Dr. Robert Sapolsky offers stress tips for professionals (UPDATE)
If you’ve never been pursued by a carnivorous predator in the workplace, you’ve probably never stressed in the way Mother Nature intended. Instead of stressing about immediate survival, professionals stress over deadlines, job security and the economy — not the kind of life-threatening moments stress can help resolve. As Dr. Robert Sapolsky tells it, humans constantly turn on stress responses for the wrong reasons, and it’s killing us.
Sapolsky’s National Geographic special, “Stress: Portrait of a Killer,” airs nationwide Wednesday night on PBS. The special explores what 30 years of baboon research have taught Robert about stress, and how humans have a knack for turning psychological dis-ease into physical disease. We had a rare chance to sit down with Robert and sought to apply his groundbreaking research to the common office primate.
Ever wondered how important grooming is to putting stress in check? Find out:
All documentary footage courtesy Stanford/National Geographic.
Beyond the four key tips Robert offers for reducing stress, he notes the importance of friends and grooming, which are “much more predictive of health than your rank.” This can be applied to the professional sphere and networking online. LinkedIn helps professionals maintain a network of quality relationships which should accurately reflect their offline experience. As Robert says, “Primates don’t get a lot of solace from 2000 friends” — build a reliable network of people you know and trust. Instead of literal “grooming”, professionals need recognition and approval from peers to help reduce anxiety, depression, or neuroses. A simple virtual application of this need is met through LinkedIn Recommendations, a service by which LinkedIn users can express approval of each others’ work, which in turn enables them to feel good about their accomplishments and pursue greater opportunities.
This week on LinkedIn Answers, Robert asks, “When it comes to balancing stress and professional achievement, how do you decide when ‘enough is enough’?” Follow the link to weigh in with your own solution to balancing stress or to find out how other successful professionals are doing just that.
UPDATE: A related article from Lifehacker notes that workplace envy causes employees to collaborate less and withhold information, according to a study by the University of Notre Dame. For those that missed the special Wednesday night, it’s available for pre-order on Amazon for a November 18 release. In addition, you can download a few free podcasts from iTunes which feature lectures by Dr. Sapolsky.
trackback
http://blog.linkedin.com/2008/09/21/linkedin-gets-s/trackback/
David "CrazyKinux" Perry September 22nd, 2008
Thanks for the stress reducer Rob. Too bad you’re in LA cause I’d let you groom me! ;-)
And thanks for the heads up on the NatGeo. Will make sure to get it PVRed.
Cheers
David "CrazyKinux" Perry September 22nd, 2008
Thanks for the stress reducer Rob. Too bad you’re in LA cause I’d let you groom me! ;-)
And thanks for the heads up on the NatGeo. Will make sure to get it PVRed.
Cheers
Bob Whaler September 22nd, 2008
I am alarmed and very disappointed in Linked-in’s handling of this.
Stress and stress related diseases kills more people than cancer. (Although some cancers are stress related.) Stress is a serious medical issue facing our generation, and this video treats it like a joke to say nothing of being woefully disrespectful to a published and widely read expert in the field.
To be frank and constructive, the interview and editing makes my wonder if Linked-in is a site for professionals or just one of those typical “dotcom’s” that litter the valley. I like this site, but I have to be honest, this video makes me wonder if this is just another FaceBook but in a nicer suit.
The professor’s use of the word ‘grooming’, which was an obviously a metaphor for building meaningful relationships which make us happy and which lowers stress–your friends, family–was treated by the interviewer like some joke a sophomore in high school would tell.
If the interviewer doesn’t understand the difference between virtual relationships, weak relationships, and intimate ones, that’s fine. But to interview a professor who is trying to help people live better and longer lives through lower stress and to make a joke of it is just sad and unprofessional.
My friendly advice is to re-edit the last scene in the ending to show that someone, somewhere, within linked-in understands why the professor ended the interview with your employee. A different ending about how to use linked-in to nurture those intimate relationships which lower stress would be smart.
In short, this is very embarrassing for linked-in. (And I hope the company has the honesty to post this constructive comment.)
rob getzschman September 22nd, 2008
Hey Bob, thanks for your frank and honest comments. Perhaps the interview doesn’t belie the good time Robert was having with the interview. He’s got a terrifically dry sense of humor, and when he said, “I’m wasting my time with you, what can I say,” it was pointed more to the fact that I only knew two people on LinkedIn, and thus clearly was not important enough to be scheduled on his calendar. Be assured, Robert and I laughed a lot during the interview, and he didn’t request for the interview to end.
Stress is certainly a serious topic, and we highly recommend Robert’s special airing Wednesday night on PBS. He perpetually uses his straight-faced humor to communicate important facts about dealing with stress. For example, he told us, “There’s a certain amount of ineffectualness to meditating in response to a lion attacking you.” Now there’s an understatement.
Our response was to be just as dry in our questioning of the use of grooming for professionals, which he understood to be a joke. We understand the distinctions of professional, personal and intimate relationships. But keeping in time with Robert’s sense of humor, we applied it to the professional sphere and went looking for a Groomer on LInkedIn (see the final visual).
We want the LinkedIn community to take stress seriously, and typically blog content is lighter fare. So our intent was to turn people on to Robert’s special on Wednesday night for a more intensive look. Thanks for taking the time to post your concerns here – blogs should be a conversational medium!
RSG September 23rd, 2008
Wow I got a bit stressed out reading Bob’s comments. Thanks for putting the light touch back on it Rob.
Ed Wawrzaszek September 23rd, 2008
I for one certainly enjoyed the video in a most dry prolific existential way. I sometimes find my own sarcastic cynacism a torential way of dealing with the trial at hand. Blazes I might even be right half of the time. Finding humor as a way of releiving stress is a magnaminous way to reach into one sole and find the purpituity that drives us into reality. You have to laugh have some comedy for cryin out loud. Just a little bit though not so much that you become….stupid. Laughter is not only good for the sole but is good for the cardiovascular system and provides enhanced blood flow to those bodily organs that need it most. Be a groomer a mentor share what life has to offer, not just money, blood or advice, but faith.
Brian Allan September 23rd, 2008
I’d be stressed if my office was that messy. He must have cracked the code.
Tanya Barham September 24th, 2008
Improving/degrading health takes time & depends on the motivation of the person in question:
A person who has been smoking a pack a day for 40 years has lifted a cigarette to her lips 292,000 times.
How to gain 20 lb? Eat about 150 calories over your resting energy expenditure per day and don’t exercise. You’d gain that weight in 466 days.
Stress behaviors are so much harder to change because they seem involuntary, intangible and like they come at us from the outside. The research on the impact of stress and building vitality/resiliency is so very interesting! The links to neurophysiology are really entrenched. I think the professor touches on some important points about work life.
In humans’ lives, many of the work related stressors are environmental and ubiquitous to the culture or the organization in question. It takes a systematic, disciplined and strategic approach to turn that ship around in existing companies, but it is certainly an effort worth undertaking.
Some links:
http://recesswellness.com/wellness-your-personal-guide.php
http://recesswellness.com/corporate_case_bhb1.php
laura September 24th, 2008
rob:
so apropos…
i’m getting my MPH and studying the social and behavioral elements of health. there is most definitely a linear relationship between socioeconomics and health – stress, attitudes, predispositions are all factors…
thank you for sharing this!
hope you are well,
L
Sandeep Manudhane September 25th, 2008
I found the analysis very user-friendly. Frankly, to put something really serious in a 4 minute video is a challenge, but yes, one can try. My first reaction on watching this may have been : hey, this looks like those NatGeo online vid clips where great videos are ruined by a comical voiceover. But then, this is overall a helpful starter for lot of people. The professor is outstanding, and has motivated me to dig deeper. Thanks Linkedin!
Philippe Back September 25th, 2008
Great vid!
Planning time with family in the agenda right away.
More seriously, a great deal of my stress management boils down to:
a) manage the agenda efficiently
b) scrape meaningless meetings without guilt
c) get to work from home office 2+ days a week
d) work in my own business
e) use the web as much as possible to get things done
David September 25th, 2008
Rob,
That was great. I laughed a bunch when he said “I am wasting my time with you”. You know, I have seen the massage chairs, relaxation lounges, break rooms, game rooms, all at the work place but now I am going to recommend a grooming lounge. What a way to shed that corporate atmosphere of pride and just sit back for a few minutes and let someone pick through your hair and munch on bugs, etc. If nothing else, it would be great for someone to take the time and get the burdocks (spelling?) out of my beard. :)
Thanks again!
Dan Yurman September 25th, 2008
My wife and I watched the special together Wednesday. Our take away is that western society overwhelms us with stress generators. Learning from the baboons indicates that good social skills clearly are important methods for coping with stress, but they don’t remove the underlying causes. Healthy living is a boundary spanning practice and the focus to achieve it is easily distracted by all sorts of things. The message I got from the natGeo special was – honor yourself before giving in to the elegance of prevailing culture.
dan Burgess September 25th, 2008
Loved it. A relaxed, easy going, knowledgeable presenter who has so obviously done his research and personally learnt from it. Working in the field of medical education, and somehow managing to remain stress free, I do wish I could come across this relaxed.
The humor is so refreshing, though dry, this is what people need to be able to do. To put life into perspective and relax into all that is good in life, rather than worrying about things we cannot change.
Perhaps a group of us here could learn and apply the messages here to education on depression, paranoia, anxiety and psychological dis-ease (nice play on words there), anyone interested – we could groom this for some real good stress relief.
Mathew Slack September 25th, 2008
I can’t believe I actually watched the entire video, I am very stressed now.
Drue September 25th, 2008
How appropriate to have “grooming” be a focal point of the conversation! Ironic that the good professor could use a good Grooming!
Tom September 25th, 2008
Inside the laws of nature, the physically strongest are least stressed because they get what they need for survival and “thrival”. Inside our laws the strongest are least stressed because they get what they need for survival and “thrival”. The strongest are suited perfect for the society that has been created. These types will continue a society in which they are the “stressors” and not the “stressees” because they are in charge. The stressees have 3 options. 1. Wait for a bout of babboon tuburculosis, or dinosaur meteor etc..(natural catastrophe). 2. Beat the stressors. War..etc. 3. Join them. Incredibly, in most cases option 3 is chosen…(based on probable consequences), but rarely successful. (see corporate america). 3 requires a physical brain chemistry change to become a stressor. Cool stuff..but I Can hardly wait for the meteor.
rob getzschman September 25th, 2008
Thanks for the comments everyone, glad to know that in some cases the video is releasing stress, and in other cases, causing stress for the dedicated procrastinators. (Matthew Slack may be quite the aptronym.) It’s good to know this feature has provided a practical resource for our audience, whether for personal or professional purposes. Check the updated links above if you missed the broadcast!
Annette Brewster September 26th, 2008
Rob,
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this.
As a type A, and understanding where my hierachy is in relation to stress was a definate eye opener. More so to learn what I can do to throw a curve ball for preventative maintenance within!
Thank you for your studies — look forward to your next 10 years of studies.
Elizabeth September 26th, 2008
I am visual, loved the fact that the principle of animal behavior are similar to human.
If you like to reduce “stress” from your life, just get yourself a fury animal and watch their behavior…after a while, all that fuss about stress start making sense.
chris vassilopoulos September 28th, 2008
It is good to try to find the roots of stress not in stress itself which is usually an outcome of other situations.
It is good to try to dig deep into our psyche and check for priorities.
What really are we pursuing for and we get anxiety and stress if we do not find? Lots of money? Biiig houses? Huuuge cars? What are really our priorities and connection with more meaningful elements. Have we ever wondered that perhaps what the society has established as “important”, if they are really? I mean when enough is enough in all aspects of our life? What happened to true love? Not lust or eccentric desire but plain and honest love for ourselves and others. What are plans for action are? To conquer and destroy or simply to build and cherish.
It is good for all of us to sit down and meditate on the fundamental values of our life that drive us to blish or to stress or to ignorance.
There is hidden wisdom there.
Mukesh October 8th, 2008
I want to add doing something new to Dr. Robert Sapolsky four tips.
I can’t resist to mention my stress free week guide here. This is an action guide having stress tips and a relief for a stress-free week. This has seven stress tips, one each for everyday of the week and gives you a stress relief. It is 19 pages PDF e-book. These are practical tips and have a total freshness. You will enjoy doing them. See what others said about this guide.
My guaranty is you will find few stress tips you have never heard and they all work. This is more to tune our mind, thinking and judgment for stress relief. This is to change our life style for better.
Among many ways and methods to relieve stress, a new activity is very good stress buster. One lesser known fact is that the majority, indeed very vast majority, of us do not have a hobby. So that means that most of us are consumed with routine activities only.
You can get the guide at http://www.always-stress-free.com
Herbalife Discount November 1st, 2008
Outstanding!
Keep smiling. It’s contagious.
Rich
Kelli Jenkins February 17th, 2009
I think Robert rocks. I am a nurse and in college to become an Art Therapist (painting creates alpha waves). I purchased Nat Geo “Portrait of a Killer” as soon as I saw in in Sept. My Abnormal Psych prof. is checking it out right now. The date this was released still blows my mind! How appropriate for events in our economy. Robert you must have a crystal ball too.
Jeremy March 20th, 2009
Stress is a complex animal. Each of us need it to a greater or lesser extent – so people only thrive in high pressure situations. What would be do without Pilots prepared to handle the stress of landing a fully laiden 747 in a storm?
However, of course we need a toolbox of techniques to manage the effects of stress. One thing I rate is a great de-stress routine to “de-compress” after a stressful situation.
I’ve used a Deep Relaxation CD for a while now, and I see that the guy that produced it is now doing a free MP3 version for download on his site. You can get it here: http://www.andrewjohnson.co.uk/
grace mueni muli May 11th, 2009
i dont know what to say when it comes to real life and serious issues that involve life or death except,live your life the best way you know how!!