Last week we covered two of Albrecht’s types of stress, time and situational. This week we’re looking at the final two, anticipatory and encounter stress.
Anticipatory Stress
This is when you experience stress about the future. This can be connected to a specific event, such as a presentation you are due to give, or it can be generalised, meaning you are not able to pinpoint what exactly it is in the future that concerns you, but you feel something will go wrong.
So what can you do?
The first thing to remember is that the future has not happened yet, so what you think may happen, might not. In fact, things could work out vastly different to what you are expecting and you may even have the chance to alter the way the event turns out. One way you can do this is to use positive visualisations, like the ones athletes use when they are preparing for a competition. The science shows that your brain cannot tell the difference between real events and those that have been visualised or imagined many times. So, if you think about giving a fabulous presentation over and over, and you really concentrate on the details of doing it, your mind will think it’s already happened.
You could also learn how to meditate. This will allow you to keep your emotions in check and control your stress reaction. They allow you to concentrate on what’s happening now, rather than what might happen in the future. After all, you could produce a great presentation with no hitches at all.
Your stress may also be caused by an irrational fear of failure. If this is the case, you can address this by making sure that you prepare as best you can beforehand. If we take the example of a presentation again, extra preparation may include practicing more than usual, making extra notes or preparing a Powerpoint presentation to take the eyes off you for a while.
Encounter Stress
This type of stress is centred on people. Your stress arises from the idea of having to see someone, or a group of people, that you don’t want to encounter. This feeling of dread may be because you feel the people you are meeting are aggressive, unpredictable or in distress themselves. Obvious occupations where you may encounter this kind of stress are related to the emergency services, counselling or social work. But, that’s not to say that it doesn’t occur in other work environments too. For example, if you work in an environment where you are constantly people facing, you may suffer from what is known as contact overload. This is when you feel unable to cope with the amount of interaction you are expected to engage in with people on a day to day basis.
So what can you do?
One of the best ways to counter act this type of stress is to work on your people skills. If you can learn how to manage your interactions with the people who cause you stress, your levels should start to drop and you’ll start to feel more confident. A good place to start work is on your emotional intelligence. This will allow you to recognise the emotions, wants and needs of others and yourself. Once you can do this, you’ll find that your ability to interact well with other increases and you can build stronger relationships.
It’s also useful for you to know when you are about to reach your limit for dealing with other people. Unfortunately, it is often the case that even when you have reached your threshold, you’ll not be in a position to say no to more interaction. But if you are, it’s great to know the signs of contact overload so you can stop and take time for yourself. There are many different symptoms of contact stress, and what you’ll experience may be different to others but you should keep an eye out for the following:
• becoming withdrawn
• working in a mechanical fashion
• feeling cold
• getting fractious with your colleagues
• being impersonal in your interactions
Once you start to notice these symptoms you should take a break as soon as possible and address your levels of stress.
Now you have a basic idea of the kinds of stress you might encounter, you can keep your eye for them and prepare a plan of action to counteract the effects. Next week we’ll look at simple ways to reduce your stress levels.
