Healthy criticism doesn’t always equate with a healthy body, at least initially and especially for people like me who are ‘late bloomers’ in that area. What exactly happens during a stressful event and what does it do to your body?

My entire childhood and adolescent years were spent in an exclusive Catholic girls school. It was a strict, sheltered environment where academic excellence was the main focus. It was a competition that you just had to be part of, should you wish to survive. Grades and other forms of credit and praise weren’t at all given generously, and personally I got more disapproval and correction than encouragement; I didn’t even get golf claps.

It was what I thought I had eventually learned to live with and sometimes, even uphold, but now that I think about it, it only made me into the kind of person who really took criticism seriously. Why? Because I was trained even as a kid to always do what’s right, even if it burns me out. Mistakes should be avoided at all costs, and when you make one, it automatically becomes the embarrassment of the century.

Thankfully when I got into the corporate world, I learned how to embrace criticism and sometimes, even love it. As long as I knew that it’s factual and constructive, and not a personal attack — in which case I do not stop until I let the other person know that he or she has crossed the line — I’m all ears, open-minded and accepting. Why? Because it’s just less stressful that way.

Healthy criticism doesn’t always equate with a healthy body, at least initially and especially for people like me who are ‘late bloomers’ in that area. What exactly happens during a stressful event and what does it do to your body?

In Dr. Kassam’s video, The Stress Test, she explains how the sympathetic nervous system gets stimulated during a stressful situation like being caught off guard with a sudden call down. I wrote about the fight or flight response before, and this reflex stimulates our hormones that increase the heart rate and oxygen demand, sending the S.O.S. to go pump more blood to our muscles now. Blood vessels constrict elevating blood pressure levels and, guess what? This impedes blood flow in the arteries, which is what usually triggers heart attacks and strokes. There is just not enough blood flow getting into the important organs and tissues during a stressful situation, and this is obviously harmful. That, and, it just doesn’t feel pleasant at all.

There are many causes of stress but today, I will focus on the stress that comes with a supposedly healthy criticism. Let’s face it: we’re all oozing with pride; we flinch when someone points out a weakness or a mistake, however factual the weakness or valid the mistake. Guess what? With flinching comes muscle tension, and with muscle tension comes a whole new slew of stress manifestations.

Here are some tips that aren’t exactly the easiest to incorporate successfully overnight, but if you want to work on taking healthy criticism healthily, you might want to give these a shot:

• It’s okay to make mistakes. This was extremely difficult for me to grasp, given the fact that I was ‘trained’ to call it a taboo. But if you embrace your humanity and the mere fact that it seems like we were fashioned to make mistakes, just because sometimes, it is the only way to learn something valuable, then the next time you say “Oh crap. That was wrong”, you will no longer beat yourself up for it. That’s one stressful situation down.
• Breathe. It’s something that we ignore majority of the time. Once you’re in a room with someone who’s about to give you the critique, or if you’re in the middle of reading a disapproving blog comment, switch to conscious, proper breathing. When you’re tense, you usually breathe from the chest, which just doesn’t provide enough life-sustaining oxygen as compared with abdominal breathing. Breathe from the nose and let it expand your diaphragm. It might take a little practice but once you’re at it, you will notice your heart beat more steadily, and you will feel more relaxed, ready to handle the situation.
• Listen, then talk. Try not to interrupt to defend yourself, even if the temptation is killing you. Not only will it give you a complete picture of what the other person is saying, which will spare you the mistake (oh no, another one!) of inferring something that he or she didn’t intend in the first place, but it’ll also give you time to calm down and respond objectively.
• Don’t take it personally. This was something that I had to learn and relearn for a very long time. It takes a lot of self-control to stay focused and not let your pride get the best of you, especially when you feel attacked when in reality, you’re not being attacked at all. Just think of it this way: when it’s constructive, healthy criticism, the person is making the critique based on pure observation. There’s a reason why that person pulled you aside in the first place. If they had the worst of intentions or an ulterior motive, I’m pretty sure you’d sense it; that is, if it’s not spreading like a plague of rumors yet or Tweeted with such overt — not to mention public — resentment.
• Learn from it. Again, if it’s constructive, healthy criticism, it’s almost always valid. Thank the person for his or her honesty, and for simply taking 5 minutes of their time to rightfully inform you before you self-destruct.

Be open and don’t recoil in insecurity, resentment or utter defeat. You learn something new each day, and constructive criticism is a great avenue to acquire something valuable. That, and, just give your body a break! Calm down. Find your Zen. More often than not, it’s probably something that you really needed to hear in the first place.