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The High Cost Of Stress On The Job

Dec13
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Jobs stress is estimated to cost American industry $150 billion per year in diminished productivity, health insurance, direct medical expenses, absenteeism and compensation claims. These job stress costs are more than 15 times that of all strikes combined. Stressed out workers:

Smoke more
Have more problems with alcohol and drugs
Have more family problems
Are less motivated at work
Have more problems with co-workers
Experience more physical illnesses

Simply reducing the most highly strained jobs will, in turn, reduce the high cost of job stress and will result in a healthier, more productive workforce.

There are a number of strategies for combating job stress. It is important to understand that job stress is the result of multiple causes and therefore has to be addressed through multiple solutions. Simply tackling the stress issues of individual workers will not solve the wider ranging problems of occupational stress. Organizational change is vital to bring about a lasting reduction in the high cost of job stress.
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Stress Relief For Teenagers

Dec13
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Everybody experiences stress but teenagers experience it more than most given the rapid rate at which their lives and bodies change on an almost daily basis. All change results in stress, whether good or bad, and learning to handle it is vital to our health and happiness. Stress management for teens is therefore an essential skill set that needs to be learned. Read on to discover how to do this in simple steps.

The first thing a teen needs to do is to identify their stress limits. This can be done by asking the following questions:

1. What makes me explode?
2. How often am I angry, frustrated, nervous or frightened about something?
3. What do I do when things don’t happen the way I like?

Awareness is key to managing stress for teens. If you are a teenager, tell yourself that when you are aware of your actions you can control them before things get out of hand. It is important to know when you are stressed out so that you can deal with it. Here are some indicators that you may be stressed out:
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Learning To Deal With Stress While At Work

Dec13
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin

There are many potential sources of stress at work – learning what to do about it is extremely important for both your health and your career. Some of these potential sources of stress include:

ï Role conflict
ï Role ambiguity
ï Working relations
ï Overload
ï Control (or lack of it)
ï Feedback (or lack of it)
ï Support from colleagues (or lack of it)
ï Uncertainty over job future

This list does not include stressors outside of the workplace that can also affect your performance. These may, for example, be family demands which place particular strain on dual career or single-parent households. Marital problems, caring for elderly parents, health issues affecting a family member and concerns over children can all affect us at work. There are, in addition, sources of workplace stress that should never be tolerated. These are sexual harassment, unsafe working conditions and violence in the workplace. These three sources of workplace stress need to be taken extremely seriously and addressed at managerial level.

Generally speaking, workplace stress arises in four main areas:

ï Lack of control over your work or working environment
ï Uncertainty over work-related issues
ï A prevailing dysfunctional conflict
ï The general demands of work or specific tasks

It is important to address each of these areas when attempting to reduce stress in the workplace. Managers and employees need to work together to develop effective stress management policies and programs. Stress at work does not just come from the individual stressors listed earlier but can be a direct result of job demands such as a heavy workload and long hours. If these job demands result in too high a level of stress than they need to be adapted on all levels, including policies and procedures, as well as on the part of the worker.

Company climate sets the tone for the amount of stress experienced in the workplace. If the working environment is one where personal needs and feelings are considered, the potential amount of stress will be decreased. If, however, the working atmosphere is one where people distrust one another and indulge in gossip and back-biting then correlating stress will be increased. Another source of stress in the workplace is uncertainty over, for example, job security, changes in management or changes in working practices.
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Stress Relief Techniques That Work

Dec13
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin

There are a number of stress therapy techniques that work well, two of the better-known ones being controlled breathing and progressive relaxation training. Progressive relaxation training involves a number of exercises that train your mind and body to gradually become more relaxed. Although there is something of a learning curve to this therapeutic technique, with practice this is an extremely effective method of reducing stress.

Controlled breathing requires less initial effort and works well as a stress therapy for people who find it relatively easy to clear their minds and regulate their breathing which, in turn, relaxes the rest of the body. This is sometimes hard to do because the majority of people who are stressed tend to breathe quickly and shallowly. A good therapist will be able to decide which technique is most suitable as they have vast experience of determining how individuals respond to particular treatments.

Another stress therapy technique that works well is cognitive restructuring. This is particularly suitable in cases of accumulated stress and for people who have a tendency to over or under react to potentially difficult situations. During cognitive restructuring your therapist will help you to examine situations so that you can see them for what they really are rather than what you imagine them to be. Many of us, for example, make assumptions or have unfounded worries that are entirely inappropriate to a situation. A therapist can help identify those inappropriate thoughts and feelings and can point out how they actually contribute to stress.
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Formulating A Plan To Manage Your Stress

Dec13
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Making a plan to manage your stress is the first, essential step everyone should take to conquer this debilitating condition. To develop your stress management plan, follow these steps:

1. Recognize that you are experiencing stress. Stress is a natural response to life’s events and is most certainly not a weakness. Stress can actually help us perform at peak efficiency when at moderate levels. When, however, stress is higher than normal or is not dealt with effectively then it produces real, harmful mental and physical reactions.

2. Learn to recognize the symptoms of stress. The physical signs of stress include raised blood pressure, fatigue, tense and aching muscles, decreased appetite and/or sex drive and weight gain or loss.

The emotional symptoms of stress can include irritability, forgetfulness, difficulty in concentrating, impatience and a sense of feeling overwhelmed.

Behavioral signs of stress can include changes in sleeping or eating habits, verbal or physical aggression, excess use of alcohol or tobacco, being more accident prone and avoiding certain situations or people.

Relational symptoms of stress include difficulties in communicating with others and increased conflict and dissatisfaction with relationships.
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Learning To Lead A Stress Free Life

Dec13
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Can you really lead a stress-free life? In actual fact, living a stress free life is not a reasonable or desirable goal. What you should be aiming at is to deal with stress actively and effectively so that it does not become a destructive force. One way to do this is to study and copy those people who are naturally resistant to stress. These are the people who cope in the most appalling circumstances with what appears to be an uncanny serenity.

When researchers studied these people, they discovered that they all share distinctive habits. First off, they tend to focus on immediate issues rather than global ones. They couple this with an optimistic, explanatory approach. A stress resistant person may, for example, say something like, ëI am tired today,í rather than, ëThat’s it, Iím all washed up,í thereby assigning a temporary nature to their troubles and diminishing the associated negativity.

Stress resistant people also tend to be specific about circumstances and attributes rather than dealing in generalities. They may, for example, say something like, ëI have a bad habit,í rather than, ëI am a bad person.í They also give themselves credit when things go right and externalise their failures by, for example, saying something like, ëThat was a difficult audience,í rather than, ëI gave a horrible presentation.í By emulating these stress resistant people we can certainly lead a stress-reduced life if not a stress-free one.
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Managing Stress Effectively

Dec13
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin

Understanding and managing stress is key to leading a healthy, productive life in our hectic world. So many people say that they are stressed out without really understanding what that means. When you say that you are stressed out, what is it that you are really saying about yourself? Can we really be stressed beyond our limits or, by learning and utilising specific strategies, can we in fact turn stress around so that it is a motivating force in our lives?

Stress is a person’s response to a demand for change. We experience such demands on a higher or lower level every day of our lives. Faced with these demands, we may try to resist change while also trying to manage the stress associated with it. Not all change, however, is a bad thing just as not all stress is bad for us. Some stress is very useful to us and is even essential in certain circumstances such as learning. Research has shown that learning takes place under conditions of moderate stress. Your aim, therefore, is not to eliminate all the stress you experience but to understand and to manage it so that it remains at an acceptable level.

The best strategies for managing stress are those that are not destructive but which are healthy ways to prevent stress from increasing or to reduce the tension when stress builds beyond a moderate level. Destructive strategies for managing stress include smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol to excess, taking illegal drugs or misusing prescribed medication. While these strategies bring short-term relief this is at high cost to both mind and body. One of the worst strategies of all is to do nothing about a problem and hope it will go away. It hardly ever does and the stress of not dealing with it is far greater than that of following a constructive course of action.
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Handling The Effects Of Stress

Dec13
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin

When someone feels threatened, their body automatically falls into the fight or flight response which is our default short-term response to stress. Learning how to handle these short-term effects of stress is essential for our overall health and well-being. This is because the fight or flight response is an ancient one and generally inappropriate in modern day situations. Being confronted by a rampaging woolly mammoth is not the same as feeling overwhelmed by a situation at work, for example, but our bodies cannot differentiate between these two scenarios and it is therefore up to us to learn to handle the physiological changes that occur.

These changes include:

ï The diversion of blood from less vital to more vital organs
ï An increase in heart rate to supply blood more efficiently
ï An increase in respiratory rate to take in more oxygen
ï An increase in blood pressure to supply blood more efficiently
ï The breakdown of glycogen stores in the liver and muscle to obtain more glucose
ï The formation of more glucose from non-carbohydrate sources
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