The perception of danger triggers adrenaline into the bloodstream, acting like an “on-call” stimulant that enables a quick reaction and prepares for attack and defense. In acute stress, that adrenaline causes a redistribution of blood volumes: decreases in the skin and other organs, increases in the heart, brain, and muscles, to ready the body for combat. Adrenaline is like an internal emergency drug that should not be activated permanently, as it leads to chronic stress.
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Among other consequences, its use over long periods produces the so-called metabolic syndrome, with hypertension, high cholesterol, abdominal fat accumulation, reduced sexual performance, cognitive deterioration, and immune deficits.
Studies identify three psychological profiles according to how people react to stress.
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Type A defines competitive, aggressive, and controlling individuals. These people have a higher risk of heart attack and stroke.
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Type B corresponds to relaxed, calm, confident individuals who pay attention to personal well-being as well as interpersonal relationships and emotional expression, including hostile emotions. They are those who have the lowest risk of physical and mental illness.
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Type C corresponds to passive, introverted individuals with tendencies toward submission and emotional expression blockages. They disengage and wear a figurative virtual helmet, defensively isolating themselves in a kind of autism that makes them impermeable to others and to reality.
They are the ones who “swallow poison” and are prone to allergies, respiratory diseases, and cancer. In recent years, a group of researchers at Yale University found that stress triggers the production of the enzyme PKC, which causes deficits in thinking, planning, judgment, and memory. This enzyme also generates impulsivity, reality-detachment, and swings between euphoria and depression. These new studies show that in stressful situations perspective is lost, decisions are fear- or desperation-driven, data is avoided or denied, and as adrenaline slows, feelings of exhaustion, emptiness, and depression arise.
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To maintain high performance, people begin using another kind of stimulants: overeating and drinking, smoking, psychotropic drugs, and in some cases drugs, extreme sports, or gambling.
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Any stimulus that activates or replaces adrenaline production—adrenaline or external stimulants—will leave the individual too tense or hyperactive, “hard.” The problem is that if one resorts to tranquilizers, these dull mental alertness and the ability to react to new stimuli.
Imagine I get a call saying there was a robbery at my office, only to find out nothing serious happened. In a false alarm, the adrenaline that has already entered circulation will take hours to metabolize and clear. Moreover, not only the body but an organization can become addicted to adrenaline and only react to emergencies. When adrenaline is lacking, people feel depressed and discouraged, with no enthusiasm or expectations.
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The tragedy is that team members begin generating artificial emergencies to feel the euphoria adrenaline provides. They no longer work in peace. They create crises and conflicts and live in a state of constant tension. In that climate, creativity is stifled, the human network fragments. And due to physical and mental exhaustion, people end the day shattered.
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The quality of their work suffers, but so do their family and social life and their physical and mental health. Over time, a tolerance phenomenon appears, as in drug use: to achieve the same effect, a higher dose is needed. Creativity withers, and in the long run, so does reaction capacity, due to the exhaustion of living in constant emergency.
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When one operates linearly, we behave like a country at war, whose priority is to defend its borders. All resources are allocated to defense. Health, education, culture, and growth in general become impoverished. It’s true that, at times, war skills are necessary: defense and attack are indispensable when survival is at stake.
However, for sustainable growth and expansion, peaceful-time resources are required.
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Creativity exercised in a climate of trust generates well-being; the responses from others boost one’s energy, and the day ends less tired and—even—with extra enthusiasm for other activities.
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This is also the case with non-competitive sports, games, hobbies, sex, dancing, and music—activities that trigger endorphins, the hormones of pleasure. Similarly, the empathetic responses of others, demonstrations of affection, acceptance, and recognition also generate endorphins. It’s interesting to observe that, in a new and potentially unsettling situation, those with more experience and confidence in their abilities will rely less on adrenaline, and those who feel supported by their team will too. It’s true that in an exciting challenge, both endorphins and adrenaline are activated.
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Undoubtedly, when facing a new challenge—such as a romantic conquest, a new job, or travel to unknown places—both fear and pleasure come into play. Conversely, the negative cycle appears: if I am on the defensive, I do not receive or register the support of the human network. In a lone, heroic struggle, I am left with using more adrenaline to stay upright. Chronic stress, experienced by many leaders and high-level executives, represents a chronic deficit in the quality of thinking and a narrowing of vision. This leads to linear functioning and destroys the conditions for thinking and creating. Moreover, in a vicious circle, linear functioning brings more stress. In periods of stress, the body is at the edge of exhaustion and the mind at the edge of function. Emotions are also strained. Hence some wonder why they exhibit irritability and violence in seemingly insignificant situations.
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And this effect is not limited to the office but also spills into family and social life. Urgency, information overload, constant interruptions, and a lack of creative exercise are among the causes of stress in teams and organizations. Stress reaches high levels of toxicity in a negative, tense climate. Of course, linear organizations do not need their people’s creativity; they require obedience.
The team becomes uniform, and thus “goes to the front,” fit only for war. The gravest result is that the most talented fall ill or leave, leaving behind the most rigid, the ones with the most endurance and the least imagination.
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By contrast, when one learns to manage diversity and tolerates the disorder typical of complexity, the organization not only grows and expands but stays vital and young. Talents stay because they are valued and protected. Shifting models means recognizing as values time off, flexible schedules, opportunities to engage in more playful activities, richer human connections, and time for imagination. Attacking quality of life implies high health costs for organizations, and mental-health losses carry a high price in errors of judgment and poor decisions made under altered states and linear thinking.
Preserving people’s mental health seems essential to prevent errors and accidents and to promote creative functioning. Moreover, when we become addicted to stimuli, work encroaches on private life, harming our relationships and creative potential. Conversely, in a collaborative climate, our creativity and personality spread to all vital areas and also into work.
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