Stress is a common word in common-day work and personal life - but how do you know if you're stressed?
Individual/Subjective experience
- Popularised in 1950’s by Dr. Hans Selye – what happens when animals are put under extreme conditions
- It became an umbrella term to describe all the various pressures of life
- Stressors (demand) are the stimulus or outside events that produce the stress response (this can also be an internal event or feeling)
- Stress is the ‘non specific response of the organism (the mind & body) to any pressure or demand’.
- The organism undergoes a generalised physical response in its efforts to adapt to demands and pressures it (e.g. fight or flight).
- Disease (DIS – EASE) can result from failed attempts to adapt to stressful conditions.
- THEREFORE …it is not the potential stressor itself but how we perceive it and then how we handle it that determines the stress levels.
- Small things and unwanted demands can cause stress (e.g. phone call on holiday!)
- Psychological factors are an important part of our response to physical stressors.
- Richard Lazarus on psychological stress - “a particular relationship between the person and his environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her wellbeing”.
- Therefore those with greater resources (coping strategies) will deal more effectively with stress/demand.
- Resources are external ~ family, friends and group support and internal~ beliefs about how we handle adversity, ‘so what’ attitude, religious beliefs etc…
The effects of stress
- The effects include: physical, emotional, on thinking, on behaviour, on relationships.
- It is important, therefore, to recognise signs of stress in self and others.
- Equally important is a supportive environment where people notice others’ stress and give help and support.
- Faintness, dizziness, headaches
- Poor concentration, anger, short fuse. Poor sleep, poor diet, alcohol, drugs etc.
- Accident prone, anxious, depressed, mental health issues, fatigue, manic, psychosomatic diseases, relationship problems and many more.
The causes of stress
Stress can be the result of:
- personal factors - what we believe, think feel and do, loss, life events, death, divorce etc etc.
- and/or interpersonal and organisational factors - colleague interactions and relationships, working conditions, relationships with colleagues, lack of recognition, changing role, ambiguous role expectations, personality clashes, ‘presenteeism’ etc.
Stress Prevention
- Physical Fitness
- Diet
- Awareness of Values
- Self Awareness
- Clear Goals
- Time Management
- Support Systems
- Assertiveness
- Interpersonal Skills
- Counselling
Stress Management
- Exercise
- Relaxation
- Support
- Review
- Assertiveness
- Self-talk
- Breathing control
- Take positive action
- Treats
- Keeping things in perspective
