The Higher Up You Go the More You Need EQ?

I’m listening to the radio this morning as callers talk about Martha Stuart’s sentence. Caller number one says it was too strict a penalty. She should’ve been given a small fine. It was enough she lost what she did in the stock market.

Caller number two says it wasn’t nearly enough for what she did. She should be given a huge fine and more prison time.

OPINIONS VARY. WHO’S RIGHT? HOW DO YOU DECIDE?

Earlier I read an article about television censorship. The man in charge at one of the studios lamented that it wasn’t like he had a list of 30 things he couldn’t say. People think there’s a list, he said, and there isn’t. That was an eye opener to me. I, too, thought he had a list! How then is he supposed to know what’s in and what’s not? How can he make this decision?

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO? THERE ARE NO RULES.

Mary Ann’s gynecologist tells her she needs a certain test, but if he orders it, insurance won’t pay. “But,” he says, “There’s a way around this. If you go to your GP…”

KNOW THE RULES SO YOU KNOW HOW TO BREAK THEM.

I GOT IT HANDLED
Oops, no I don’t.

·“There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.” ~ Henry Kissinger, “NY Times Magazine, 1969, U. S. politician
·“The more things change, the more they remain … insane.”
~ Michael Fry and T. Lewis, “Over the Hedge,” 05.09.04

Emotional Intelligence means being able to make good decisions with limited data, decisions that require maturity and wisdom. It’s lonely there. If you ask around, as the radio DJ did, you’ll get differing opinions about what’s right and wrong. When the TV censor man asks around, he finds a blackhole. You’re on your own. The physician making his way through the maze of managed care has to know where the entry points are. It’s more than knowing medicine these days.

But the pressure isn’t only at the top. It’s lonely along the way. Lonely and stressful.

STRESS

The Society for Neuroscience defines stress as “any external stimulus that threatens homeostasis – the normal equilibrium of body function.” The most powerful stressors, they say, are “psychological and psychosocial stressors that exist between members of the same species.”

That means we’re driving each other nuts! We no longer have to cope with lions and tigers, just with one another.

Some of the OTHER most powerful stressors are psychological and psychosocial stressors that go on in our own brains. We’re stressed when we’re called upon to do deal with the constant and increasingly rapid changes of day-to-day life, and the insecurity.

Stress activates physiological systems we can’t use in today’s world. If there’s a tiger in front of you, the chemicals start pumping to prime you to run and you can. If you’re stuck in a traffic jam, there will be no running and you continue to send out cortisol (which can eventually weaken muscles and weaken support bodily systems) and epinephrine (increases blood pressure), which together can contribute to a host of health problems including chronic hypertension, hardening of the arteries and assault on the immune system, which is, at the bottom line, our health.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Your Emotional Intelligence, the intelligent management of your emotions, influences your immune system. As researcher Candace Pert says, our emotions are in every cell. One of the EQ competencies, Personal Power is particularly important. It means the opposite of feeling hopeless and helpless.

According to the Society for Neuroscience, “one important determinant of the immune system’s resistance or susceptibility to disease may be a person’s sense of control as opposed to a feeling of helplessness.” Further, they think it’s the PERCEPTION of control or helplessness that influences these physiological responses which in turn affect the immune system.

And what jobs do they mention as being particularly stressful in this way? Telephone operators, waiters and waitresses, and cashiers, “jobs that carry high demands and low control.”

Individuals who can regulate the pace and style of their work have lower rates of heart disease. Going back to the “executive monkey” experiments of a decade ago, the monkey who could control the shocks handled the stress better than the one who couldn’t.

Note that it’s the PERCEPTION. In other words, if you could change your perception, you could do a lot for your wellness. One way to change your perception is to learn and understand the emotions better, so that eventually you can tamp them down when necessary. Then your perception of the event will be that you can handle it, and that makes a difference.

The goal is not to become numb. We need the information and vitality we get from our emotions. Also, the short-lived and immediate response to stress. It helps us in the long-term, giving us the extra strength we need to cope with the threat. We’ve all read in the news about people performing incredible acts in order to save people they love. In addition, the immediate physiological responses protect us and help re-re-establish homeostasis.

Those of us in public speaking understand this phenomenon. You learn to allow the adrenalin to pump up just enough to get you “up’ sufficiently for the presentation, but not so much that anxiety takes over, or that you’re exhausted afterwards. You also learn to put it out of your mind until needed; otherwise you’d be up all the night before! It becomes a matter of management, which is what Emotional Intelligence is all about.

Learn more about the intelligent management and use of emotions. It can affect your wellness.

Resource: “Brain Facts,” www.sfn.org