Are you in a healthful or toxic workplace?
Do you know what makes a workplace toxic?
While it might be hard to articulate, you can certainly feel it (and it doesn't feel good).
What makes stress toxic (or not)?
Ultimately, what makes something toxic (or not) is how it impacts one's health and well-being, physically and mentally. Therefore, it's not necessarily the stress itself that's toxic but how our nervous system and immune system react and respond to it.
For this reason, it's important to know that not all stress is toxic and might even be healthful, depending on the circumstances and health outcomes. Even when something is challenging and difficult, the real differentiator is whether it helps you grow, heal, and develop, and that you’re able to navigate it in healthful ways to achieve healthful outcomes (i.e., adapt).
It's NOT about "willpower"
To help make sense of this complex physiological phenomenon, I like to compare stress sensitivities to food sensitivities, since the immune system and nervous system respond very much the same to both.
For example, while peanuts may be completely safe and healthy for some, they can also be totally toxic and deadly for others who are allergic.
The effects of stress on our nervous system and immune system are very similar; yet we don't blame one's food sensitivity on their lack of "willpower" like we do one's sensitivity to stress.
Herein lies a large part of the shame and stigma that contributes to mental, emotional, and neurological toxicity.
The toxic effects of stress
The toxic effects of stress are very real and can cause many symptoms, illnesses, and diseases, including pain, hives, swelling, burnout, apathy, abuse, aggression, addiction, depression, anxiety, hypertension, heart disease, cancer, suicide, etc.
(I know this personally after a severe allergic reaction to stress that required emergency care.)
When we don't understand or accept the realities of the human nervous system — to proactively promote health, healing, and well-being — we are more likely to abuse and neglect it in ourselves and each other, that further increases toxicity.
How does your workplace navigate stress?
Far too often we're taught and told…
“GET OVER IT”
“JUST DO IT”
“SHAKE IT OFF”
“FAKE IT ‘TIL YOU MAKE IT”
“EMBRACE CHANGE (i.e., stress)”
“GET COMFORTABLE WITH DISCOMFORT (i.e., stress)”
Or another popular catchphrase that perpetuates the unhealthful expectation that navigating stress should be easy for everyone.
Even when well-intentioned, this lack of awareness, acceptance, and understanding of how the human brain and nervous system develop and operate can unintentionally increase the toxic effects of stress by perpetuating shame and stigma with unrealistic emotional demands and expectations.
It’s time to (re)learn what we need to succeed
What we often don't understand or realize is how our ability to regulate our emotions and unconscious stress response comes from a part our brain that may be more or less active, healthy, and developed for a variety of reasons (that has nothing to do with "willpower").
This is why understanding neurodiversity is so critical to reducing and preventing toxicity, and why mental fitness training is essential to promoting and maintaining healthful environments and outcomes.
Would you like to explore training options for yourself and/or workplace?