Why Stress Makes You Feel Stupid
“I feel like I’m failing and it’s freaking me out” confided my Executive VP client. She is successful, yet stressed and maybe even a little burnt out. “I find it harder to think clearly and I’m making mistakes – I should know better!” I sympathized with her frustration. There’s a good reason why boredom, exhaustion, and stress makes you feel stupid. Fortunately, there is a way to get beyond this, keep your sanity (and your job) while regaining your smarts.
Put simply, most of us do not perform our best under stress. Everyone knows this. Oddly, organizations that breed stressful environments haven’t yet caught on to the cost involved. High-tension, work-overloaded, and deadline-intensive workplaces collectively lose billions of dollars per year. Almost the same rate of loss as the impact felt from lack of employee engagement.
Your Brain on Stress
Those of a certain age might remember the commercials in the 80s about your brain on drugs. The same commercial could be repeated for our modern systemic issue about your brain on stress. Put simply, stress makes you stupid. If that’s alarming to you, here’s what happens:
When your brain receives too much stress hormone activity, according to Yale professor Amy Arnsten and quoted by top neuroscience coach Ann Betz; it puts it in a “state of distraction, disorganization, forgetfulness, and lack of inhibition”.
Interestingly, boredom, being tired, and demotivation have the same effect on the brain. Leading neuroscience coach Ann Betz says: “Too little engagement and too much stress both take us to the same ineffective place. To be at our best, we need to be in balance.”
When you look at the neurological impact of stress, it’s no wonder businesses lose so much money due to the cost of poor performance due to stress. On the other hand, not all stress is bad stress. Put simplistically, stress is stimulation. Either too much or too little is not helpful for you to be at your best.
Brain Balance Insight
If you are interested in engaging your brain to the maximum benefit, let’s explore what you can do to achieve better balance. First, I encourage you to be curious about your current daily schedule and demands. If you are like most people, it’s likely that you have too much on your plate already.
Here are 10 reflective questions
- Do I rush into my mornings or am I more intentional about my boundaries?
- How often do I allow life to overrun my personal needs: almost never, sometimes, or often?
- How many days of the week do I feel completely exhausted at the end of the day?
- Where is my stress level at work on a 10-point scale? (10 being extremely stressful and 1 being almost bored.)
- Do I feel like I have a healthy relationship with physical activity?
- Is meditation, yoga, tai chi, art, or any other mindfulness methods a regular part of my life?
- How often do I watch or listen to news-related shows or podcasts and how do I feel afterward?
- Do I feel like I get enough sleep? If not, what is getting in the way?
- Am I more likely to rely on energy-boosting drinks and foods versus relying on natural energy?
- If I was 10 years older than I am now – what words of wisdom would I give myself?
What are your thoughts as you review the answers to these questions? You may not be surprised by these insights. It’s typical to create excuses (or “explanations”, as my husband calls them) for our behavior, even though we know it’s causing harm. The easy answer is to set better boundaries, practice more mindfulness, have a healthy active routine, and honor your sleep.
But we don’t do that (or stick with it). Why?
The reason we create these ‘explanations’ for not sticking with it is because our priorities are skewed away from the self-care values we hold dear in our hearts. Instead, we are focused on establishing ourselves as successful in our modern world. This misalignment creates inner friction! Acting against your innermost values creates serious levels of negative stress. Sadly, most people are completely unaware of the root cause behind the tension they feel every day.
You and millions of other people (I was there too!) are intently focused on marching to the beat of the corporate drum and trying to establish a life shown to us on social media with little regard to what will actually make you feel fulfilled and impactful in your life. It’s completely understandable. You, me, and generations of people have been programmed to believe that this is what we must do to have value in our society.
Having value, a purpose, and a reason for living, is a strong motivator!
The Stress–Values Connection
Based on a first-party survey by Indeed, published by Harvard Business Review, leaders identified having a Purpose as the most important factor at work. I will take that one step further. Having a purpose is what keeps most of us getting out of bed each morning. It is how we are wired.
When I started writing this article, I had no intention of including the importance of values. Recent studies have opened my eyes to the magnitude of living a values-aligned life and how it impacts stress.
In short, living misaligned to your innermost values creates friction. Being aligned creates peace, greater health, better mental and emotional balance, better decision making, leads to being successful (and higher-paid) at work, and enriched lives.
Those who live uninformed of their values feel like they struggle at work and have an unhealthy level of stress most of the week. Recent surveys done by Gallup support this, reporting that 44% of the workforce experiences a lot of stress daily.
Based on my experience as a Professional Success Coach, the vast majority of clients I interact with are also not values-aligned. I wasn’t either as a young professional! I was plodding forward on the corporate wheel, conditioned to think and act a certain way to achieve success (or so I thought).
It wasn’t until I had a harsh wake-up call that I realized my actions, my behaviors, and my lack of self-awareness were leading me down a path of misery and mediocracy. Years, much research, and self-development later: I’m living my best life.
My mission … no, my passion – is to make that journey more accessible and easier for everyone!
Finding Your Stress Sweet-Spot
In order to develop a balanced approach to life and find your stress sweet spot – it is critical to understand your innermost values. I would love to say that this is easy to do. Sadly, there are too many layers of societal programming in the way. Too many ‘shoulds’ and too much living up to others’ expectations (completely unconsciously).
That’s ok, it means that you are a normal person. I can’t stand it when someone asks me what my values are … I’m still figuring that out myself! Values aren’t cutesy one-word answers either. Gosh, wouldn’t that be nice? Values can be complex, often hidden in our pet peeves, our unconscious actions, and sometimes are in conflict with one another.
Values do not have to be an ‘either-or’ situation. Let’s say you value Money and you value Family. Values aren’t things or people. Money most likely represents something like Freedom or Status. Family could represent Belonging, Love, or Connection (or all of them). If you feel like these cancel each other out, you don’t have to choose. You can have both Status and Belonging. It’s not an ‘either/or’ situation.
Becoming Values-Aware
While it’s likely you can pick a word for a value, what that value means to you and how it shows up in your life is more richly informative than that. This is the reason you need another brain outside of the one in your skull to help you. This is why we have coaches.
Regardless, there is a lot you can do to explore what your values are and what is getting in the way. You can even start with the list below and you can coach yourself through this short exercise.
Who do you respect in your life? (Best friend, mentor, coworker, family member, public figure)
- Why do you respect them – what qualities do you admire?
- Why do you admire those qualities? (Keep asking why until you arrive at the real root cause.)
- Are those qualities showing up in your life right now?
- If yes, how are they showing up?
- If no, what is getting in the way?
- Is this value in conflict with another value?
- What behaviors need to shift to better align with this value?
- If it’s in conflict, can you explore merging values?
What makes you mad (a pet peeve) and why?
- What do you feel is infringed upon when someone triggers you?
- What meaning does that have in your life?
- What value do you feel this represents?
- How is this value showing up in your life right now?
- Is there anything getting in the way? Is this value in conflict with another value?
- What behaviors need to shift to better align with this value?
- If it’s in conflict, can you explore merging values?
Here’s a warning. Becoming more values-aware can be uncomfortable. Maybe you admire someone at work because they are successful. When you dig down by asking “why”, you realize that they have Status and that’s more important to you than Belonging (for example). I encourage you not to judge yourself for your values.
If you don’t like what you find, you can explore the Why behind them to discover where that value comes from. Most values are developed in early childhood. Your upbringing has shaped how you see the world. If you want to change this view, you can!
This exploration is building mental muscles and you are increasing your neuroplasticity (the ability to accept new concepts and process them). Neuroplasticity is critical for optimal brain health throughout your life. It also empowers you to change even your most fundamental beliefs.
In short – if you don’t like what you find, you can change your programming to be the person you want to be.
Values Alignment and Stress Balancing
When people reflect on their values and live in alignment with them, they often experience lower cortisol (stress hormone) levels. Being values-aware helps develop resilience when faced with challenges. Additionally, it increases your ability to make decisions that support success based on your strengths.
As Standford Psychologist, Kelly McGonigal, states: “Writing about personal values makes people feel more powerful, in control, proud, and strong.” Interestingly, it can also reduce the feeling of pain and increase one’s emotional intelligence. At the end of her TED Talk, she encourages you to “go after that which has meaning for you in your life and trust yourself to handle the stress that follows”.
Equally surprising, the goal in all of this is NOT to arrive at zero stress. In fact, it is to create a balance of stress. Nature demands a balance. Humans (based on my observations) are good at messing that up. We are the Kings and Queens of polarized thinking and being.
Just like extreme sports – extreme stress isn’t good for you in the long run. Neither is doing nothing. Some stress is important for optimal brain function and inner health. Even more interesting, Kelly cites research that leads us to a shocking conclusion:
Stress isn’t what is bad for you … it’s how you view stress that makes it bad (or not). Scientifically, stress is stimulation. It is your body’s natural response to prepare you to handle a situation. Those who viewed all stress as bad actually had a higher risk of dying!
Those more aligned with their values are less likely to view stimulation (stress) as bad because they are engaged in pursuits connected with who they are. This is the same reason why having a demanding job that you love to do doesn’t feel stressful. Your body responds differently. You aren’t ‘stressed’ – you are engaged, excited, passionate, etc. These are actually very similar to stress without the negative physical impacts.
Stress Balancing
Wait a minute – I started this article stating that stress has a negative effect on the brain! Yes, and that stress (or stimulation) is usually not values-aligned with who you are. Neither is boredom. We aren’t just human beings; we are also human doing – as long as this is in balance. The formula looks something like this:
Values alignment + healthy view of stress + balanced lifestyle = optimal brain and body function
As a human, you are designed for activity and you are designed to handle a certain amount of stress. These things go wrong when we plow forward in our lives un-self-aware and misaligned. It’s a recipe for disaster if you have unbalanced and unhealthy stress along with inner tension created from living misaligned with your core self.
It’s also a recipe for billions in lost revenue as a result of low engagement with high stress from overwhelming workloads and a lack of talent alignment. The solution is to get better at understanding Talent, to get better at developing people, and to build more collaborative cultures. Unless you can impact this, however, it’s a great idea to understand how you can take control of your professional experience.
The answer for you to live happier and more fulfilled is incredibly simple, my friend. It also calls you to let go of that which does not serve you and connect to who you really are.
Hi, I’m Coach Erin Urban – a certified professional success and neuro-leadership coach helping people just like you enjoy more impact with less stress. Like this post? Consider subscribing here to my monthly newsletter or check out my YouTube channel for more resources.
