Calling All Men… Are you STRESSED OUT? By Lisa Zaccheo, MA, BCH, BC
Irritable Bowel Syndrome, heart issues, weight gain, decreased sex drive or erectile dysfunction and - yes - even cancer, to name just a few. It also takes a toll on the mind, creating memory impairment, confusion, mental exhaustion, a short fuse, detachment and anxiety, which can often lead to depression.
W
Let’s Talk About Stress It’s stressful even thinking about stress, and for many men it’s
even more stressful trying to talk about stress, because it has been deeply ingrained that they have to be tough enough to handle what- ever life throws their way. Even when they’re not feeling tough, they feel that they have to maintain the outward façade of being “OK.” To men, having people see that they’re stressed equals vulnerability, which in turn causes more stress. Many men also don’t have the full range of emotional language that women have, because they haven’t had the practice or the support systems that women have had to talk about their feelings. So men tend to bottle up their stress more than women, which is doubly detrimental.
As I was researching for this article, which for me entails a mix of information gathering and interviewing, I experienced fi rst hand the challenges that men have connecting with and expressing their feelings around stress. It ran the gamut between denial, “I’m never stressed; I don’t know what you’re talking about,” when that clearly wasn’t the case, to “I’m stressed but I don’t know what is causing it, and it makes me feel uncomfortable trying to talk about it,” to “I plead the fi fth.” My heart goes out to my male counterparts, because we all get stressed by life in this modern world and need support and tools to learn how to manage it, so it doesn’t do the damage de- scribed above.
Women’s Vs. Men’s Roles We women have had our challenges adjusting to the changing
roles over the past 50 years or so. Not that long ago our primary role was to take care of the house and the kids and leave the working world to the men. I think we’ve done a great job of adjusting to be- ing out in the working world while still taking care of the bulk of the responsibilities of the home and children. In fact, I think it’s been an easier adjustment for women to go out into the working world than it has been for men to share more of the emotional aspects of home and family and has added another layer of stress that wasn’t there before. Women shifted from the domestic, emotional world to the
26 Natural Nutmeg - June 2016
e know that even moderate levels of prolonged stress have countless negative effects on the body, including insomnia, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, headaches, GERD,
more logical, analytical world; and men are working to shift from the logical, black-and-white work world to the living-in-the-grey emotion- al world of home and the complexities of emotions that don’t make a lot of logical sense. It’s easier to shift into logic than it is into emotion, which has created some challenges and additional stressors for men.
The Pace of Life The world has changed signifi cantly over the past 50 years, most noticeably the pace. To think that back in 1985, only 30 years ago, the computer was in its infancy. I remember working on a typewriter my fi rst job out of college when “Wite-Out” was both a blessing and a curse. Then came the cell phone, which caused the pace of life to speed up signifi cantly. The speed of technology moved faster than the speed of evolution, and our brains, which were used to working at one pace for a long, long time, had diffi culty adjusting to a pace that was double its normal speed and is getting faster by the day. Now we have technology that allows us to listen to TV shows and podcasts one-third faster, so we can cram more into our day. STRESSFUL!!
Pace of life is one of the top 5 stressors that men experience. The other four are their health, their job, family and relationship expecta- tions, and fi nances. I’m sure the interrelatedness of all 5 has become apparent in that health is affected by the other 4 factors.
Men, in
general, are unhealthier than women. This pattern starts pretty much at birth, with more male babies not surviving than females, and is then compounded by the fact that most men will put off going to the doctor for as long as possible until things get so dire that they can’t not go. So even though they’re not taking great care of themselves, they still worry about their health, which causes more stress and takes a greater toll on health - a “Catch 22” if I’ve ever seen one.
Performance and Job Stress Performance success is a major concern for most men, as they
place their value on how they’re compared to others in the work world. I work with many high-level executives whom you’d think would be the most secure in their jobs, but they’re not. They struggle with imposter syndrome and the constant fear of being pushed off the pedestal by a competitor. They also worry about keeping up with their peers and being accepted within the pack. They typically do not have an emotional outlet. Most men don’t have a large number of friends, and when they do connect socially, maybe at a sporting event or on the golf course, they’re not talking about what’s really going on and certainly not talking about their feelings or stressors. They’re work- ing to be seen as having it all together and keeping the kinks in their armor well hidden.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42