Stress management

Lifestyle enhancement series

6 stages of stress management

Understanding stress - Foreword

Stress has been called “the invisible disease”. It is a disease that may affect you your organization and any of the people in it, so you cannot afford to ignore it.

Step 1 What is stress

Definition of stress Its effect on you Its effect on companies Its effect on decisions

Defining stress at work - Foreword

Changes in working practices may build stress. Organizational stress can be measured by absenteeism and quality of work.

Step 2 Assess the stress at work Organizational stress Recognizing symptoms Physical signs Emotional signs Measuring stress in organizations How stressed are you ? -TEST

7

Analyzing the causes of stress• Deadlines to meet • Mistakes to rectify • Demands to satisfy • Targets to achieve • Problems to resolve • Challenges to rise to • Changes to adapt • Co-workers to smoothen • Goal posts are moved • Work is interrupted • Working relationships strained• Too much or little to do • Work stretches you or bores you • Your job future is uncertain • You are being bullied

Step 3 Introducing demand/ control model

Demand and control system Feature – advantage- benefit Feature – disadvantage – implication

Step 4 Apply processes and tools

Tools to solve short term stress Tools to solve chronicle stress Power of positive thinking

Step 5 Commit to action

Group problem solving for defined stress factors

What’s happening now What’s my objective What are my steps? Plan Discuss Commit

Step 6 Bench mark progress

Deadline setting to solve the stress factors What was happening then? What’s happening now? How much did we improve?

What’s next?