First, religious practice — Page 143, Lesson 224

Let’s pick up with the topic of stress coping strategies — specifically the more personal and psychological tools available. First, religious practice. For many people, some form of religious practice helps them cope with stress, especially during major life events like bereavement, accident, or chronic illness. But there’s a potential danger here: if the belief is fatalistic — for example, thinking “it is in the hands of God” — it may actually prevent the individual from trying to resolve their own problems. So while faith can be a support, it shouldn’t become a reason to stop taking action. Next, counselling techniques. Many people benefit not just from professional counselling, but also from simply talking to friends or colleagues. Knowing that others also find a particular task difficult can reduce feelings of inadequacy. The basic principle behind counselling is this: because stress is caused by an individual’s perception of a situation, the stress will be reduced if you can change how that person perceives or reacts to the situation — by changing or modifying their beliefs or assumptions about the event. That’s called cognitive coping. Counselling may also help someone see that some behavioural change is necessary — that’s action coping — and help bring about that change. Now, a specific challenge for pilots. An individual who must demonstrate authority and control in their work — like a pilot — may show reluctance to admit they’re experiencing problems with stress. They may fear that admitting to being under stress could be interpreted as weakness or a lack of competence. But all pilots should be aware that stress can influence performance on the flight deck, particularly in an emergency. So if you feel affected by stress, you need to take positive steps to deal with it. There’s also an interesting note here about self-abusive behaviours. Evidence shows that people under stress often smoke more, overeat, or increase alcohol and caffeine consumption. This has led to the theory that these apparent self-abusive behaviours may actually be forms of stress management — not healthy ones, but attempts to cope. Now let’s move to the Stress Summary. Stress is simply a fact of life. We all require some stress to activate our nervous system, to stimulate us, and to allow us to adapt. It’s only when stress is high or sudden that it becomes destructive and may exceed our ability to adapt. Stress encountered in daily life is cumulative and depletes our reserves. But a lack of stimuli can be just as bad, because that encourages anxiety. Although it’s extremely difficult to eliminate stress, we can — through training and other techniques — increase our resistance to it. Stress coping can be either short-term (action coping) or long-term stress management (a change of lifestyle or counselling), depending on the situation. But the first step is always to recognize and admit to yourself that the condition exists. Here’s an important distinction: although the stress mechanism is mainly physiological and triggered as a defence mechanism to help us survive, the coping strategies to deal with stress are mainly psychological. Finally, to increase your stress tolerance, the chief weapons in your armoury are: - Experience — which means fewer unexpected situations. - Learning — so that reflex responses are performed correctly, even under stress. - CRM — Crew Resource Management — using all resources available to you. That covers the coping strategies and the summary of stress from this section.