Stress Reduction Specialist
It's a well-established fact that people don't perform well when they're
stressed. To keep their employees healthy (and productive), companies are
increasingly turning to stress reduction specialists.
If you've ever been scared, you know how it feels. Your heart races, your
breathing speeds up and you can feel adrenalin coursing through your body.
This is the good old fight-or-flight reaction. Your body is ready to fight
off an adversary or run like crazy.
All this internal hubbub is great if you're facing down a lion that thinks
you'd make a tasty lunch. It's not so great if you're at work.
Unfortunately, your body doesn't know the difference. If it senses you're
under stress -- any stress -- it starts sending out these chemicals.
It doesn't know that what you're scared of isn't being eaten, but of giving
a talk in front of 20 people, or of having an important meeting with your
boss.
"Stress is the number one leading claim for long-term disability benefits,
both in Canada and the U.S.," says David Granirer. He gives workshops to businesses
about relieving stress.
Businesses are listening. People who are stressed are sick more often,
stay sick longer and are more likely to burn out and quit. People are also
less productive when they're stressed: they make more mistakes, have fewer
good ideas, and are generally less productive every day.
No one can afford to have a whole company full of people not working at
their best. So businesses are bringing in experts who can teach them how to
eliminate stress in the workplace.
Some Different Approaches
There's no single way to alleviate stress, and different entrepreneurs
rely on different approaches. Granirer uses humor. "I'm a trainer for [a crisis
center]," he says, "and I'm a stand-up comic."
Laughter, like stress, changes how our body works. "They've done studies
that show laughter reduces stress," explains Granirer. "Your blood pressure
drops, and the physical act of laughing contracts and releases tensed-up muscles.
"It also stimulates the thymus gland -- the master gland that helps boost
your immune system."
So laughing is actually good for your body. It reverses the physical effects
of stress.
Martha Burgess got her start through acting. As a director, actress and
acting coach, a friend asked her to coach some executives on how to present
themselves in business situations. Before she knew it, Theater Techniques
for Business People was born.
Burgess soon found she had to deal with the stress issue before she began
teaching anything else. "You can't teach people if they're stressed out. You
have to deal with the stress first."
Stress can be a real liability for executives, especially when making presentations
or meeting other business people.
Under stress, Burgess explains, "people make inappropriate movements and
give non-verbal cues" that undermine their whole presentation. "You can't
fake not being stressed."
Dean Haislmaier of PeopleMax comes from a more conventional business background.
"I had my own real estate business for 25 years, then I got a graduate degree
in educational psychology."
His hands-on training as an executive, combined with his knowledge of people
and psychology, form the basis for his programs.
The Secrets of Stress
When we think of stress, we think of ringing phones and screaming bosses
and deadlines. That's not the whole story.
"Burnout and stress aren't the result of overwork," says Haislmaier. "People
love to work -- if they have some purpose. Giving meaning to work is the key
to reducing stress."
Making employees feel needed and valued is one of the best ways to combat
stress. If an employee feels their opinions and skills don't matter, they
just drag themselves to work every day, feeling miserable and unappreciated.
And being miserable is very stressful. It's also counter-productive, since
no one does their best work when they're miserable and don't care.
This kind of stress can't be solved with a few jokes or a massage. It's
an ongoing problem.
Haislmaier believes many of the stress reduction techniques used by some
companies "aren't long-lasting because they address the symptom instead of
the cause."
Everyone agrees the best way to cure this kind of stress is to treat the
whole company. "I start with communication techniques," says Haislmaier.
"A lot of managers have only one way of dealing with a problem: they only
have one arrow in their quiver." Often, that arrow is belligerence. One of
the things Haislmaier has to teach, for example, is "that disagree does not
mean dislike."
Burgess takes a similar tack. "Instead of the old model of having one leader
telling everyone else what to do, we're training people to be a company full
of leaders."
Though he uses humor as a medium and a stress reliever, Granirer agrees
this is just the starting point. "I use interactive exercises to teach them
some skills for communicating effectively."
Once companies learn to value their employees and listen to their input,
everyone feels better. They have less stress, like going to work and feel
like they're part of a team. Not surprisingly, their productivity and creativity
increase as a result. Everybody wins.
The expertise of stress reduction specialists is in demand, as stress seems
to be a huge health problem in the U.S.
How to Do It
As you can see, people come into this business from wildly different backgrounds.
Burgess advises that anyone who wants to get into the field should get some
experience in stress management themselves.
"There are lots of techniques for handling stress -- meditation or visualization,
for example. So, go and participate and find out what works for you. This
way, you know what the benefits are and how it really works."
Granirer says, "My counseling and psych background has really helped me.
I've done lots of group facilitation, which I combine with my skills as a
comic." He suggests newcomers take comedy workshops and courses on communications
to learn these skills.
Haislmaier says any courses on educational or organizational psychology
are a good place to start. "But not clinical psychology -- watching rats run
around a maze isn't much help."
And if you're helping business executives, it helps to have been one.
"Getting a sales job is great training," he says. "You have to learn to
read people, to deal with rejection, deal with pressure, and just pick yourself
up and keep going."
This hands-on experience brings a dose of reality to his courses and workshops.
"I lived it for 20 years, so I don't just sympathize with the people I teach.
I empathize."
Once you have the skill, you have to create the business to go with it.
"Any experience in marketing is really helpful," says Granirer. "Once you
have the skills, you have to know how to package them."
Of course, if you're going to be advising and training people, you have
to have some people skills yourself. "People don't want a boring guy giving
statistics and facts," says Granirer, "especially for a laughter workshop."
Once your business is established, fees vary depending on the length of
the workshop, how many people you train, and how in-depth the course is.
"You may not work all the time," says Granirer. "But when you are working
in this business you get paid really well.
"Speakers can get anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 for a 45-minute keynote
address. A half-day workshop runs anywhere from $500 to $1,500, or even more."
Burgess gives longer three-day workshops and charges $3,500. Haislmaier
does several different kinds of consulting services, but says it averages
out "to about $100 an hour." So the business, once you have a reputation,
is fairly lucrative.
Conclusion
Not too long ago, most businesses liked to see some stress in their employees.
After all, if you were too relaxed, it was assumed you just weren't working
hard enough.
But now evidence shows that stress on the job isn't a sign of success --
it's a sign of a problem. And it will eat away at the effectiveness of the
employee and the business.
So it's no surprise that more and more businesses are turning to stress
reduction specialists to get the competitive edge they need. And if they can
have a few laughs along the way, well, that's even better.
Links
Mind Tools
Check out the section on how to recognize and master stress
National Speakers Association
An organization of professional public speakers
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