1. What makes a situation stressful?



2. Can I avoid stressful changes in my life?



3. Is it true that too much stress is bad for us?



4. How does stress produce such bad effects in us?



5. What If we can't avoid stressful circumstances? Is there no alternative to performance and health deficits?
   
   
6. Is it easy to maintain a lifestyle that minimizes stress and strain?



7. How can I develop the resources that lead to a hardy lifestyle?



8. How do I know that HardiTraining® is effective?



How do I know if I need HardiTraining�?

QUESTION: What makes a situation stressful?

We experience two kinds of circumstances as stressful. ACUTE STRESS involves daily changes that disrupt our functioning. When a change disrupts the rhythm of our day, we need to make physical, mental, or behavioral adjustments to return us to normal functioning. The ease with which these adjustments are made determines our level of stress. Covering job duties for an ill co-worker, discovering your babysitter cannot show up today, or losing your job because of company reorganization, are examples of acute stress. Acute stresses whether minor or major have an end in sight. The other type of stress is CHRONIC. This involves mismatches between what we want in life and what we think we get. Here a continuing conflict between us and the world we live in is the major source of stress. Thinking of yourself as creative but stuck in a routine job, desiring a significant relationship but having none, or wanting a home with a yard to grow flowers when you live in a high-rise apartment building in major city, are examples of chronic stress. Return to Questions

QUESTION: Can I avoid stressful changes in my life?

In times of rapid change, it is not easy to avoid stressful professional and personal changes. Changes go on with or without us. Today we need strong personal effectiveness resources if we want to thrive, rather than just survive, these changes. An increasing global economy affects our lives both professionally and personally. We cannot stop megatrends; we can only transform changes that come our way into opportunities for new learning and development. Jobs come and go, and we find ourselves moving from place to place in pursuit of economic security. At times, changes require that we leave friends, family, and communities behind, having to try to start over. Even if you try to simplify your living, change is inevitable. For most of us, constructing a life devoid of acute and chronic stresses is just not feasible these days. Return to Questions

QUESTION: Is it true that too much stress is bad for us?

Absolutely. Actually, a little STRESS can be good for us, in the sense of keeping us on our toes, and avoiding boredom. But prolonged stress can really undermine our performance, leadership, morale, conduct, and health. Too much stress is a major factor in the leading causes of death in the U.S. (such as cancer, heart disease, and accidents). Short of death, other adverse effects of prolonged stress include depression, anxiety, burnout, disorganization, ineffectiveness, low morale, obesity, drug abuse, alcoholism, and violence. Return to Questions

QUESTION: How does stress produce such bad effects in us?

Acute or chronic stresses, whether minor or major, register in your mind as danger. Your body gears up to help you "fight" or "flee" the situation at hand. Blood sugar, fatty acids, adrenaline and other stimulating chemicals and hormones enter your blood stream to increase brain and body arousal. In turn, your immune and digestive system shut down to support this process. Evolutionarily, the fight or flight response was meant to be swift and decisive. A cave man for example, kills his prey and then returns to calm until hunger strikes him again. Today, however, we cannot fight or flee stressful circumstances, we must find civilized ways to resolve them. This in combination with highly stressful lives, prolongs the fight or flight response, which leads to strain. Strain increases blood pressure and cholesterol level, tension, impatience, sleeplessness, cravings for sweet and fatty foods, and saps motivation to deal with problems that come our way. Prolonged strain depletes our body's resources and leads to performance, leadership, morale, conduct, and health deficits. Return to Questions

QUESTION: What if we can't avoid stressful circumstances, is there no alternative to performance and health deficits?

Fortunately, there are lifestyle habits that minimize the likelihood of performance, leadership, and health deficits when stressful circumstances mount. Self-care health practices that include relaxation, nutrition, and exercise help to reduce stress-related strain. Although quite important to the performance and health process, self-care health practices deal only with the effects of prolonged stress. If you want to maintain and strengthen your performance, leadership, and health, you need to cope with stresses in a way that turns them into opportunities for new learning, and development. This involves key attitudes and resources that mobilize the coping process. Return to Question

QUESTION: Is it easy to maintain a lifestyle that minimizes stress and strain?

Once you experience the numerous performance, leadership, and health benefits to a hardy lifestyle, the lifestyle that helps you turn adversity to constructive advantage, such practices become second nature to you. Denying, avoiding, and withdrawing from life's problems may help you to feel better in the short run. An unresolved problem, however, often times snowballs in ways that increases its unmanageability. Facing life's difficulties head-on may cause you short-term pain. But, once you resolve the problem, it is over. Return to Question

QUESTION: How can I develop the resources that lead to a hardy lifestyle?

Our HardiTraining� program helps you to strengthen attitudes and resources that help you to turn acute and chronic stresses into opportunities for new learning and development, and enhanced performance, leadership, and health. HardiTraining� is available in various training formats, which include a semi self-help format and a train-the-trainer format for large corporations and institutions. Comprehensive training manuals complete with stimulating narrative, provoking case studies, and practice exercises, build hardiness resources in you. Certified Hardiness Trainers (CHT™) provide hands-on HardiTraining� coaching. You can implement training modules according to your needs. HardiTraining� makes a world of difference in developing beneficial and lasting performance, leadership, and health enhancing lifestyle habits. Return to Questions

QUESTION: How do I know that HardiTraining� is effective?

There is lots of evidence from research and practice of the effectiveness of HardiTraining�.   We developed it almost 25 years ago, to help Illinois Bell Telephone (IBT), manage the stressful changes created by the federal deregulation of AT&T. (See the Illinois Bell Telephone link) Since that landmark study, hardiness continues to be researched throughout the world. As you can see from our publication link researchers in business, schools, public safety, health, and family, show the effectiveness of hardiness in enhancing performance, leadership, morale, conduct, and health. Return to Questions

QUESTION: How do I know if I need HardiTraining^�?

Despite your good intentions to manage the stress in your life, prolonged physical, mental, and behavioral strain usually means your efforts are less than effective. You show performance, leadership, and health deficits if daily stressful changes make you irritable, impatient, angry, overwhelmed, bitter, and resentful, or you feel fatigued, exhausted, anxious, and depressed at the end of the day, or you have frequent body discomforts and illnesses such as colds, flu, indigestion, diarrhea, constipation, and aches and pains. If this is you, you may want to take our HardiSurvey� to get a clear picture of how stress currently affects performance, leadership, and health. The HardiSurvey� evaluates your stress vulnerability relative to your stress resistance resources. It then produces a Performance Effectiveness Index that estimates the effectiveness of your performance, and health habits in helping you to turn stresses into opportunity for new learning, professional and personal renewal, and enhanced performance, leadership, and health. For further information, see the HardiSurvey� Test link, a customized confidential report that integrates these scores into an overall picture of the effectiveness of your lifestyle, and includes useful recommendations. This test pinpoints whether you need HardiTraining®.