What I Tell Air Traffic Controllers About Stress

Life can be stressful, especially if you’re an air traffic controller. Controllers are under so much stress that the U.S. Navy requires their Air Traffic Controllers to talk about stress with Aerospace Physiologists, like myself, every year.

My most stressful experience started with a violent multi-vehicle accident on the New Jersey Turnpike

When teaching people about stress, I‘m able to relate, because I’ve battled the kind of stress that makes it hard to go about basic activities. My most stressful experience started with a violent multi-vehicle accident on the New Jersey Turnpike. My car was totaled, but I was not wounded. Physically I appeared to be fine, but I was having serious problems. Every time I got in a car my heart would pound and my breath would speed up. Whenever something came from my left side, I wanted to protect myself. From the outside, I wasn’t in any real danger. That’s what makes stress so… stressful.

The Air Traffic Contollers on my last Navy base use this definition of stress, “A term used to refer to the consequences of a person’s responses to emotional or physical situations, whether real or imagined.” Whether real or imagined. That means we often get stressed when there is no “real” danger. We’re going to be OK. The stress response comes when we perceive danger, real or imagined. You have 6 senses for stress. You have the usual 5 plus imagination. When I imagined that getting in my car was dangerous, I felt the same stress response as a real car accident.

Your first step to reduce stress is to free your mind from old perceptions about stress. You are in control of your perceptions. Stress is not a big boogey monster that is coming to get you. Stress doesn’t happen in the workplace or at your in-laws house. Stress happens in your mind and stays with you in your body, through headaches, illnesses, and such.

Now that we know where stress really happens, I’m going to explain what that means for us practically. Stress is a perception, a thought. Chronic stress is that thought pattern repeating over and over again. Stressed thinking becomes a habit. I’m thinking about something and I imagine that it will be terrible and scary. I’m getting in my car and I imagine that I will get cut off and crash into a light post. I’m an Air Traffic Controller getting into the office and imagine that I will cause a plane crash. If that thought is reinforced by a life and death situation or by repetition, then I will quickly connect that situation with the stressful thought. Remember, what is stress? “A term used to refer to the consequences of a person’s responses to emotional or physical situations, whether real or imagined.” Think about that, I have a habit of imagining that I will die. I have a habit of feeling stressed every time I get in my car. Chronic stress is a habitual thought pattern.

Habits can change.

Your second step is to crush the habits of stress in your thinking. Pay attention to your habits. When you feel that trigger that starts your habit, get out of it. If your habit is to see an important email, feel stressed, and get tense, hack that pattern. Next time you see an important email and tense up, tell yourself that it is so exciting. Relax your shoulders on purpose. Over time, this will become your new habit. You will relax without even thinking about it. Hack that pattern.

You can also use mindfulness to overcome these habits. I know mindfulness sounds woo-woo, but Phil Jackson used mindfulness with athletes like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant to win 11 NBA championships. Mindfulness is the process of acknowledging your imagined fears and then letting them go by focusing on reality. You feel yourself getting stressed by your work, like it’s a matter of life and death. Then, you stop and recognize that you are not in danger. Focus on the feeling of your feet on the floor. Very simple. Very effective. The 6th sense — imagination — perceives danger, focus on your other 5 senses that signal safety.

Finally, make a low stress culture for yourself and the people around you. This helps you as an individual, because other people’s stress is contagious and you might catch it. The history of workplace culture goes that I, as a human being, am a social animal. Humans have lived in social groups for ages. If I am not in the group, I am alone in the wilderness. I will probably die. I must be protected by the group.

The big question is — What is a culture? Let’s define culture as a system of values and beliefs.

It’s the job of members of a culture to embody the values and beliefs. That’s how we fit in. Meshing with the culture has enormous physiological effects.

Connect with people IRL. The feelings of goodwill that come from fitting in and being liked, even loved, trigger oxytocin in our bodies. This is easily transmitted in a hug, but it’s not scalable. Send an email full of goodwill and it won’t trigger the same response.

Praise in public. When we feel our status rise within a group our bodies generate serotonin. This feels great, your chest swells with pride. Being recognized at an award ceremony will get the serotonin flowing. And it spreads easily, because the people who helped you earn the award (such as a mentor or parent) will also feel pride and elevated serotonin. We can temporarily fake this pride through luxury goods, like fancy sneakers and elegant cars. The luxury pride fades and creates a vicious cycle of consumption. Better to aim for real achievement.

Never use fear and intimidation. Short-term stress responses are valuable to help us survive. The long-term stress of fearing your boss is detrimental to your health. It even blocks oxytocin.

We must watch out for each other and create a lower stress environment.

-Embody values and beliefs of culture, creating trust

-Spread goodwill personally, generating oxytocin

-Recognize others, generating serotonin

-Resist the temptation to intimidate, reducing the cortisol response in others

Remember, you are in control. Your stress can be changed. Change the way you look at it. Change your habits. Change the way stress gets spread around.

If you read all this and still feel overwhelmed, I encourage you to seek professional help. It is very tempting to self-medicate, but developing an addiction will increase your stress in the long run.