This is a story about stress from the book "Good, Bad, Who knows?" by the famous monk Ajahn Brahm.
In 2010, I was invited to give a keynote address at the World Computer Congress in Brisbane. I knew nothing about computers, but such trivial details as "not knowing what I am talking about" didn't stop me from accepting the gig.
During my speech, I held up my glass of water and asked my audience "How heavy is this glass?"
Before they could answer, I continued "If I keep on holding my glass like this, after five minutes my arm will ache. After ten minutes, I will be in considerable pain. And after fifteen minutes, I will be in agony and a very stupid monk!"
"So what should I do?"
"Whenever the glass of water starts feel too heavy for me to hold comfortably, I should put it down for one minute. Having rested my arm for sixty seconds, then I can pick up the glass and carry it with ease. If you don't believe me try it yourself at home!"
"This is the origin of stress at your workplace. It has nothing to do with how much work you have to do, or how heavy are your responsibilities, i.e, how heavy is your glass of water. It has everything to do with not knowing how to put it down when it feels too heavy to bear, and rest for a little while, before picking up the burden again."
My advice was so well received that it was published in the only daily newspaper in Australia, The Australian, and migrated from there to the Australian Stock Exchange website.
If you don't learn to 'put down the burden' and take a rest when you feel stressed, then the quality of your work will decline, your output will get much less, and your stress levels will increase. But, if you give yourself a half hour break in the middle of the day, the thirty minutes that you lose is soon made up with high quality work completed in a shorter space of time. You get, for example, four hours work done in three hours and it is of good quality.
Putting down the glass of water, therefore is not a waste of precious time, but an investment, repaid later through the increased efficiency of your brain.
My advice later appeared on the Harvard Business School Blog (And on this blog as well :)).
So, maybe I do know what I am talking about after all.
This is really good advice for dealing with the stress on a job and in everyday lives. For example I can write the books I want to write by practicing this technique and they will be much better and more beautiful if I do :)
Writing a book can feel stressing but does not have to be so, you just have to learn how to put things down when it gets too heavy to bear, then nothing is really heavy in this world and you can see how much fun and joy you can have in it i.e. the depression vanishes completely and never comes back!