Concept of stress

Everyone experiences stress.

It is an important motivator but can also very problematic.

This information will help us to understand stress and reduce the negative effects

on our life and develop healthy coping strategies.

What is stress?

Stress in manageable amounts can be motivating, if we felt no pressure to do

anything we would probably have very few goals or aspirations.

Usually when people talk about stress however they refer to it as a negative thing.

It is worth bearing in mind though that stress is not your enemy, an approach to life

which involves avoiding stress is likely to be very dull, and is also likely to reduce

our ability to cope with the difficult things which life will inevitably occur during

our lives.

A person may be referred to as ‘being stressed’ when they feel they are unable to

meet the demands of the situation they are in. Everybody feels like this sometimes.

Stress can have physical effects - the heart beats faster, adrenaline races through

the body, breathing quickens, blood is sent to the muscles (this is intended to help

your body react quickly and effectively to a situation), and emotional – worry,

racing thoughts, decision-making difficulties and negativity.

Stress is not an illness but it can make people vulnerable to developing both

physical and mental health difficulties.

Literature review

Over the past several decades, research has been growing to understand just how

much individual stress is correlated with the work environment, and what the

impacts are on our physiological and psychological health. Depression, burnout,

mental strain and somatic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease are among the

negative impacts that have been supported as highly correlated with work place

stress` (day & jreige, 2002) (maslach, 2003) (park.k, wilson, & m, 2003)

According to Weiten, stress can be defined as any circumstances that threaten or

are perceived to threaten one’s well-being and tax one’s coping abilities (weiten,

2005)

For purposes of this discussion this definition will be used; however it should be

noted that there is continued debate on the appropriate definition for workplace

stress (trenberth & devve, 2004)

Weiten elaborates on several types of stress to include frustration, conflict, change

and pressure. An individual experiences frustration when he or she is unable to

reach a goal. Goals could be small such as making it to a meeting on time, or they

could be more significant such as striving for a full time position after years as a

contractor. Conflict occurs when an individual is faced with a choice between

competing goals (weiten, 2005)

While jobs such as these may be more likely to contribute to stress due to the

unappealing physical conditions, working conditions incorporate more than the

physical environment. According to the work-stress paradigm, work stressors may

include aversive physical conditions such as dangerous environments, and work

spaces that are too hot, cold, noisy, or dirty. However, work stressors may also

include heavy workloads, job insecurity, or unfair treatment regarding pay,

benefits, and promotions (frone, 1999)

Frustration is a particularly common type of stress with regard to relationships, and

social conflict each day employees interact with managers, peers, customers,

clients, and subordinates. In some professions, the interaction with others is

limited. However, by and large these work relationships are a key factor in career

success as well as individual well being. When relationships become difficult to

cope with, there exists a large opportunity for stress and potentially burnout

(lewandowski, 2003)

Studies addressing work-life balance seem to be positively correlated with this

change in the labor pool. In the mid 1980s, Greenhaus and Beutell began to discuss

work-home interference (WHI) to refer to the inter role conflict in which pressure

from work and family are incompatible, making it difficult to satisfy the needs of

both (greenhause & beutell, 1985)

Today, their model is still utilized to help understand how the conflict between

work and home causes job stress. The WHI model is embedded in the more

traditional strain-stressor model which suggests that certain job stressors cause

WHI, and lead to strain for either gender (peters, jonge, janssen, & linden, 2004)

Suggest that the occurrence of stress and strain is highly dependent upon how an

individual perceives the situation. Individual differences such as personality type,

gender, and age are three characteristics that may further exacerbate the negative

impact of stress. An underlying question in much of work-stress-related research is

whether organizational conditions or individual differences are responsible for the

negative effects of stress. (day &. j., 2002)

An individual with a type A personality is someone that is hard working, driven,

ambitious, and busy Conversely, individuals with type B personality are more

relaxed, noncompetitive and self reflecting As early as the 1950s research was

done by cardiologist Meyer Friedman to suggest that the risk of heart disease in

type A individuals is double that of otherwise healthy or type B individuals

(wikipedia, 2005)

However, after the accumulation of job security threats, competition with younger

workers, and increases of workload, older workers face a greater likelihood to

withdraw from the workforce and potentially be subjected to greater negative

health and emotional effects. Older individuals and employers have the

opportunity to learn more about accommodating for age related changes, and

should do so in order to maintain workplace productivity and satisfaction with

changing demographics.

Historically, the research done on work-related stress has focused on men. Models

such as the demand/control support (DCS) model were designed and tested on

men. This particular model suggests that work with high demand, low control, and

low support decreases well being and health (muhonen & torkelson, 2004).

Furthermore, when women were considered, the studies tended to be exclusively of

women at different organizational levels than men. Studies of women have shown

that they tend to have higher rates of self-reported stress and depression than men

(brooker & eakin, 2001)

Problem-focused strategies attempt to solve a problem or change a difficult

situation; emotion-focused strategies attempt to find new meaning to a situation or

regulate aroused emotions (muhonen & torkelson, 2004)

Individuals that remain focused on the task at hand, and do not allow themselves to

be influenced by negative events, may be less likely to experience rumination and

self-doubt. Individuals who can restrain from participating in events that cause

negative impacts are hypothesized to experience fewer negative effects on

performance.. (brown, 2005)

Venting allows an individual to discharge his or her negative feelings by

expressing them to someone else

The statistics for costs of these scenarios are overwhelming. For example,

Northwest National Life reported in 1993 that one million absences each day in the

workplace are stress-related. In addition, according to the Bureau of National

Affairs, forty percent of job turnover is due to stress. Stress-related disability

claims have led to an increase of 700% in stress-related worker’s compensation

claims over the last decade (horan, 2002)