The Work Stress Cycle: A business fable about "coaching", "agilism" and the five steps that lead to burn out at work

You've been for a while having time just to work. Projects take longer, you have to put in extra hours, often without pay. That leaves you in a sorry state of exhaustion. Not even coffees have an effect.

Then you make mistakes. These errors must be corrected, so you have to work overtime again.

And if you are self-employed or a small businessman, what can I tell you? There are no weekends, the pressure exhausts you, you barely have time for your family.

If this is happening to you, I have bad news: you have entered the work stress cycle, a vicious cycle that affects millions of professionals around the world, and in all sectors. It is also known as burnout.

Our body notices it: it begins to release cortisol, adrenaline and other hormones. We can have tachycardia and hyperventilation, and higher blood pressure. Anxiety also appears.

If stress lasts over time, you can enter a really worrying phase: your body is no longer able to resist stress. You run a real risk of suffering serious physical and emotional disorders, to the point that you could develop mental or physical illnesses.

I don't need to tell you that your family life is also going to deteriorate. Work stress can destroy personal relationships.

But it's not all bad news. Just as we know very well what stress is and how it harms us, effective ways have also been developed to get out of this vicious circle.

"The Work Stress Cycle" shows you the way out in a simple and enjoyable way.

It is not a treatise or a study. It is the story of someone who manages to get out of the vicious cycle of work stress.

Although it is a fictional story, it is based on my own experience: I was where you are now, the work stress cycle, and I managed to get out of there. Is this possible to do.

How did I get it? First I focused on what was most urgent: the harmful habits that were hurting me. With the help of professionals I changed some that were deeply rooted, but that were detrimental to my health and my family life.

But this was not enough. There was no point in changing habits and attitudes if I continued doing things as usual at work.

That's why I radically changed my way of working. I adopted agile methods, which are revolutionizing the work life of professionals around the world.

Methods such as Scrum, Kanban or Lean Startup serve that purpose: working less and improving our lives, both work and personal.

I do not intend to make money from this book. I have my job for that. What I seek is to help professionals subjected to the tyranny of work stress.

If you are one of them, you have here an exit path within your reach. You are one step away from starting it.