This clever infographic summarizes some of the research on the negative health effects of job stress. People similar to my clients, “Senior Corporate Executives,” are in the third worst jobs. It does not include the job my nephew had in Afghanistan, removing mines and IEDs, but other than combat the listed jobs do seem very stressful. Plus, soldiers have access to a great stress reducer not often available to business leaders: loyal comrades.
You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going because you might not get there.
–Yogi Berra
Or so we have been saying. But will it be happy for you? Will it even be all that new? Or is it just the same stuff on a different date? Is 2012 your future or just a rearranged version of your past?
Try this quick exercise. Pretend it is now January 1, 2013. How are you feeling about 2012? Was it a year of satisfaction or disappointment, growth or decay, health or decline, contribution or frustration? One year from today, what will you wish you had done sooner?
Like most of the people I ask, you have probably retired from the “New (more…)
Professor Elizabeth Blackburn is the discoverer of telomeres, tiny units of DNA at the ends of chromosomes that protect and stabilize our genetic blueprints. Telomeres seem to act as a biological clock that limits the lifespan of cells–and of ourselves.
… psychological stress actually ages cells, which can be seen when you measure the wearing down of the tips of the chromosomes, those telomeres. … We looked at the measures for cardiovascular disease — bad lipid profiles, obesity, all that stuff. The women with those had low telomerase. … Researchers have found that the brain definitely sends nerves directly to organs of the immune system and not just to the heart and the lower gut.
A CONVERSATION WITH ELIZABETH H. BLACKBURN
Finding Clues to Aging in the Fraying Tips of Chromosomes
New York Times
July 3, 2007
… mindfulness meditation techniques appear to shift cognitive appraisals from threat to challenge, decrease ruminative thought, and reduce stress arousal. Mindfulness may also directly increase positive arousal states. … meditation may have salutary effects on telomere length by reducing cognitive stress and stress arousal and increasing positive states of mind and hormonal factors that may promote telomere maintenance.
Can meditation slow rate of cellular aging?
Cognitive stress, mindfulness, and telomeres.
Epel, Daubenmier, Moskowitz, Folkman, & Blackburn
University of California San Francisco
Department of Psychiatry August, 2009
The findings also suggest that exercise may prevent this damage. ,,, Among those who exercised, perceived stress was unrelated to telomere length.
Exercise May Prevent Impact of Stress on Telomeres, A Measure of Cell Health
UCSF News
April 4, 2011
See free, easy Meditation Instructions on this blog.
A small group of leaders in the DC Metro area is interviewing potential new members for their coaching group. Details below or you can download a brochure here: http://tiny.cc/gsvsop
Your organization and your responsibilities can grow only as fast as you do. Participate in Genuine Success: Vitality, Service, and Outstanding Performance (GS:VSOP) to develop your expertise in the only career strategy that is endlessly scalable. Leadership: the ability to get things done with and through other people.
GS:VSOP is a continuing program to provide business people with structure, tools, and support to produce nonlinear, unpredicted, massive results at work while enjoying a high level of personal satisfaction, fulfillment, and vitality.
GS:VSOP’s unique mix of traditional business principles, cutting-edge brain science, powerful one-to-one coaching, and ancient disciplines assures you a productive and profitable experience.
Each month, you will grow as a leader through a full day of group learning with other successful leaders; participate in one-to-one coaching sessions with your group leader; be held accountable for implementing your vision with follow-up sessions and field practice.
Program topics include influence and persuasion, organization and planning, finance, self-management and growth, focus and concentration, integrity, communication, health, and fitness. See brochure for more details.
This program is for leaders who:
- Aim to achieve transformational growth & breakthrough results.
- Want to improve ROI & speed growth.
- Are frustrated with “business as usual” & just know “there’s got to be a better way.”
- Are ready to get more done with less stress.
- Apply their knowledge to innovate & make things happen.
- Strive for a greater clarity & confidence.
- Are ready to take bolder action, to employ their talents & resources thoroughly.
You’ll learn why you behave the way you do and how to alter your conversations for greater performance and how to consistently achieve significant measurable organization-wide improvements.
Schedule a conversation with Tony Mayo to find out if this program is right for you by clicking here.
To me, leadership is a journey toward wholeness.
A leader’s journey starts by looking inward to understand, “Why am I here?” and “What is it that I’m here to do?”
–- Joe Jaworski, MIT
Society for Organizational Learning
I encountered today a wonderful expression of the same insight that I shared in my video, Roadwork for Enduring Success.
You may recall that in 2003 the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude created in New York’s Central Park a huge art installation called The Gates. You may not know that it took more than twenty years to get permission to erect this work; they began in 1979. HBO produced a documentary that covers the decades of work and persuasion that ensued. The film includes a conversation early in the process in which the artists were sternly warned about the many steps and barriers likely to occur, given the state of NYC politics and finances–despite the fact that the artists would pay all of the millions of dollars the project cost.
Christo invited those cynical insiders into his point-of-view. “The project is growing from the bottom. That is the very point. Think of it positively.” Please do not regard this as a bureaucratic horror or a political monstrosity. Art is not about the final object seen at the end. Art is a creative process. The preparation, the protests, the persuasion, and postponements are all part of the poetry; necessary and constitutive parts of the artistic expression.
So much of daily lives, our families and careers, can be regarded either as delays and obstructions or as essential parts of the process, lines in the poem, the second act of the drama, the background that makes the foreground visible –and beautiful.
If you can swing and you’ve got your health, you can get through things. If you view the antagonist as cooperative, struggle becomes opportunity. Is the jazz soloist struggling or is he being creative? Why was Louis Armstrong always smiling?
More on Christo here on Artsy, a great site with an customizable email service that lets you follow your favorite artists.
Revolution is in the air around the world. People everywhere are fed up with having arbitrary power exercised over them, with 
impractical limits placed on their everyday actions, with living in constant fear that someone in power will frown at them and destroy their livelihood without warning or objective justification. This global revolution differs from the Marxist model of the dispossessed and disaffected rising up from poverty to overthrow the business class. This time, educated professionals are actively engaged in the resistance. As a result, people long accustomed to wielding authority and position are rapidly changing the way they run things. Suddenly, leaders in many countries are peacefully giving up some of their power in hopes of participating in a new, more prosperous and humane community.
I am not talking about foreign countries. I am talking about where you work.
For as long as I have been in the business world employees have been mystified and upset by the performance review process. The managers conducting the reviews find them arbitrary, uncomfortable, and (more…)
Update: I lost 12 pounds in four weeks. Kept it off for 6 months so far. Keep on treadin’ !
Why & How I Made My Treadmill Desk
Here is the text from the slide show in case the PowerPoint above does not work in your browser.
I read in Scientific American about the mounting evidence that (more…)
There is a rapidly accumulating body of evidence which suggests that prolonged sitting is very bad for our health, even for lean and otherwise physically active individuals.
The good news? Animal research suggests that simply walking at a leisurely pace may be enough to rapidly undo the metabolic damage associated with prolonged sitting, a finding which is supported by epidemiological work in humans. So, while there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered (e.g. Is there a “safe” amount of daily sedentary time?), the evidence seems clear that we should strive to limit the amount of time we spend sitting. And when we do have to sit for extended periods of time (which, let’s face it, is pretty much every single day for many of us) we should take short breaks whenever possible.
Finally, if you take only one thing from this post, let it be this—sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little.
–Travis Saunders
Scientific American
Guest Blog: Can sitting too much kill you?
The Wall Street Journal has a good survey of the scientific research supporting the health, relationship, and psychological benefits of practicing gratitude. It also includes a nice graphic you can use with your children to foster their attitude of gratitude.
Consciously increasing tension in a muscle can help people carry out unpleasant tasks and avoid unhealthful foods.
Firming one’s muscles [e.g., clench fist, contract calves, tense bicep] can help firm willpower and firmed willpower mediates people’s ability to withstand immediate pain, overcome tempting food, consume unpleasant medicines, and attend to immediately disturbing but essential information, provided doing so is seen as providing long term benefits.
From Firm Muscles to Firm Willpower:
Understanding the Role of
Embodied Cognition in Self-Regulation
Journal of Consumer Research 2010
–IRIS W. HUNG
University of Singapore–APARNA A. LABROO
Booth School of Business University of Chicago
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