Stress.

As ensemble directors, educators, and performers, we sometimes live our lives on mountains of stress. Stress from work, stress from school or other obligations. At times, the very people we care about most can be sources of stress. As teachers and educators, stress can be compounded by our expectations of ourselves when dealing with our students. We want to be the very best for our students so that they can achieve their very best in turn. When we don’t feel like we’re achieving our standards, and we can feel that stress in many different ways.

I have two questions. Before reading on, I’d like for you to take a moment and answer the questions for yourself. So take a moment and answer these:

1. Is stress good or bad for you?

2. Why?

Take your time. 

Have your answer? Great- Let’s talk about why you are right:

Stress is bad for you

Stress can be experienced as the pressure of not being far enough along in your goals or plans. The truth is, we are often not stressed by the expectations of others, but by our own expectations of ourselves. If we leave this kind of stress to fester without addressing it in a meaningful way, it can be debilitating. 

This type of stress can manifest in the form of bad moods, straining our relationships with the people around us. In extreme cases, stress can spiral us downwards into lockups: leaving us unable to do much of anything that is necessary to mitigate the stress or move us towards our goals. 

Stress at this level will bury you in self doubt and self-disappointment. Anyone who experiences this type of stress can attest to its negative effect on their health and relationships. However…

Stress is good for you

Did you answer earlier that stress is positive? You are not alone. Ask any top performer: athlete, coach, entrepreneur, and they will tell you how stress has carried them to the top of their game. Olympic wrestler and coach Dan Gable said “Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.” While that quote may be a four-course meal of hyperbole, the truth is that stress enables us and our students to achieve at greater and greater levels. 

As an example, think about what happens if you lift weights at the gym: essentially, you stress your muscles. That stress causes tiny tears in your muscles that, once rebuilt, grow back stronger, larger, more fit to the task they were before. That’s good stress in action. 

In contrast, you put yourself in danger if you lift too much weight or do too many reps at the gym. Your muscles can undergo too much stress. It can either prevent you from recovering properly, cause you long term harm, or your muscles can fail altogether mid-exercise, running the risk of immediate danger.

Embracing Stress

Your approach with your team then is the very same as an effective gym routine. Each day, each week, and each season, you challenge your team with goals that are just a little too hard to achieve with their current skill set. That might mean pushing for an increase in the number of reps per day, maybe it means increasing the tempo incrementally over time. When designing your season, it could mean adding new skills such as body while playing or elaborate runs for a developing section of the group. 

Remember these key components to embracing stress:

• Make it “just challenging enough”
• Develop a training plan
• Set checkpoints for that plan
  • Example: If you want to add a complex woodwind run, set tempo goals for different parts of the season. Set playing tests as well. Read more about achievable goals here.

Perhaps most importantly of all, when you “stress” yourself or your group, don’t forget to rest. Rest is a critical part of the growth process. Much like your muscles need down time after the gym, your team will need down time when it comes to stretching their skills. 

Create mental or physical “down time” during rehearsals with team building or leadership exercises. Schedule bonding time with your group outside of (or during) a rehearsal setting. While rehearsal does not take up a majority of our days in most situations, creating rest for your performers when you are together can help create the rested environment they are in need of.

If you continually challenge yourself, you will run into bad stress at times. When you do, show courage and alter or abandon the goal. Context plays a large role in this, instead extending this blog for another 5 paragraphs explaining when to change and when to abandon I’ll say this: use your best judgement. Don’t be hard on yourself, guide your students through healthy processing of what happened and why it is changing. 

Challenges help you and your program thrive, and the stress that comes with them can be a boon if you know the steps to success. Continue to challenge yourself and those that you lead. 

When the going gets tough, use your judgement to determine if it’s a healthy level of stress. If it is, fix your mindset towards growth. 

And if it’s not, don’t stress it.