
How I stay calm, by people with very stressful jobs - yiedyie
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/01/how-stay-calm-by-people-stressful-jobs
======
visakanv
TL;DR:

Football manager: Be careful about your information diet. Stop bringing
everything home. And... alcohol? =\

Headteacher: Policy of being calm and non-confrontational. (But how?) Runs,
which is therapeutic. Spends 5 minutes reflecting every day.

Concilator (?): Represent the best side of both sides of the conflict. Seek
common ground. If there's anger in the room, it's not me: "people are angry
because they're not in control. I'm in control." Also, gardening.

Diver: 1 month work, 2 months off. Watches Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad.
Swims and surfs on his time off.

TV Guest Booker: Be organized, treat it like a game. Always another show
tomorrow, don't get too precious about it.

A&E consultant: Yikes, his life is the toughest. Have people around you who
can share the burden. Focus on what you love, rather than the burden. Changed
hospital to something that's a 12 minute walk away, allowing him to play with
his son more. Cites it as hugely beneficial.

~~~
read
What popped out for me was different:

\- A cool trick by the headteacher is to be available: to be at the school
gate at the start and end of every day.

\- Wisdom by the conciliator: _stress is created when people aren 't in
control._

\- Diver: reads; and _being tired helps restore calm_.

\- TV guest booker: _people have their own demons, which have a habit of
appearing when they 're faced with going on live TV_. And then... _experience
teaches you that taking a philosophical approach is best._

\- If you were to read only one story, don't miss the A&E consultant's: _I 'm
having conversations with people that they will probably never have with any
other human being, and that's a great privilege._

There's also a striking parallel in something he said: _the stress in A &E is
about me not having control. So I think it's important to have a hobby where
you do have complete control_. If programming is a hobby where you do have
complete control, what does it say about the people it attracts?

~~~
hyp0
> stress is created when people aren't in control.

I think the "Serenity Prayer" is spot on, even though it reads like a 3-part
joke with a punchline (paraphrased):

    
    
      Don't try to change what you can't change
      Try to change what you can change
      Learn which is which
    

Because if you get them mixed up, it's either frustrating or immobilizing. Of
course, you often _can 't_ know til you try, the very process of learning.
Learning isn't intrinsically stressful... it's when you _insist_ that things
should be how you expect them to be that has that peculiarly frustrating
quality. It's closing your eyes to reality - delusional.

Suggestion: if you find yourself saying things like " _Why_ isn't this
working!?", "What's _wrong_ with this thing!?", take the rhetorical question
literally... because there _is_ something you don't know. Focus on finding out
what it is (i.e. seeing reality), and that peculiar stress will disappear.

~~~
choxi
The version of it I've always heard is:

    
    
        God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
        The courage to change the things I can,
        And the wisdom to always know the difference.

------
gaius
Saturation diver: risk of death

A&E doctor: risk of someone else's death

TV booker: risk of a guest not showing up

Doesn't really compare, does it?

~~~
nnq
It does compare. People have a MIN and a MAX level of stress, and
unfortunately they usually calibrate these to the most stressful situation
_they usually encounter_ : the TV booker will feel the same level of stress
when a guest is not showing up that the diver feels when he knows something
went wrong and he's probably going to die.

The key is realizing that unfortunately this is your natural tendency, to set
you MAX to the most stressful situation you _usually_ encounter and to _work
against this natural tendency:_ just image _how much worse things could
actually be_ , think that you or your loved one or your children could die or
be severely mutilated and incapacitated for life _today_ in a _mundane car
accident_ that will not even reach the news. Go even further next: meditate a
bit on how big the world is and how many horrible things are in that could
_really hurt you and the ones you love_ , and then go even further, think
about how big and dangerous the universe is and how small and powerless you
are and how many cosmical catastrophes could negate our civilization's entire
existence. This will make you feel _worse_ , but it will help you calibrate
your MAX to a more appropriate level and help you a enjoy a stress-free life.

Next time you feel stressed to death, try googling some accidents stats, some
deaths from cancers stats and maybe some violent crime stats (if you're in the
USA). Then meditate a bit on the scale of things: ( this might help:
[http://htwins.net/scale2/](http://htwins.net/scale2/) ), and trust me, _it
will really do you good!_

...unfortunately the article misses this advice entirely.

~~~
PakG1
This is really interesting. It helps me understand how I process my own
stress. I know I'm actually stressed when my mind shuts down and is unable to
process information and make good decisions (i.e. I start panicking). I've
experienced this in many different scenarios, from the time I was volunteering
in high school for a big school performance event, the first time I was
working a cash register and tried to return the correct change to a person,
first big tech foul-up that majorly impacted a client, and various crisis-
level incidents managing tech at the 2010 Olympics.

As I've gone through life and experienced more and more difficult things, I've
realized that stress very relative. But when I was experiencing those things
_at the time for the first time_ , they were very stressful. When I look back
at my high school self trying to find an extra chair for a ticket holder at
that performance event, I find it absurd that I panicked so much. Same for
when I was trying to calculate the correct amount of change in my head for a
retail customer. Ludicrous. But I can't deny the stress I felt back then.

But as my experiences with stress became bigger, I realized something that
changed the way I thought about things. I was still alive, things were still
happening. So what if the Mexican consulate lost all of their visa records and
applications because I did some shoddy sysadmin work? Well, yeah, a very big
number of people were impacted. But I lived through it. I was shellacked, but
I lived through it. Olympic crisis incidents? I experienced several during
both training scenarios and the real thing. I was shellacked, but I lived
through it. And current startup stuff? Well, nothing huge yet, but perhaps
that's only because I haven't reached a level of success where I am exposed to
that type of risk yet.

The point is that every time I experienced something bigger and survived, I
realized that actually life goes on, and because I can survive, I am quite
capable of handling whatever life throws at me. With that perspective,
basically I have learned to _have_ perspective. Realize that whatever I may be
experiencing right now, no matter how difficult and stressful it may be, there
will be a tomorrow. Even if I am reduced to absolutely nothing and lose
_everything_ , I still would be alive and would be able to start again.

And that perspective suddenly makes it easy to deal with all the crappy
stressful stuff that may come by. At the end of the day, they're all just
small things that don't kill me. I hope that if I ever experience something
truly terrible, like a fight with terminal cancer, I can keep the same
perspective. Whatever, I am still alive, and I can go on.

------
papaf
A short 7 minute documentary that shows saturation diving:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcSduoKj6KU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcSduoKj6KU)

~~~
nickthemagicman
It looks a lot like being an astronaut, except instead of PhDs from MIT
running the show, you have Bob from South Philly whose favorite food is a
cheeseburger with donuts for a bun.

~~~
JshWright
I wouldn't be surprised if Bob has an easier time making the right call
without second-guessing himself when things go sideways.

In the case of activities like saturation diving (or in my case,
firefighting), experience matters a hell of a lot more than all the PhDs in
the world. After hundreds of dives (be it in smoke or water) you've seen just
about everything that can go wrong, and you're in a much better position to
break the chain of events leading up to a disaster.

~~~
rquantz
Do you think astronauts (or people making decisions on the ground) have a
tendency to make the wrong call when things go sideways? They train
exhaustively for just about any possible emergency, and if they can't train
the panic out of you, you do not go to space.

You can argue about the hubris involved in the Columbia or Challenger
disasters, but in the heat of the moment, I would trust the person who has
trained their entire life and was selected from a pool of thousands for their
supreme skills, talent, and temperament. These are not nervous nelly academics
we're talking about here.

~~~
robotresearcher
This is exactly what Col. Chris Hadfield, former commander of the ISS and
general type-A++ person, describes in his book "An Astronaut's Guide to Life
on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and
Being Prepared for Anything".

It's _insane_ how prepared they are. In fact, it was hard for me to learn many
lessons from the book, because the astronaut experience is so different from
every day life. I just don't get to try things 1000 different ways and debrief
with fellow geniuses every time. Real life seems to involve quite a bit of
muddling through with barely adequate experience.

A good read if you want a glimpse into the mind of the ultra-high-achiever,
crazy work ethic, moustachioed Canadian hero.

------
chris_wot
I would _not_ be drinking to de-stress, as per the football manager.

~~~
walshemj
Yes but this is the UK where having a pint at lunch doesn't mean your a full
fledged alcoholic.

I remember a course at be where the course leader also did the "dealing with
staff with serious problems course" he commented it was the ones with a couple
of vodka bottle hidden at work when you know they had a real problem.

------
GigabyteCoin
When I began reading about the football coach Chris Wilder who is almost dead-
last in his league and totally calm about it... I immediately thought of Bob
Knight.

Best known as the head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers basketball team from
1971-2000. He retired as the winningest NCAA Division I mens coach of all
time. The NCAA Div I mens basketball league is arguably one of the most
difficult to maneuver and most diverse sports leagues in the entire world. He
was certainly not known for being "calm" [0].

All I'm saying is that "being calm has it's place".

Perhaps Chris Wilder could be wildly successful on the football pitch if he
left his calm demeanor at the door?

[0] [http://youtu.be/7Qxu5cvW-ds?t=1m20s](http://youtu.be/7Qxu5cvW-ds?t=1m20s)

------
coherentpony
> I have been known to find the answer in the bottom of a pint pot.

Spoken like a true Englishman.

------
becauseGoogle
The diver is the only one with any claim to honest stress, among these
particular examples.

Catastrophic decompression is not to be trifled with.

------
DaleHarries
This is a very moot article. I would like to see how a CEO who wakes at 4am,
goes to bed at 11pm copes with the stress of life.

~~~
rquantz
By deteriorating physically, mentally, and socially.

------
icantthinkofone
I own some fast food restaurants and, for a short time, managed them directly,
hands-on. During rushes, especially when shorthanded, you feel you are being
crushed by disappointed customers filing in the door, and there's nothing you
can do to make things better at that moment. When I realized that, I also
found my answer. I can't make things better so I will only concentrate on what
is in front of me and do the best I can; and the rush will end soon.

Everything I do, I do with personal pride, so when things go bad, it hits
home. I also realized that most things aren't running as bad as you think they
are cause you know how things are supposed to work but your customer only sees
the result of your efforts.

When doing rote things under pressure, it helps to hum random notes.

