Happiness in the company is profit

Psychologist Armando Ribeiro, stress management specialist, speaks about the impact on personal life and within organizations.

Armando Ribeiro psychologist was somewhat confused when he began to live with administrators and the corporate world. Your number one concern, like any doctor, was to improve the health of their patients. But to convince companies of the importance of promoting employee well-being, had to gather numbers and prove that healthy employees give better results.

Ribeiro coordinates the Advanced Center Stress Assessment Program in Health of the Beneficência Portuguesa de Sao Paulo. In addition to seeing patients, he also advises and participates in events in enterprises to "preach" the importance of physical and mental health.

In an interview with Época Negócios, he talks about how stress affects our personal and corporate environments and still is a warning to managers: one of the biggest causes of stress at work is the head. Check Out:

What is stress?

There is a trivialization of the term. Tiredness is not stress, boredom is not stress, quarreled with his girlfriend is not stress. If I could simplify, call threat or tension. All that causes us stress is a threat - real or imaginary. That is, living the problem or imagine the problem causes your body to understand that the threat is here, now. Our physiological response can not differentiate the possibility of reality.

We think of stress as something bad, but not necessarily. The initial stress we call alert phase. You focus on something troubling, or a plate falls at the next table, and there's an adrenaline rush. You assess the situation and adapts. On a normal day, we in and out dozens of times that state. Traffic, heat and stomach ache lead to alert stress. Once the situation was resolved, it will go away. We do not have to fear this kind of stress - often it is beneficial. Help thinking fast, decide faster. The villain is when acute stress becomes chronic. That is, every day, regardless of external stimuli, you perceive the world as dangerous and threatening manner. That's what really ruins our health.

Since stress "evolve"?

Let's say that a there is a continuing concern. She starts to last for days or weeks. Is the phase resistance of stress. You get to have early symptoms physical. Heartburn after lunch, diarrhea attacks, acne after adolescence ... Your hormones are unbalanced. If you do not solve, has a phase called stress near-exhaustion, usually when you get sick indeed. At that time, people make an appointment with a gastro or a dermatologist. The last phase is exhaustion, in which you have diseases that usually prevent you to continue working or studying. Depression, stroke, heart attack. Diseases which usually have consequences of difficult treatment. Got a problem here lies in the fact that doctors are not trained to look stress. They are trained to look at the disease. Should be mandatory contextualize patient complaints with the rest of their lives.

What other effects stress has on us?

We have very smart survival mechanisms. When the body perceives threatened, there is a need to acquire and conserve energy. So the worst foods such as fried foods and refined sugars, are the ones that we have more feel like eating. It's something biological. The cell is under threat and do not want lettuce. It's a snowball. You get stressed, eat poorly, avoid physical activity, is trapped in the problem.

In the last decade have also made many queries related to stress and neuroscience. The latest findings is that it changes our ability to see things clearly. The more you stress hormones produced or is producing greater is impaired their ability to make decisions rationally and clearly. Are more impulsive decisions: buy, sell, resigns, hires. This undoubtedly causes loss or damage to organizations.

Companies should be more concerned about this issue?

There is research showing that companies could save if they invested in health promotion. But what I'm talking about here is my stress because companies want to save money at all costs, even when the medium term this economy is great losses. For example, high skill professionals who are sick and away from work. There is another very common thing nowadays is that the presenteeism. It is a stress that does not make you sick to the point of being away, but ends up with productivity. The person hits all day card, but is tired. Companies hardly become aware of it. They even know, but it's a type of matter that is relegated to HR.

We come from an archaic position of administration which is as follows: you come, kills himself, exudes here, take your salary and the quality of life you will have in your home. But increasingly we do not separate home from work. Tablet and mobile phone are great tools but hinder accordingly.

I mean, well-being can not be the only door out for?

The door of happiness inside is profit. This is the language that I learned what works - Profit (laughs).

You learned this language when lectured at Insper?

I come from a health language that my ideal is to have all healthy world. Then I'll go one language of business and run into "how much have all healthy world and how it is on my goals?" I took a scare. For me, health is priceless. But in the corporate world everything has a price. Then I went to get this data and there is, for example, an ROI study (return on investment) in which it was found that every dollar invested in wellness program you have a 6 ROI to 12 dollars. I had to discover this language to hear me.

But what is the role of business in managing stress?

There are companies, organizational environments that are toxic plants of stress. This can be either the characteristic own business - working in a nuclear power plant should not be easy - but mostly is the profile of leadership. One of the major stressors at work is the head. Are the people who have power and create competitive, adversarial environments, a lot of pressure, a lot of demand, low validation of the other, little positive feedback. They need to put on their agenda the creation of a healthy environment. Healthy employee yields more. There is a need to change the view that employees are only half. They are part of the business. The idea of valuing people is what we lack today.

Usually people associate stress at work to excess obligations. It is always that?

There is a model of two researchers compared stress levels with performance. The initial stress is welcome to a point where you have a high level of performance. Is a graph of the inverted U-shaped. But then, low stress also equates to poor performance. Americans call "boreout". These are works where the degree of impairment is zero. Public servers, for example. The lack of a motivating stress that makes you want to study more and to develop also becomes sick. The other extreme is the graph of "burnout", better known when the requirements are above their ability to manage them. Our dream is to help people find your balance point.

France banned last year that officials were required to read email after 18h. It is an extreme example, but we should be forced to turn off this technology?

Research on technology are very recent. We do not yet know the effect of this on our brain. What we see is that these tools promised to bring a time-saving, but found it not so. We come every year worked more hours. The promise of technology that would make us more free comes in enslaving. There is a term - Technostress - featuring the rush of adrenaline and cortisone because of this continuous change applications, programs and technologies. Definitely, there are already the first cases of sick people who come because of the harmful use of technology. There are people who become addicted to sign the internet, they need to be connected all the time, for them no information is junk.

Another thing we know is that people have been sleeping less. They take these parafernalhas to bed. It has been studied that this blue screen is a source of inhibition of sleep. And stress and sleep are two sides of the same coin. We know today that the regular good quality sleep is enough to recover your body stress suffered.

Stress is a disease of the modern world? Or the caveman was also stressed?

What's left of cavemen are records such as diet. What we assume is that much of their stress was acute type. Individuals who lived chronic stress were much more by actual causes famines, food shortages. Today we are ending with a dam, but if you have money, buy a bottle of water. Our world was organized in a way so symbolic and abstract you can afford to live well without faults. Only that we can not pay for peace of mind, sleep soundly. Unlike our ancestors, today what really bothers me is the question of coexistence in swollen societies, violent megalopolises. Do you suffer much by abstract causes, which are no less important.

And comparing the three or two generations, people are more stressed?

It's getting worse. For example, in the time of our grandparents had the idea of carreirsmo. They entered the company and were to retire. Our reality is another. You graduate in journalism today and tomorrow open a cupcake company and turns entrepreneurial. The fact that you have studied journalism means nothing. The possibilities are numerous and challenges as well. Increasingly, our societies have this uncertainty. You can do it all. And do it all is that not a menu that has three options and one that has 300. You catch. Excess options is a source of stress. It is an era of uncertainties.

I had class with Daniel Goleman (psychologist, author of Emotional Intelligence) and he says we have a society without focus. When we do not have focus, we get stressed more. You need to produce more energy to leave the place because you dilute this energy. The idea of hyperlinks, multitasking, we assume that function as computer, but do not work. The human mind is just if it deals with a problem at a time. When you open multiple windows of your mind loses focus.

How to cope with stress?

The turn is a technique called mindfulness or mindfulness, here in Brazil. It is a series of practical exercícos consultants who lead organizations for people to grow the moment. The pressure by hitting targets, the extremely competitive and globalized environment makes us miss the moment. You are on your table and you do not know if it is really there, is thinking about the past or the next quarter. But here is still not very strong.

The tripod diet, physical activity and leisure remains important sleep is also key. But we are in a time when it is rice and beans. The "mix" would develop a meaningful work. It is one thing missing much in our time and is a matter of young people. All these generations Y, Z, tend to seek jobs with personal meaning. Making money is important, but they want to be recognized, valued and be proud of what they do. This is not rice and beans.

Cultivating relationships at work, have leisure time, close family of the corporate environment environment. These are projects out there to increase welfare and happiness and they bring very high return. Employees want to hear what they can do to be happier. The company can help develop the employee as a person and not just as a collaborator.

It also has more and more research showing that stress reduction starts with the construction of his office. The architecture of the building, bring family memories, a vase, have windows to the outside. We left the savannah, savannah but did not leave the people. That the coffee corner is sometimes where the most important conversations happen. Why can not a welcoming place?

This is all what you are saying, again, has to do with ending that idea that work is work and life is just out there?

Life is one. Although in our social life we share, if you die in work box you will not live in the other. Life is one and must be lived in the best possible way. We should get this feeling of fullness fill at work, at home, with friends, traveling. I have many stories of people waiting all year for vacation. They are leaving to live only within 30 days of vacation. And the other 11 months of the year?

But take a vacation is important, no?

It is important, but does not solve chronic stress. Absence from work because of stress does not. Because the problem is at work. On the day you return, the itch back together. The idea of burst periods routine is important because our body ages routine. Ideally, your work is also a source of pleasure. Money comes and goes, the pleasure is full. Of course you need money. But the job satisfaction is priceless.

This is much simpler managers work than they think. But they do not think about it. Job satisfaction has to be concern of leadership. The leadership that want to hit goals you want to achieve your goals, you have to give in return facilitators for the good life. And that's what we do not see happening. I take your blood and believe that pay a salary is enough. We are living a mediocrity that effect.

Source: Época Negócios

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