate)

• Cortisol (prolonged)

What % of ER Visits Triggered by Stress?

• 90% CDC Estimate

What Chronic Stress Does to Your Body

• Anxiety

•Depression

•Digestive problems

•Heart disease

•Sleep problems

•Weight gain

•Cancer

The Scary Science

The Common Cold

• 2012 study of 276 healthy adults

• Those with chronic stress were more likely to get sick

• Immune system cells were unable to properly respond

Weight Gain

• 2014: Women who had experienced a stressful event in the last 24 hours burned 104 fewer calories than after eating fast-food than those who were stress-free

• Adds up to 11 lbs. per year

• Stressed women had higher insulin levels,

contributing to fat storage

Slower Healing

• 2012 study of older women caring for relatives with dementia

• Took 24% longer to heal from biopsy wound

• Slow healing most apparent in first two weeks, when infections happen

Heart Disease

• 2014 study of stressed-out medical students

• They had an excessive number of white blood cells

• Previous study in mice found that cortisol changes white blood cells so they stick to artery walls

A Shorter Life

• Chronic stress shortens length of telomeres: the agent of death

Telomere Shortening Studies

• Finnish Health Study: work-related exhaustion

• Mothers caring for disabled children

• Caregivers for relatives with dementia

• Boys in a stressful home environment

Summary of Effects of Chronic Stress

• Body is permanently primed for fight or flight

• Changes gene activity of immune cells, leading to chronic inflammation

What it Does to Your Brain

• Impairs communication among neurons

• Slows production of new neurons

• Creates elevated levels of proteins associated with Alzheimer’s

Secondhand Stress

• It’s contagious and easily transmitted

• Babies catch it from their mothers

• Students catch it from nervous speakers

Brainstorm Stress-Reduction Techniques

Partner Up: Draft SMART Goal

• Aim: Be a little imperfect

Examples: Set SMART Goals

• Too vague: I’ll spend more time with my family.

• SMART: I’ll eat dinner with my family on Mon., Wed., and Friday.

• Too vague: I’ll relax more.

• SMART: I’ll download the Calm App and listen to Session #1 on Saturday at noon.

Three Layers of Accountability

• Each partner sets one stress-reduction goal for this week

• Create means of self-accountability

• Email each other by the end of the week re goal achievement

• Send me an email right now with contact info for each partner

• If you report that you achieved your goal: • PRIZE: Complimentary 1-hour Wellness Coaching session

EberLorie@gmail.com

Get Real. Get Healthy.®

EberLorie@gmail.com

714-357-9946

www.LorieEberWellnessCoaching.com

Contact Information