Perhaps I should get a life but I really hate the sentiment behind the song Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. “Hey, let’s make fun of the funny-looking kid until he becomes useful to us.” Nevertheless, I will try to take it in the light spirit it was intended and see if a reindeer’s life can [...]
Category Archives: Stress
Batman’s belt
Stress is all about the challenges we face. The greater the challenge, the greater the stress. The negative emotion we feel is usually labelled anxiety when it is acute. In more chronic situations, we feel a general sense of unease which often produces burnout or depression. These negative feelings push us to address the problem and [...]
The evolution of personality
Not too long ago, I was interviewed by a number of media outlets on the subject of the trapped Chilean miners – What were they going through while trapped? What will they go through after their rescue? Were there risks of violence associated with trapping so many men together for so long? How will their [...]
The fertile output of the anxious mind
Here’s a question? What’s scarier: reality or imagination? The crazy thing is that even though we know that imagination is not real, it can often cause more suffering than reality. The reason for this is the human stress response. Stress is the body’s way of responding to and protecting itself from a threat. When I [...]
Am I smart or just lucky?
We are constantly facing new challenges. Yet while some of us seem to be better at dealing with them than others, skill and intelligence are not the only qualities that set people apart. Two people with the exact same abilities will have radically different experiences when facing new challenges based on their attributional style and [...]
H1N1: From frenzy to complacency to frenzy
Human beings are an odd lot. We like to have things simple and clear – (Which is the best hospital? Which is the greatest band of all time?) Unfortunately, despite our desire for black and white answers, our world is hopelessly grey. The current wave of frenzy over the H1N1 virus highlights what happens when [...]
In defense of control freaks
CONTROL FREAK – such a pejorative term, isn’t it? After I wrote my last post, I had a client ask me, “I’m not a control freak, am I?” I said, “Of course you are, but that doesn’t make you a bad person.” People don’t control in order to dominate or to manipulate per se. They control in [...]
Control freaks
Sorry I haven’t written for a while but I occasionally get sidetracked by my actual job (or by my life, such as it is). Last week’s column was about control freaks. This is a phenomenon that occurs when the stress response meets perfectionnism and rigidity. The stress response is the body’s instinctive way of protecting [...]
Transferable skills
Here is something I published last week on the idea of skills being part of us regardless of the situation we find ourselves in. Personality is extremely stable. (This does not mean we can never change. It’s just that changes are difficult. This fact is not as discouraging as you might think. People can still [...]
