How to recognize stress in others

Knowing the signs of stress for yourself is one thing, recognizing them in others is another matter. You cannot rely on physical symptoms that you feel yourself, but you have to look for other things. Here are some to watch out for, plus tips to get stressed persons to talk about their problems.

Recognizing physiological symptoms of stress in others

While it is true that many physiological signs of stress, such as increased heart rate or stomach aches, are hard to observe in others, there are still a few that can give a clue that somebody is under stress. These include the following:

• Sweating more than usual or have a nervous twitch
• Eating too many unhealthy foods (“pleasure foods” such as hamburgers and french fries), or rather a loss of appetite
• Increased smoking or drinking

The increased sweating is caused by the stress hormone adrenaline, and serves to counterbalance the rise in body temperature that can occur during stress.

Eating unhealthy food, smoking and drinking all reveal the search for stress relief by consuming products that are unhealthy, but make one feel better almost instantly. However, the stress relieving effect of this is short-lived and makes people need to take more tobacco or alcohol to bring about the same feeling of calmness. Unhealthy eating, smoking and drinking can become habits that lead to other diseases such as diabetes and obesity, cancer, and liver damage.

The loss of appetite occurs in about 40% of chronically stressed people, and reflects a loss of pleasure in eating things they like. Very often, these people also stop doing things they liked to do before, like spending time with friends or on hobbies. Their energy comes from the liver in the form of sugar and from adipose fat tissue. A loss of appetite logically results in weight loss, and this is something you might be able to observe in others.

Perhaps a person confides in you that he or she may not be sleeping well lately. Or they may have told you that they are suffering from more headaches than usual. These too are signs of stress.

Emotional symptoms of stress in others

Stress has profound effects on the brain. This is reflected in the behavior and mood. These changes are manifold and can often easily be observed.

• Increased irritability and anger
• Increased anxiety and worrying
• Showing signs of frustration
• Showing signs of being overwhelmed
• Loss of sense of humor
• Having a low self-esteem while this is not typical for this person
• Difficulty concentrating, being easily distracted
• Poor decision making
• Impaired problem solving
• Loss of creativity and out of the box thinking
• Memory problems
• Reduced productivity
• Avoiding difficult situations
• Social withdrawal

The brains of people who are under high stress work differently from those of people who are relaxed or have little stress. For example, people under low stress can process seven messages at a time, and recall information in linear order. This is the order in which the information had been presented to them. In contrast, people under high stress can process only three messages at the time. This increases the risk of missing important information. Also, they recall information that was the most important to them, or which was said last.

It can therefore happen that you have had a discussion at work about the distribution of tasks, and that somebody does only half of the tasks that you had agreed upon. It is of course possible that this person is lazy, but it can also be that this person is under stress and genuinely does not remember that he or she had to do more work than what was done.

So instead of starting an argument as to why the other did not do his or her job as discussed, you may want to find out whether this person is under stress or not. You would have to see if you can observe several of the symptoms listed above (all symptoms on their own are not necessarily indicating stress) and talk about problems the other may have.

How to talk about stress

People can be reluctant to acknowledge when they are suffering. There is still a taboo on talking about stress. People may feel ashamed, thinking that stress is something for the weak and incapable only. However, nothing can be further from the truth. Everybody can fall victim to stress. It just depends on the circumstances and personality of each of us. There is therefore no reason to be resistant to talking about stress.

Another obstacle to talking with a stressed person is that he or she may be avoiding engaging with others. Social withdrawal is one of the symptoms of stress, and may be in the way of having a meaningful conversation. However, if you suspect someone you know has problems with stress coping, have the courage to start a conversation anyway.

You don’t have to be a psychiatrist or psychologist to do so. It is more important to be a good listener, allowing the other to talk things through. This could already help him or her to realize the origin of the problems that give stress, and to find a solution. Open questions (that is, questions to which you cannot answer by simply saying “yes” or “no”) like “How have you been feeling?” and “Are you alright, I have noticed you don’t seem to be your usual self?” are more effective than simply telling someone that you would like to hear what is wrong. Also notice that you ask from your own perspective, hence the “I” in the example. By using the “I”-question, based on your observations, you do not put pressure on the other, giving him or her a chance to explain more freely what is on his or her mind.

If you have a good relationship with the stressed person, you could next try to engage him or her to get involved in activities that may help him or her cope better with stress. For example, taking regular exercise does absolute wonders for reducing stress. So why not suggest going for a walk in the woods in the fresh air on the weekend? Or if you conclude that somebody is overloaded with work, you could try to convince the stressed colleague to talk with the manager. Together, they could for example identify the tasks that are most important and take the worries away about low-priority jobs.

How professionals talk about stress

If you feel uncomfortable talking to stressed people, you could adopt a technique that is used by some counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists. It is known as the ABC method. The “A” stands for “Affective” (how we feel, emotions), the ”B” for “Behavior” (how we behave, what we are doing), and the “C” stands for “Cognitive” (how we think). To be successful with the ABC method, the only skill you really need is showing empathy. Empathy is defined as “the understanding and imaginatively entering into another person’s feelings” (from the Collins dictionary). So empathize with others to sense how they are feeling. This helps already a lot in your conversation.

• Affection. Psychologists and psychiatrists often see clients who say they are feeling stressed. But the term “stress” by itself needs further definition. Psychologists and psychiatrists will therefore ask questions like

1.   What are you stressed about?
2.   Why are you feeling stressed now?
3.   When does stress occur?

Answering these sorts of open questions helps to build up a scenario of the causes of stress, based on emotions. The most common negative emotions related to stress are anxiety (worrying) and anger (out of frustration or feeling ignored for example).

In doing the analysis, someone may for example find that frustration is a tension (stress) about wanting to deliver good quality work but feeling constrained by someone or something. So in discussing this further with the stressed person, you could nurture the “wanting to deliver” part, and empathize with the limitation this person experiences. By empathizing you may find out why this limitation exists so that you can work together to come to a solution.

• Behavior. Psychologists and psychiatrists can also analyze the behavior of a person to assess whether this person is under stress or not. They will be on the lookout for particular behaviors such as bullying or retraction, substance abuse or eating habits and others to add extra indications of stress. You can do this too, and then bring this up if you see a colleague or a loved one displaying unusual behavior. Especially if this person has not shown this sort of behavior before. Use the “I”-message to open the discussion, based on your observations. “I have noticed that you have started yelling, which you normally don't do. This gives me the impression that you could be tense about working in our team.” This invites the other to express how they feel, and explain their behavior. If we go back to the previous example, in which somebody was frustrated because of being constrained by a colleague, the stressed person may start to explain that his or her changed conduct was motivated by blocking the progress of his or her work.
• Cognition. This concerns how people think and includes things like concentration, memory and decision making. These can all be affected by stress, and should be considered when assessing when someone is under high stress. When you observe colleagues or loved ones being distracted all the time, or forgets even the simplest things, you should bring this to their attention, like psychologists and psychiatrists do by using the “I”-message.

If you pay attention to all three domains, you will get a clear picture of whether someone is under stress or not. It is the combination of the three that is important. On their own, each of the three is not indicative of stress per se. But when you recognize changes in somebody’s emotions, behavior and thinking capacities, it is a good idea to talk. Starting the conversation from your own perspective, based on the things you have seen, will make the discussion a lot easier. This could help find the causes of stress much faster than by simply pushing somebody to talk. And once the causes of stress are known, solutions can usually be found.