Stress Under Pressure

Product Description

Stress Under Pressure is the evidence-based stress management system for founders — built on the distinction between the stress that enhances performance and the stress that systematically degrades it, and the specific physiological and psychological tools for staying on the right side of that line.

What’s inside:

The Physiology of Founder Stress — How the HPA axis and sympathetic nervous system activate in response to the specific stressors of founding. Cortisol dysregulation patterns. The physiological cost of chronic activation across each body system. Heart Rate Variability as the accessible stress readout.

The Performance-Stress Curve — The Yerkes-Dodson law applied to founder performance. The three zones (understimulated; optimal; flooded) and how to manage between them. Calibrating stress to task type. The challenge vs threat stress distinction and how it changes everything.

Acute Stress: High-Stakes Performance — The pre-performance protocol (box breathing; physical activation; stress reappraisal; visualisation). Real-time regulation during high-stakes interactions. Managing acute stress in negotiations, board meetings, and team all-hands.

Chronic Stress Management — The allostatic load model. Identifying dysregulation early. The co-founder stress dynamic. Social stress and founder isolation. The team cultural dimension of founder stress.

Resilience: The Trainable Quality — The neuroscience of resilience. The evidence-based practices that build it (progressive stress inoculation; mindfulness; post-adversity reflection; social support; purpose). Cognitive reappraisal as the most powerful psychological resilience tool.

Burnout: Recognition and Recovery — The three-dimension burnout model. The risk profile. The three-phase recovery protocol. Founder mental health: breaking the silence.

The 12-Week Founder Stress Protocol — Progressive implementation from assessment through full system integration. Tracking dashboard, quarterly review tools, and implementation checklists.

55 pages. Entrepreneur’s Edge Series, Guide 2 of 5.