KACHARAGADLA

Not too long ago I finally went to the doctor for my annual physical. When I got the results back, it looked like I was healthy for a person my age. The results were right where they should be, except for one: my stress hormones. Apparently, my cortisol levels were incredibly high. Naturally, the doctor was concerned and wanted to dig deeper. Once she found out that I was an entrepreneur, she stopped her line of questioning. “That explains everything,” she replied with supreme confidence. “Almost all of my entrepreneur patients experience the same thing.” And with that, she sent me on my way with instructions to “try and relax.” It’s no secret that running a business is stressful. In fact, for the average entrepreneur, there are so many stressors and decision points throughout the day that at some point the quality of the decisions being made begins to deteriorate rapidly. This impaired ability to make good decisions is called decision fatigue, and it plagues leaders an

You hear a lot of advice about how to reduce stress at work. But most of it is about what to do over the long term — take up yoga, eat a healthy diet, keep a journal, or  get more sleep . But what do you do when you’re overcome with stress in the moment — at your desk, say, or in a meeting? Perhaps you’ve heard bad news from a client or were assigned yet another project. How can you regain control? What the Experts   Say Eighty percent of Americans are stressed at work, according to a  recent study  by Nielsen for Everest College. Low pay, unreasonable workloads, and hectic commutes were the top sources of tension, followed closely by obnoxious coworkers. What exacerbates the problem is that “people walk into work already laden with stress,” says Maria Gonzalez, the founder and president of Argonauta Strategic Alliances Consulting and the author of  Mindful Leadership . “If there is a hardship at home, you bring that to the office and it gets layered with your professional st