Chronic Work Stress Numbs Emotions and Erodes Relationships

Key Quotes

"Yes, people can fall out of love when they're really chronically stressed because it's numbing. So it's not that they're falling out of love per se, it's that they're not feeling much. You're just dealing with the pressures, you don't have time to think or feel about other things."

Guy Winch explains that chronic work stress can lead to emotional numbing, which can be mistaken for falling out of love. This numbing is a coping mechanism to handle pressure, but it prevents individuals from feeling other emotions, including love for their partners.

"A lot of this is happening in our head. Work is difficult, I want to be clear, work is difficult. But it's how we manage it that's responsible for a large chunk of what we're doing to ourselves. Because we're not creating that separation, because we're not creating the boundaries, because we're not nourishing ourselves in the way that we need to, to be able to manage that."

Guy Winch argues that while work itself is challenging, the way individuals manage their stress and create boundaries significantly impacts their well-being. He emphasizes that a lack of separation and self-nourishment contributes to the negative effects of work stress.

"The research is that if you're a personal manager who doesn't have any more information than you do, who can't control necessarily the budgets, who doesn't necessarily know who's getting laid off, if they exhibit caring to you, if they just say, "Hey, I know how difficult this is, how are you doing?" That reduces stress by a huge percentage. Just caring. Everyone's empowered to do that."

Guy Winch highlights the significant impact of simple acts of caring in reducing stress, even when managers have limited control over difficult situations like layoffs. He points out that expressing empathy and asking about well-being can substantially lower stress levels for employees.

"The first thing you can do about that is stop telling yourself that your job is very stressful. Because what that means is, it's reinforcing it. It's reinforcing it, but there are many moments in which it's not. There are many moments in which it is, and many moments in which there's a lunch break in which it's not stressful, there are a few meetings which aren't terrible. But you're telling yourself that those too are stressful and terrible."

Guy Winch suggests reframing one's perception of work stress by avoiding absolute statements like "my job is very stressful." He explains that this framing reinforces stress, whereas acknowledging that a job has "stressful elements" allows for a more balanced perspective and reduces the tendency to perceive all situations as stressful.

"If they can describe their job as intermittently stressful, then that's true of most of us. And that framing alone makes a big difference. The framing of it is, it's funny ways to almost play a game in your mind when you go to work, right? It's like, how can I make today fun, even though usually it's stressful? How can I crack a little joke with a coworker in between a stressful moment?"

Guy Winch uses the example of firefighters to illustrate how framing a job as "intermittently stressful" rather than "very stressful" can be beneficial for most people. He proposes adopting a playful mindset, looking for opportunities to inject fun and humor into the workday, even amidst stressful moments.