Zoning In and Out of Stress

on a daily basis

we travel on the highways of stress

we travel from lanes of calm

to lanes of stress and back again

i’m dr jackie brasi and i’m a

practitioner academic

i study the area of effective

neuroscience in organizations

and leadership for example

i explore how stress manifests itself

in your brain and body and how that

impacts

performance learning and well-being

today i will explain you about five

zones of stress

and how you can zone in and out of

stress so you can take better care of

yourself

want to know more alright let’s get

going

i want to invite you to take a

comfortable position

and take a deep breath in and out

now i will ask you to do it once more

and when you do it again

breathe in through your belly in through

your nose

and out through your mouth let’s go

how does that feel feels good right

must admit i included this exercise

selfishly for myself as well

because doing a thing like this may be a

bit anxiety provoking

and what we just did by breathing deeply

was activating our parasympathetic

nervous system

and we got ourselves into a calm

zone a calm zone of comfort

in this comfort zone we feel safe

in this comfort zone we may have

peaceful thoughts and our body may feel

calm as well

we feel good we feel great

what happens in this zone is that we

have

we can have an open mind we can have

full access to our brain resources

this is also the zone where we can

connect with others

where it feels good to make a connection

and this is also a place where we can

get in a flow

if we are busy with a hobby or if we are

at work

and let’s explore that a bit more

imagine

you are at work and you’re in this flow

you’re in your comfort zone

and you’ve been working for the last

half hour

on a piece that you had to prepare

for a meeting later and you’ve been

writing

some text and it really went well at

some points

you decide to check your email

and so you go to your email and you read

the first message

and the subject line of that message

reads in capitals

urgent respond asap

your breath takes a jump and your heart

starts beating faster

it’s from your manager and this subject

line doesn’t predict anything good

you must have done something wrong your

brain goes crazy

and you just got yourself into a zone of

stress

in other words i use is protection zone

you activated your sympathetic nervous

system

and in this state you try your body

and your brain comes into play tries to

protect you

makes you alert there may be some danger

so you

feel unsafe

your body responds as well as a result

of hormone release

and you may start trembling you may

start feeling

a bit sweaty and your voice may start

shaking

the result of this situation is also

that the open mind that you just had

goes to a tunnel vision

so there is a closed mind you go back to

what you know you withdraw

in this situation connection with others

may not be that easy

you may even pick a fight or you start

distrusting people

productivity goes down the drain

and it’s not really the best place to be

although it’s a normal place to be your

body works very healthy when it responds

in situations like this

the way it did it’s a good place to have

and it’s also a good situation to have

when your body responds like this

however if you are in this zone too

often

or too long not only does it

damage your productivity it may also

damage your health

let’s have a look at that how that may

happen and how this story may continue

let’s go back to that email so you’re in

this state of stress

indeed you read the message and this

it’s not good news

you really messed up and you have to

come in front of a board

to explain yourself this is serious

you go into your cocoon and you just

you freak out and you start working

harder and harder and harder you prepare

more than needed you over prepare the

board meeting is in a couple of days and

you don’t sleep well

you don’t rest and you eat badly

the meeting is here and you enter the

room

and everybody is looking very serious

and you just

pick up the stress in the room

you have a bit of stomach pain but hey

here we go you get bombarded by

questions

and you don’t know the answer and you

panic a bit

because this is really not good it turns

black in front of your eyes and the next

thing you know you wake up on the ground

you just entered your terror zone

the terror zone is a build up of a lot

of stress over time or

immediate danger you get into the

terrorism

when your body it’s not even consciously

happening your body picks up you maybe

even in life danger

it’s the zone of extreme freeze

it’s the zone of trauma and it’s the

zone of

burnout this doesn’t happen a lot

in general but it’s important to know

that this is a zone that exists

because if you don’t take care of

yourself you may end up in that zone

now so far the story is a bit of a story

of doom and gloom

isn’t it indeed it is

and you may wonder could the story have

evolved differently

yes actually it could have

let’s explore let’s go back let’s rewind

to the email

so you read the email and you feel in

the stress situation

you pick up what happens you know

you’re going into his protection zone

you take a step back

and you read the message again you take

a deep

breath whoa

this is not really good news you decide

to take a

to take a break to take a walk take some

distance

and come back and read the message again

you know what to do you know your old

pattern

and this time this is not going to

happen you’re gonna call your manager

you’re gonna connect with your team and

you explain the situation

you also explain what you did wrong but

you also explained that as a team we’re

gonna fix this

you want to have every elephant in the

room and you want to understand

where things went wrong and you do that

by creating an

atmosphere of safety everybody can share

their feeling and their input but you

also bring

a mindset to the table of learning and

development

whatever happens yes we’re not in a good

place but we can learn and develop we

can learn and grow

from this so let’s do this together and

let’s

get on with it together so you create

safety

stretch and also a mindset of growth

that’s one thing the other thing that

you do is taking care of yourself

you know the tendency is not to stop

working until you’re done

but you know that’s not right and so you

plan where you make sure you have enough

breaks

you eat well and you try to sleep so you

set yourself and your team up

for success today of the board meeting

you’re all ready you all feel stressed

you still feel it’s quite anxiety

producing this situation

but you know you’ve done everything you

could and you also know you’re there

together you’ve taken the the right

preparations and you’re ready for it and

magic happens in this meeting

because when you go into this meeting

there is a difficult there are many

difficult conversations

but creativity starts to happen and

actually you come out of the meeting

with a better results than you ever

could have imagined

you got yourself and the team in a

learning zone

in the learning zone you go out of your

comfort zone

but you learn how to be comfortable with

the stress

in the learning zone you accept that

mistakes can be made

but that you can learn from it and that

you can come to better

results you have

stress but you can keep an open mind

you can be curious and engaged with

what’s going on

after this meeting you all go home and

you are exhausted

because you really worked very hard

and you know you have thousands of

emails to plow through

but you also know that they can maybe

wait for a few more minutes

or maybe for an hour or two because you

first will go do some yoga and take a

bath

you will get yourself into the recovery

zone

in the recovery zone you take care

of yourself but also of the stress that

you have injured

you need to refuel but you also need to

build a buffer for the next ride

the recovery zone is an important

important

part of your day-to-day life should be

an important part of your day-to-day

life

this is also the zone that we’re in when

we sleep

so it’s a deep resting state

now you may think so what you’ve told us

these stories and we know

there are five zones what do i need to

do with this

well let me tell you about what to do

with it and let me go once more

through those five zones and then

explain

how to look at this and how to manage it

so we started with the comfort zone

the calm zone you can get into the

comfort zone in many ways

and and there are lots of exercises and

lots of things that you can do to get

you in a calm place

when you are in a stressful situation

you get into the protection zone

that may also happen at home it’s not

only at work

right little things even this morning i

was coming here i had to be here at a

certain time and there was a huge

convoy in front of me and i couldn’t go

faster and i was

really getting nervous and uh and then

of course heartbeat goes up i start

sweating will i ever

be on time if you stay too long here

you can end up here and here’s the thing

you can learn actually either to prevent

from getting into this red zone

by directly going into the learning zone

or go from the protections onto the

learning zone

without getting into the terror zone

and making sure that recovery zone is

part of your program

and if you noticed on the slide

the different colors that i used the key

message

is there are two key messages actually

try to stay in the green zone

as much as possible i’m not saying try

to stay in the comfort zone as much as

possible because that’s the zone of

status quo you won’t learn you won’t

develop you won’t grow

but try to find the right balance and

find out what it is important for to get

out of this comfort zone into the

learning zone and make sure you have

enough recovery

here’s the other thing you have to do

that yourself

nobody’s going to do it for you the

world has changed

structures are very different you have

to earn your life

and you have to manage this now you may

wonder how

well it starts with the very simple

habits

first of all create awareness where you

are on a daily basis or in a moment

and we can do that right now check in

with yourself

and reflect on where you are currently

on what highway

and how do you check in you can take a

deep breath

but fill your body and see what happens

in your brain

what are the thoughts that you have

currently i am in the learning zone but

on this stage

i moved from comfort to protection and

stress

and then i managed myself back to the

learning zone

and i know what to do and how to do it

i set myself up for success and these

are skills that you can actually learn

on a day-to-day basis notice

notice where you are so in the morning

when you wake up

check in how am i feeling today

and then when you look ahead at the day

you may have

an agenda full of appointments and lots

of things going on

have a look what is going to happen

today and where

may i get stretched too far out of my

learning zone

in a stress zone or what else do we have

and how can i actually proactively

manage this process

what do i need to do to look at my day

or at my week

to build enough recovery to create

learning

when you enter a meeting room check in

where am i at the moment what do i need

what is my intention

and how do i want to show up in this

meeting

when you check in you can plan ahead

and you can also seek help if you need

it

the other thing you need to know is of

course if this goes for you

this also goes for others so if you have

a difficult meeting

or a difficult conversation with someone

else and you get a reaction that you did

not expect

reflect on that what’s going on for that

other person is it maybe better to

re-schedule this meeting

or can i actually do something to get

this person back to a learning zone

when you check in when you notice you

can take action

and you can zone in and out of stress

and that’s how you can take care of

yourself

thank you

you