Corporate Emotional Intelligence by Chick Gareth;

Author:Chick, Gareth;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Critical Publishing

The Medical and Neurological Effects of Stress

The major medical manifestations of stress are headaches, stomach upsets and back pain. These conditions can of course be caused by some form of physical trauma or ingested foreign body – stress is by no means the only culprit. But in the absence of a physical agent, mental stress is likely to be at the root. The body reacts (experiences pain) to having stored up the stresses and unexpressed emotions for a period of time, until it has to demand attention (rest or treatment) through rendering its owner incapable of work.

We become jumpy, easily spooked, ‘on the edge’ – in this heightened state the merest hint of threat can set us off. This is why people get into states of near paranoia. A CEO client recounted how, despite truly Herculean signals and evidence from her Chairman that she was fully supported, valued and thought to be doing all the right things, she lived in fear of being sacked. Irrational, yet undeniable and unconquerable. It culminated in being asked to meet her Chairman late one afternoon, and her enduring the discussion simply waiting for the axe to fall. When it didn’t, since the meeting was wholly positive and supportive, my client came away still believing that her fate had been decided but that the Chairman had bottled it! Insanity!

A VP client recounted the story of feeling so unwell at a company offsite (one that he had organised for his own leadership team!) that he travelled all the way back from London to his home in another country on auto-pilot – literally unable to recall any of the journey, save for one hazy recollection of finding himself sitting on the floor in the middle of the departure hall in Terminal 5 of Heathrow, being surrounded by concerned airport staff, and being helped through security. He collapsed the moment he walked through his front door and spent a week in bed. This client is very successful, hugely respected by his team and his boss alike. So where did the extreme stress come from?

One can only conclude that so much of the stress in today’s managers is utterly self-generated, but that would be to deny the power of the system, and to place too simplistic a responsibility on individuals to ‘grow up and snap themselves out of it’. Corporatism is creating a form of mass hypnosis, and although its defenders will argue that the system cannot be blamed, that is the start of the witch-hunt to find the scapegoats. If the defenders of Corporatism accept that this extreme self-generated stress is endemic, then they must seek to analyse why and how it happens.

So how does it happen? There is a lot of research now centring on inflammation being the critical factor in neurologically based conditions. When parts of the brain become inflamed, they cease to function normally, as with any other part of the body that experiences damage. But with the brain, we are unable to use the

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