My partner and I were talking recently about blood pressure, not because either of us have high blood pressure - fortunately. But maybe we have reached that stage of life where health begins, slowly but steadily, to matter more. The conversation wandered towards stress, anxiety and the impact that sustained pressure has on the body.
Ironically, as we talked we were sitting in warm spring sunlight streaming through the windows. Calm. Relaxed. Unhurried. Quite a contrast.
We now that stress we cannot escape from keeps the body in a prolonged state of alertness, hyper-arousal, what in its most primal form we might recognise as fight or flight. Stay there long enough without being able to return to equilibrium and eventually the consequences begin to make themselves known physically, emotionally and relationally.
What interests me is how many people become so adapted to this state that they mistake it for normal functioning.
An acquaintance tells a story of how he had to deliberately make himself angry each morning before stepping onto his trading floor. He believed that if he relaxed, even slightly, his performance would drop.
Sadly., for many people work functions exactly like this. The high stakes keep them hyper-vigilant and constantly braced. Waiting for the next pressure point.
When clients describe their working lives, I often picture someone standing, surrounded by a circle of stakeholders. Around each stakeholder sits a basket of balls of different shapes, sizes and weights. Requests, priorities, interruptions, demands, emotions.
The balls come constantly; some fast, some unexpected, some impossible to hold.
And there they are in the middle trying to catch, manage and respond to all of them at once.
Imagine this is you. What happens to you when you live there for too long?
What do you catch?
What do you drop? Accidentally or, because you just can’t catch it?
What throws you off balance?
And how long can the nervous system sustain that level of activation before something begins to fray?
This is where I often think about the concept of the Window of Tolerance, developed by Dan Siegel and Pat Ogden.
The Window of Tolerance describes the zone in which we are able to function optimally under pressure. Present, calm, alert and connected. Able to think clearly whilst remaining emotionally regulated.
