The initial reaction of most people would be that more stress in midlife is the last thing we need. However, things are not always as they seem.
The Nature of Stress
Generally, we associate stress with negative events.
But we also have to admit that without stress, we would have never become who we are today.
Stressors
It seems that many systems operate this way. In his brilliant book “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder”, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shares his theory of how some systems become better and thrive as a result of stressors or failures.
Sources of Stressors
We experience different kinds of stressors at various stages of our lives. These stressors have different sources.
Starting from our parents,
Some examples are:
- Grades at school
- Learning a foreign language
- Sport competition
- Getting into a good university
- Finding a job
- Performing at work
- Being a good parent
- Fitting in within your social circle
As you can see, none of these sources are internal.
It doesn’t mean that they are not useful and have not served us well, but we had little control over them.
In most instances, our involvement was just in some initial phase, when we enrolled in a venture or accepted a new job offer. Then, the sources of our stressors were mostly external with minimal participation or control from us.
What’s interesting is that we do not even control the intensity of the stressors. For a big part of our lives, expectations are set by others and the level of stress comes from there.
It’s not us who sets the passing grade at school, we do not decide on the performance criteria of our job, and we have little influence on the expected behaviours in our social circle.
Usually, when someone else is setting the accepted level of performance, it is a challenging one, an incremental improvement from past performance or another set metric.
This means that we have been used to stretch ourselves to deliver, which is a good thing.
“Mind the Gap!” the Trap in Midlife
Midlife is usually the period of our lives that things start to ease up.
We experience a certain level of unhappiness from not achieving some of our goals, or, as in most cases, realizing that those achievements were not that fulfilling after all.
On the positive side, we have acquired life experience and we know what we do not want, and some of us, know already well enough what is important in life.
At this stage of our
However, we are not really used to initiate stressors ourselves. Those stressors were usually initiated by external forces. We have mostly enrolled in a venture where someone else has set the stressors levels
In midlife, having gotten rid of the unnecessary stressors and taken control over the external stressors, we are in the luxurious position to set our own.
However, not being used to set our own stressors, we are at risk of not setting any (or not enough) and not setting the right level of intensity to have a notable impact.
Like with the muscles example. The ones that have done some weight training know well that in order to grow, you need to push yourself out of your comfort zone. You need to go for this additional repetition at the end of the set, you need to really fatigue the muscle in order to create the necessary micro-injury to grow.
So, the risk in midlife is underestimating the effort required to keep developing in order to create a fulfilling life.
We might not apply the necessary effort to keep growing in the desired direction.
We should be mindful of the potential gap in the transition between the past and the future.
Own the Type of Stressors and the Dosage
Getting to a point in life where you know what’s important to you, is a very good place to be.
With this knowledge, it is now the right time to look where you invest your energy and
Make a list of the things that are important to you and next to each item write down what are you doing about it.
At the same time make another list of where you spend your energy and time, and then see if they are aligned.
It is likely that you spend plenty of energy and time on things that are not so important to you.
Wasting time on those things takes away from all the important stuff. As you spread yourself too thin, it’s likely that you are not reaching the required level of “stress” needed in order to make progress in the areas that are important for you.
Decide which stressors you want to put in place and make sure they lead you to your desired destination.
Then make sure you apply the right “dosage,” enough intensity to those stressors to make a notable difference over time and achieve progress.
For example:
- You want to start running because you want to prioritize health. 15′ is too easy but 30′ is too much. Set a goal for 20′ at first.
- You want to start meditating for mindfulness: 3′ minutes is easy but 10′ is unbearable. Start with 5′ daily in the first week.
- You would like to begin writing: 200 words daily, no problem, 1,000 too much. Go for 500 words to start with.
The right dosage is different for everyone and changes over time, thanks to progress or remission or external factors. You need to find yours at each time.
A good way to go about
Here is the summary of the steps:
- Make a list of things that are important for you today
- Write what you do about it, how much time you invest to it next to each important item
- Make a second list on where you spend your time (a weekly one usually gives you a good overview)
- Eliminate the obvious time wasters immediately
- Set an intensity target, the right “dosage” on the stressors connected to the important items on your list
- Review the intensity of stressors frequently to make sure they are always challenging
Your energy and time are precious. Channeling them in a focused manner can make the difference and lead to a more fulfilling life.
Stress can be beneficial in midlife, as long as it is targeted and at the right dosage.
Shaun Cassidy
Brilliant Nassos.
It’s odd how we get bored (or angry) with even the most basic of demands placed on us in midlife, but thrive when we set our own stressors. Autonomy is wonderful. So is growth and development particularly when society tells us we should be slowing down.
Shaun
Nassos
This is so true Shaun. Thank you for commenting!