Stress toys can be useful

Under pressure? Psychologists get out the prescription pad. JULIE MIDDLETON reports.

"Stress toys" range from squeezy balls bearing smiley faces, worry beads and rocking kinetic sculptures to leather-upholstered cars, lovers, alcohol and more alcohol.

All may be fun and distracting, but like the cliche clown who smiles outwardly but cries on the inside, are merely cover-ups, diversions.

John McEwan, stress consultant to miserable millionaires, reckons he has yet to see an executive playing with a stress toy. But a completely unscientific study in the offices of the New Zealand Herald suggested otherwise.

A range of range of stress toys from the store Nature's Window which started in the editor's office, ended up on desks all over the building.

The stress ball - printed with a map of the world - was a particular favourite, given that it won't punch holes in walls or brain the boss if thrown.

"Anything that distracts for a few minutes helps people to relax, to put their minds somewhere else", says psychologist John Groom.

There is method to the apparent mindlessness of kinetic sculptures, says Groom, pointing to the smiley face on his desk rocking gently in its cradle.

"There's a whole psychology of it. There are certain rhythms that seem to be grounding.

"Basically it's hypnotic, and may act to remind people of being locked in the womb. It's repetitious, soothing, and not too demanding".

But such smile-inducing toys on a colleague's desk may hint at deeper malaise.

"On a superficial level, toys are a way of signalling to the world that the person is stressed," says Groom.

"Anything that helps the executive to acknowledge to people around him, if only in joking terms, that's he's struggling is a good way."

But some people are so unaware of their own bodies and the stresses impacting on them that diagnostic "toys" are also used to give them a jolt of reality.

One is an elaborate version of the stress cards that you can buy at Dick Smith's for a few dollars. Stick your fingers on them and in 10 seconds you have a diagnosis - stressed, tense, normal or calm.

"The stress card is the most basic form of bio-feedback, and it's reliable," says Groom.

His bio-feedback machine is more sophisticated, but links straight into a subject's emotions through the fingers by measuring "galvanic skin response" - the resistance of the skin to the passage of a very small electric current. It is exactly the technology used in lie detectors.

It has been known for decades that the magnitude of this electrical resistance is affected not only by the subject's general mood, but also by immediate emotional reactions - the more relaxed, the drier your skin, and the higher its electrical resistance.

Groom uses it not only to prove to clients how stressed they are, but to teach them how breathing techniques and relaxation exercises can affect the colour of its indicators and the pitch of its electronic buzz.

The lesson he's try to teach is that we can control our responses to stress.

"Some people need gimmicks [to understand that]," he says.

"It engages them and it intrigues them ... and they kind of believe in it - whatever gets them into acknowledging they have a problem and acknowledging that they can do something about it.

"That's what psychology is about. The problem with stress is that it's very subtle and pernicious."

Adds McEwan: "My message is that burnout will become clinical depression if it's not confronted, and then what you've got is the need to be on depression medication longer."

McEwan's prescription? Stress management techniques to help to get feel-good endorphins up, and lots of water, "to get the [stress-related] cortico-steroids peed out as fast as possible, to get the seratonin levels up naturally."

"But if we can't get seratonin up naturally, I would rather get the person quickly on to an anti-depressant."

He says about half the executives coming to him do go on to some sort of pill.

McEwan's physical stress busters include doing the haka.

It's a familiar handle for a quick physiological relaxation exercise, adapted from yoga's Standing Lion pose, which he suggests you perform every time you get to the privacy of the bathroom.

"Bend the knees to get the pressure off the pelvic floor. Pull the shoulders downwards, tensing the muscles in the back.

"Stretch the fingers out and drag the jaw down to a silent scream and stick your tongue out.

"Breathe out vigorously for eight seconds. Do three shoulder rolls, forward and back.

"It takes about 15 seconds to do the lot, but it will take all the tension out of the body."

He also prescribes the following:

* Ventilate: At the end of each day do a daily dump of frustrations on to paper before leaving the office.

If there has been a group problem, conduct a debrief and leave the stress in the office. Focus on a personal plan.

* Recreate: Ensure your weekly plan has activities with those who matter to you. Have a personal physiological relaxation plan which is used often, such as the haka.

Make sure that a creative activity remains part of your weekly schedule. One day in seven off, at least. Programme a long weekend after 12 weeks.

* Medicate: Use any anti-depressants or medication prescribed without guilt. They have a place. Eat well - use nutritional supplements if necessary, and keep fluid intake high.

* Stimulate: Use endorphins to advantage. Exercise, love, laughter, tears, creative or social activities and celebration are all things that recharge inner batteries. Use daily and weekly.

* Lifestyle review: Review every three months your lifestyle goals and plans to ensure you are recharging your inner batteries.

You have a plan for maintaining your business - you need one to maintain your health.

Defeating stress long term, say our psychologists, means putting time and energy into developing a sense of purpose, meaningful relationships and good personal health.

Crucial to that, says Groom, is "the old-fashioned concept of sanctuary."

For one client who was so addled with stress he couldn't think straight, the first recommendation was that he put a lock on the loo door so his kids couldn't follow him.

"If everyone had 20 minutes on their own every day to reflect in a positive way and got eight to nine hours of sleep a night, I'd be out of business," he says.

Time poverty and sleep deprivation - "our sleep has been dropping since the invention of electricity" - are, he says, the two biggest things feeding our rising stress levels.

He recommends anything that offers time to reflect, whether that's one of the various forms of meditation, "the very old-fashioned thing of prayer", something physical, or visualisation - thinking yourself stress-free.

"We're an overstimulated society," he says.

"We confuse and equate stimulation with excitement.

"So the fast car, the mistress, the leather, the sex, whatever, are the substitute.

"They are a substitute for closeness, intimacy, faithfulness, contentment, a sense of wholeness, of spiritual belonging - very old-fashioned values".