Over the last three years, I’ve presented in my monthly newsletters the research that continues to mount on the neurology and genetics involved in stress. This research has gradually defined a solution to stress that is now well established (see description below the table).

In 2006, I co-founded a training firm called ProAttitude that facilitates this solution. In January, 2013, my firm facilitated a live webinar training series with Wells Fargo Bank, involving 1,300 employees nationwide.

The results from a randomized evaluation conducted by Wells Fargo indicates that that this “solution to stress” not only works in a science lab; it works with real people in real companies coping with a high level of work stress.

 The “solution” to stress involves a specific change in mindset that literally changes the gene expression and brain structure that produces a hyperactive stress response system. This change not only produces the brain chemistry that extinguishes stress reactions, it also repairs and expands higher brain networks to raise the odds for higher performance, creative insight and emotional intelligence.

The technical term for this remarkable shift in brain function is called positive neuroplasticity. Translated into personal terms, it means more joy in your work, more peace in your life, more success in your endeavors, more love in your relationships, and more spring in your step.

Stress research is sounding a wake-up call for the Millennial generation (the 18 to 33 year-olds) and Generation X (the 34 t0 46 year-olds).

The American Psychological Association’s new stress study [1] found that Millennials are currently the most stressed demographic in America. 

And  Generation X is very close behind. On some stress indicators, Gen X is actually doing worse than Millennials.

As a result, Millennials and Gen X have been dubbed Generation Stress. Not a happy nickname and not a happy finding for companies in the throes of developing talent.

There’s a Solution: There’s no need to lament. There’s a solution for Generation Stress, which I’ll get to in a moment, but first let’s look the problem square in the eye.

• Millennials and Gen Xers report almost twice the level of stress that’s considered safe from serious health risk.
• 52 percent of Millennials and 45 percent of Gen Xers say their stress has continued to increase over the last five years.
• Over 40 percent of both generations say they’re having problems with anxiety, anger, irritability, and depression.
• Over 70 percent of Millennials say they are not getting enough sleep.

Both generations cite work as their primary stressor (76 percent of Millennials, 65 percent of Gen Xers) and here is where the news gets worse: 71 percent report that they are not doing a good job of managing their stress.  Worse, they are significantly more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors such as drinking alcohol and smoking. The problem is not entirely their fault. Chronic stress travels a vicious cycle. Negative behaviors become habitual faster in chronically stressed people and the brain becomes cognitively predisposed to doing the same self-defeating things over and over. It’s a kind of neurological rut that digs a deeper and deeper hole.

There’s bad news for business as well. Unabated stress equates with low employee engagement (Gallup, 2010) and low employee engagement equates with declining revenue (Towers Perrin, 2008). The decline is largely a matter of declining brain function. Chronic stress shrinks the brain’s executive functions that enable human beings to be goal directed, creative, and to sustain high levels of performance.

Clearly, Millennials and Gen Xers need a path to a better brain for a better life. In trying to alleviate stress we often look for it in all the wrong places.  Work stress has more to do with genes than the job, according to research at the University of Notre Dame (Judge, Ilies, Zhang, 2012). If we have a problem with stress it has a lot do with the way genetics and a troubled past has wired the brain for hyperactive stress response system. The good news is we can change the way the stress gene is expressing.

In the case of the stress gene, its expression can be changed to enable the brain to regulate the stress response system more effectively. In one study, researchers found that a three-month program involving a healthy diet, moderate exercise and daily stress management had the effect of turning up 48 genes and turning down 483 genes (Ornish, Magbanua, et al 2008).

Therein lies the solution to stress.  How does one do it? Turning off the stress gene involves a specific and sustain change in mindset that literally changes gene expression to change the brain’s auto-pilot from one that habituates stress and anxiety to one that generates a calm state of engagement that’s much more creative.

A Tool to Get Started: Here’s a tool to get your brain moving toward the good life. It’s called the Mindset Tool.

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[1]Stress in America commissioned by the American Psychological Association and conducted by Harris Interactive (2011, 2012)

As you may know, the term Type-A is shorthand for the highly driven, win-at-all-costs individual, who often feels oppressed by time and impatient with people he or she perceives as slowing things down.  The upside is that Type-A personalities can make a lot happen fast.

But there is an enormous downside.  When  researchers took a closer look they found this personality type was essentially driven by fear that often led to a chronic condition of extreme stress.  If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that chronic stress is a very bad condition.  It can kill you.

Type-A, as a definable personality type, comes out of the landmark research of cardiologist Meyer Friedman of the University of California, San Francisco.  Friedman found that a Type-A personality has the highest risk for developing serious heart disease.

Dr. Friedman developed and tested a series of exercises that teach Type A’s how to be more at peace in order to avoid an early grave.  If you’ve been reading my blog you also know that developing your capacity to be at peace builds the neuro-circuitry that delivers the brain power for a healthier, more successful, more intrinsically rewarding life.

Neurologically, ‘peace’ represents neural networks wiring and firing together to sustain the proverbial calm under siege that enables you to see a problem fearlessly, analyze it intelligently, engage it creatively, and make the best decision.  A dynamic attitude of peace builds a brain that can extinguish stress reactions and, at the same time, expand the brain structure that can sustain peak performance and the creative intelligence that enables you to hit the bull’s eye.

Friedman found that attaining peace was actually simpler than one might think.  You don’t have to renounce the world and check into a monastery; peace arises from changing the way you relate to the day-to-day world you’re already in.  And, you don’t have to be Type-A to benefit from this approach.  It not only improves your heart function; it strengthens your higher brain function.

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Standing In the Longest Line

My favorite but most challenging task that Meyer Freidman prescribes is to stand in the longest line at a store.  The challenge is to use the time to practice choosing to be at peace.  As you stand in line, notice the resistance in you to doing this task. Become aware of the strong pattern of thinking that says you have to hurry up to get to the next thing you have to do. Become aware of the judgments your brain is making about how long the clerk is taking or judgments about how somebody is dressed or the junk you think they are buying. Just be aware of all the noise in your head and practice reminding yourself that you could see peace instead of it.

Here are several other steps Dr. Meyer Friedman developed.

• Look out the window for thirty seconds and let your mind go. Watch the wind blow or the sun shine or the rain fall.
• Do one special thing for yourself today.
• Drive home in the slow lane.
• Smile more today.
• Listen to calming music instead of the news on the drive home.
• Practice listening without interrupting.
• Buy a small gift for a friend or family member.
• Call a good friend you haven’t talked to in a while.
• Look for the best in someone you know.
• Devote today to seeing your strengths and positive qualities.
• Practice forgiving trivial errors.
• Use a measuring stick other than business to measure your accomplishments, such as your talents, creative abilities, human qualities, or close relationships.
• Quietly do good deeds and acts of kindness.
• Practice receiving compliments graciously.
• Accept that life is unfinished business.
• Take five minutes today to recall times when you were happy.
• Commit to stop judging yourself for your lack of perfection.
• Consider the notion that perfection is in the imperfections.
• When you feel conflict today, tell yourself, “I am not going to let this person or situation control how I feel.”
• Today, feel more and think less. Become skillful at knowing how you feel by making I feel statements, such as I feel anxious or I feel confident.

All we are saying is give peace a chance  ~  John Lennon

Stress-free is the quality of presence called peace that flows into whatever you happen to be doing. We often assume that we have to strive for this quality but the fact is your brain is wired for peace. Evolution wired it into the neuro-circuitry of the right brain to make peace part of human nature. If you don’t believe it, listen to the TED.COM talk given by Harvard neuro-anatomist, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.

The problem for most of us is that we don’t give peace the chance to flip the switch for a better life experience. Instead, the primitive brain takes charge of our auto-pilot and the day goes to hell-in-a-hand-basket of fight, flight or freeze (also known as STRESS).

But don’t stress, peace is still there for the choosing. It is always right here, waiting for you to simply choose it … right now.

Here’s one easy way of flipping the switch to peace in just 30 seconds:

1. Stop what you’re doing and step away from the world for a moment.
2. Let go of what you were thinking and allow yourself to relax a little.
3. Now allow yourself to relax a little more.
4. Let go of everything. Feel your brain relax as you let go.
5. No worries, no problems, no goals. Just let them all go for a moment.
6. Take a slow, deep breath – and as you do – let your mind and heart open wide. Allow peace to begin to emerge as your experience, all by itself.

You can do this short exercise just about anywhere: standing in line, walking to a meeting, or looking out a window. Try it a few times throughout today and see what happens to your day.