Stress Kills Creativity

I was pleased to deliver the only wellbeing event of Manchester Digital City Festival. The Stress Kills Creativity Workshop.

Delivering in partnership with Deanne Walsh of Dewa Consulting .  We were kindly hosted by Jonny Quirk at Wework LABS in what was a really engaging and informative session on stress.

Some of the areas we covered were;

What actually is Stress?

First of all I looked at the medical and biological definition of stress. It is defined as “a physical, mental or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension. Stresses can be external or internal”

I then went on to look at how we respond to stress. This enables us to understand how others may react to stress when faced with different situations.

The Nervous System

Of course stress is a natural response that is automatically programmed within our genetic make-up. This keeps us in survival mode. Deanne looked at the neuroscience behind stress and described the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. She described what happens to our body as a result of feeling stressed and how we may feel.

Stress Management

The attendees were not just sat listening intently to what we had to say! They were involved in some activities that drew on their own experiences of stress. What did they think were contributory factors to stress? What symptoms were they likely to see in themselves and amongst colleagues?

We looked at stress management techniques and what individuals can do in the workplace and also at home too. Useful tools were provided for attendees to look at their own stress levels in detail and how to effectively manage them.

Stress Kills Creativity?

As we said in the beginning, Stress Kills Creativity! Stress is a huge problem for individuals and organisations in the tech industry, as reported by BIMA in their 2019 Tech Inclusion and Diversity Report.  The report highlighted that 66% of people working in tech are stressed with 13% feeling constantly stressed. Due to this, the statistics show if you work in tech you are 5 times more likely to be depressed than the national average.

There is lots of research on the impact of stress and creativity and I have yet to read any articles that looks at stress in a positive light in relation to creativity!

Most noteworthy is The Harvard Business Review, 2002. When looking at stress in the principles of time pressure the authors said, “When creativity is under the gun… It usually ends up getting killed.”  Pretty gruesome eh?

Finally, we have received some really positive feed back from the workshop so far. So good, as a result we are pleased to announce that we have been invited to deliver it later on in the year at Leeds Digital Festival – The largest tech event in the UK!

So if you missed this workshop, look out for it appearing in the not to distant future!

Emma ?