Coping Strategies

Hello Fishies!

When you think of the excitement of an extreme job where the profits may be huge, and you’re living on a knife-edge, it’s easy to forget that these people have to cope with enormous pressure and stress. So how do they cope? Are there any mechanisms we normal mortals can learn to help us deal with the stresses and strains of everyday life?

The first and perhaps most important point to mention is that these people will be well equipped to deal with stress to start off with. Only people with a tendency towards these kinds of activity will be involved with them, and that’s a special type of person, says Edna Agbarha – Head of Talent Management for Right Coutts, the Management Consultancy,

“These people are most likely to be extrovert characters who need to be stimulated by external forces all the time. Often they will be less of a team player, more of an individual, and very ambitious – you could say they are not the kinds of people who like routine.”

So these people seem to need excitement just to stay ticking over – you could say that the only way they can feel alive is to risk death.

Psychology as a discipline has identified numerous ways people could cope with trauma or stress. They range from denial – where a person may deny that an event has even occurred, to compartmentalisation – where a person may simply separate different parts of their life into ‘compartments’ to enable them to cope. It’s hard, for example, to imagine a crab fisherman coming home after being at sea in a force eight wind, and having the same attitude to his wife and children as he had out to sea – he will put that aside and try and forget.

Another explanation for people coping with extreme jobs could be the attitude towards the job. Gareth English, Senior Consultant for OPP, the business psychology consultancy, has something to say here,

“Although to many, these dangerous jobs may appear too terrifying to even contemplate, those who do them often find the work exciting rather than stressful. Others manage the work pressure through the support they receive, from friends, family, colleagues or clients. For fire-fighters, for example, knowing that they are making a difference to people can outweigh the stress.”

There are two new reasons to separate out there, one is that those in extreme jobs may weigh up the danger to themselves against the good they are doing for society, like firefighters, or policemen may well do. The other is even more interesting, and takes up Edna Agbarha’s earlier point: it may well be that these people don’t find their job dangerous, but exciting, they don’t feel nervous, instead they get a rush. Surely we can all learn from this – being able to convert nervous energy into excitement must be a great life skill to have.

Stay tuned!

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