“We take the pulse of our managers’ stress and recovery in everyday activities”

“Leaders need to be able to manage great stress, but also need to recover. By measuring their heart rate and heart rate variability, we gain insight into their own daily lives and, through that, insight into how stress can be managed,” says Gunnar Westling.

Generally speaking, managers have few or no recovery opportunities during a normal workday. Over time, the increase in stress levels should not exceed 60 percent over 24 hours for a sustainable lifestyle, but measurements show that many managers have higher increases in stress levels than that.

Westling thinks it’s also a question of attitudes. Managers need to change their perception of themselves. They need more time to charge their batteries and to reflect on their own workload and the responsibilities they take on.

In his programs at SSE Executive Education, Westling tests the program participants’ pulses. Two software modules measure heart rate and heart rate variability over 72 hours, on two weekdays and one weekend day. During this period, the participants keep a diary so that when it is time for the analysis they can associate different events with increases in stress levels and recovery. Afterwards, each participant is individually assessed.

“It’s very concrete feedback when you can see how pressure leaves its mark and how you get to a state of recovery,” says Westling.

But what causes the stress is not always what you think. For instance, a casual Sunday can create stress because you have the time and opportunity to think a lot.

“This is typical executive stress. The stress increases when you’re not at work, because then you have the time to reflect on everything that needs to be done. The analysis clearly reveals this fact.”

“And, like I myself have noted, you can also see that if people answer email at 10:30 at night it takes three hours before the body achieves a state of recovery. So even if I fall asleep, my body doesn’t go into a state of recovery right away. If you’re up late every night sending emails, you maybe sleep seven hours, but your recovery is disrupted. Then you wake up to new stresses, and you don’t have enough energy reserves to use. It’s important to replenish your energy so you can manage new stress situations.”

“For my part, the result is that I manage these types of email questions early in the morning instead, while I’m up and about and not going to sleep,” says Westling.

Are managers who have a longer work experience better at reflection and recovery?

“It seems that way in some cases,” he says. “They have learned that they’ve got to recuperate, and that all problems don’t always require concrete actions immediately.”

During the programs, participants discuss how to discover methods for more effective recovery, both during the day and at night when they sleep. For many, this means winding down a little earlier in the evening so that they get better sleep that really allows them to recover.

A warning sign to watch out for, before things go too far, is when you start deprioritizing exercise or other light physical activity like brisk walks. Poor or inadequate sleep is another example.

“Understanding both stress and recovery is central to being able to execute leadership that endures,” says Westling.