Changing the Way Female
Entrepreneurs Perceive Stress
Nicola Yassin is a therapeutic stress
and anxiety coach, CBT therapist,
EFT therapist, havening practitioner,
trainer, and professional speaker. She
obtained her bachelors degree in
social sciences and has also obtained
postgraduate certificate in education,
besides diplomas in careers advice
and information and in cognitive
behavioral therapy; certificates in
Level 2 emotional freedom technique,
havening techniques, and coaching;
and an advanced certificate in
substance misuse practitioner skills.
She specializes in working with people
suffering with stress and anxiety. She
helps people understand how their
thoughts impact their feelings and
how they can be free of stress and
anxiety. She takes people from feelings
of stress, anxiety, lack of motivation,
being overlooked to a place where
they are motivated, inspired, and
confident to succeed in life.
Nicola Yassin, Personal Coach
Abstract: Everybody experiences stress; for some it is
short lived and for others it lasts for a prolonged period
of time, having a negative impact on both their work and
personal lives. Statistically, women are reported to have
experienced more episodes of stress throughout their
lives, with the numbers increasing as more pressures and
expectations are being placed upon them. Many female
entrepreneurs have a multitude of pressures placed on
them, and they can sometimes perceive this as stressful.
This article aims to take a look at how these women can
stop the negative impacts of stress and start to view it as
something that is there to help them.
Keywords: seeing stress differently, stress reduction,
women in business
Introduction
Weve all experienced stress at some point in our lives,
for most of us its something that occurs on a fairly reg-
ular basis. This generally poses no problem as its short
lived and resolved when we take some kind of positive
action. However, when we experience stress more of-
ten than we experienced a relaxed state p roblems may
arise.
One main reason could be that people do not have
much awareness of their current emotional state. We
plod along with our daily routines not taking time to
stop and think, How am I actually feeling right now?
This disempowers us, it takes away the opportunity to
assess our state and make any, sometimes vital mea-
sures to ensure that we are well and that our needs are
getting met.
This article shows that long-term stress seems to be
more prevalent in the female population and even more
so in those women in self-employment. Its important
that these women can have a good awareness of their
emotional states and use stress to their advantage.
Expert Insights 1
 Changing the Way Female Entrepreneurs Perceive Stress
Main Body
Quitting the nine-to-five job sounds like
a dream? There is often a misconception
that when people leave paid employment
to build their own businesses, life will be a
walk in the park. There will be more time
with the family, more time for holidays,
and more time for yourself. However, in
reality, its clear that if the entrepreneur is
still responsible for the household income,
time is usually rather scarce.
Many business owners dont have the
luxury of turning down work because they
may not know when the next contract will
arrive. They darent take time off for holi-
days because they no longer qualify for an-
nual leave, and they often find themselves
working late in to the night.
In order to have a successful business,
the owner needs to be highly invested in it.
Theres no slacking off for that extra coffee
or a light lunch with friends. Work comes
first.
There are an increasing number of
women deciding to create a better worklife
balance by leaving their paid employment
and deciding to become self-employed.
However, they are reporting an increase
in the hours they are working, additional
pressure, and higher levels of stress than
before. This article aims to explore the way
stress is impacting on their lives and how
changing the way they look at stress can
have a positive effect on both their physical
and psychological well-being.
There are many factors that contrib-
ute to the likelihood that business women
may experience stress. When interviewing
members of a female-only business net-
working group, it became apparent that
although they vary slightly from one in-
dividual to the next, there are many that
seem to be very common. These included
being over worked, feeling a loss of control,
isolation, and finances.
Statistically, women are more likely to
be directly affected by stress. The HSE UK
Government Department reports that Within
female age categories the 2534years, 3544
2 Expert Insights
years, and 4554 years were all statistically
higher than the rate for all persons com-
bined at 1790 cases, 2250 cases and 2170
cases respectively. The higher rates reported
by females is likely to be a product of the
proportion of females in the public services
and vocational occupations such as teaching
and nursing and cultural differences in atti-
tudes and beliefs between males and females
around the subject of stress.1
It has also been reported that many
women experience low mood and even de-
pression if their stress levels were high for
a prolonged period of time. Most women re-
ported coping with running a business and
keeping on top of daily household tasks too
much. House work remained undone lead-
ing them to feel as though they were failing
and creating feelings of low self-esteem.
It appears that there are two very dif-
ferent groups of women in business, those
that suffer under the negative effects of
stress and those who thrive as a result of it.
Its long been proven that when we ex-
perience a stressful event our amygdala
becomes activated, reducing the capacity
of our prefrontal cortex, resulting in loss of
focus, concentration, and therefore over-
all productivity. So, how is it that for some
women stress seems to act as a motivator
and can help them to become more driven
and succeed?
There has been much research on the
negative effects of stress, and how it affects
our physical and psychological well-being.
There have been studies showing links
between stress and poor heart health, di-
abetes, and even cancer. No studies have
ever been able to prove a direct causation,
but the correlations seem to show that the
higher the level of stress a person is ex-
posed to, the higher their risk of develop-
ing these diseases.
However, these studies dont address the
fact that people affected by the same stress-
ors can have very different physiological
responses to it. Not everyone develops dis-
ease when they are exposed to high levels
of stress, so what makes the difference?
 Changing the Way Female Entrepreneurs Perceive Stress
There has been very little research on
the positive effects of stress. We know that
it can sometimes be a motivation tool and
can prompt people to take positive action.
Some people report thriving in stressful
situations and often wait until the deadline
is fast approaching before completing proj-
ects as they say that they work better when
under pressure.
Recently, studies have shown that if we
change our thought processes when expe-
riencing stress, it can have a very differ-
ent impact on our bodies. In fact research
showed that two groups of individuals
matched evenly for stressful situations in
their lives, similar health profiles, and fam-
ily circumstances showed very different
physiological responses when exposed to
stress depending on their mind-set about it.
So, why do we view stress in such a
negative manner? Think of the 1950s style
stay-at-home Mum. She was responsible
for the household, the children, and to
make sure dinner was on the table when
her husband came home. No problem, a
full-time job in itself but generally quite
manageable. However, as we move closer
to current times, its clear to see that the ex-
pectations for women have changed. Large
proportions of women work and, as pre-
viously discussed, have started their own
businesses. However, for a large number
of these women, their roles back at home
havent changed. Double work equals dou-
ble pressure or stress.
Now take a look that as a society, we are
conditioned to view stress as bad. The ma-
jority of books, reports, and documentaries
about stress portray it as being a nasty, but
common curse that has a devastating effect
on us. Society consistently tells us this over
and over again until it becomes one of our
core beliefs. These beliefs are always cre-
ated by the stories we are told or we tell
ourselves over and over again, therefore it
becomes our truth.
What is true to us has an unfortunate
habit of becoming our reality. Take for ex-
ample, stress causes us health problems
Expert Insights
and notice how the person holding this
view becomes unwell when facing chal-
lenges or increased work load. In short, if
you believe, stress is bad for you, then it is.
Lets look at a scenario with two very dif-
ferent outcomes. The scenario involves a
35-year-old woman, she runs her own busi-
ness and has two children. She is asked to
deliver a presentation to a large audience.
The night before one of the children has a
tantrum, she is trying to catch up on some
work and is feeling generally harassed.
As she stares at the computer screen, she
suddenly notices her heart racing, she has
shallow, high breathing, and feels over-
whelmed. The thoughts start to fly through
her head, What if I mess up tomorrow?
What if they hate me?
Now in the first scenario, the woman
then begins to panic, she looks for a way
to get out of doing the presentation, her
levels of anxiety are elevated, and in short
she has a highly tense night with very little
sleep. This is not helpful when you have a
big presentation the next day.
In the second scenario, exactly the same
things happen; however, this time when
the woman notices she is highly stress, she
stops to ponder what it means. She comes
to the realization that its a sure sign that
she is stepping out of her comfort zone
and potentially doing something that will
benefit her business. She knows that all
this is part of her own development, and
she congratulates herself for pushing her-
self and for working hard to achieve more.
The night this woman then experiences is
very different to the first. She relaxes with
a sense of pride and high self-worth.
Looking at these scenarios, its clear to
see that the only difference was the way
the women perceived the situation. At
any point, either woman was only one
thought away from creating a whole new
experience.
In his book The Biology of Belief, Lipton
explores how are beliefs have a direct im-
pact on our psychology and physiology. He
discusses the case of a young boy affected
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