Health is a small word which makes a huge difference in everybody’s life. With the fast-changing world, hectic lifestyle has made everyone prone to different types of health complications. The throat cut competition at the workplace and a pressure to achieve excellence on the professional front has affected the health of the professionals up to a great extent.
In the present scenario, stress has become very common across all age groups. During a difficult time, there are a majority of professionals who are undergoing mental health problems and they are trying to cope up with the present scenario.
What is Stress?
Stress is a normal response to deal with the emotions or physical tension. In other word’s it is a body’s reaction to challenge or demand to react to a particular situation. The reaction of the body may be physical, mental or emotional. There are various factors responsible for stress like environment, body and thoughts.
Stress is a normal part of life. Even a positive change in life such as a promotion, getting a job, purchasing a property, or the birth of a child brings stress in your life.
How Stress Affects your Health?
When we are very stressed, a hormone called cortisol is released into our bloodstream, suppressing the functioning of our immune, digestive and reproductive systems. The human body reacts to every situation either it is mental, physical or emotional.
A Stress up to certain extent helps you to maintain a positive attitude and keeps you prepared for challenges. The situation becomes alarming when the level of stress increases with continuous challenges one after another at the workplace without any relaxation and stress buster.
As a result, the person becomes puzzled and finds himself/ herself stuck in a situation where they are not able to decide the right strategy to deal with the stressful situation. The human body has an inbuilt stress response system that causes physiological and hormonal changes to allow the body to combat stressful situations. For a prolonged period of the stress response, the body may lead to wear and tear of the body both physically, mentally and emotionally.
When stress continues for a longer period it disturbs body’s internal balance and equilibrium leading to symptoms such as headaches, an upset stomach, fluctuation in the blood pressure, chest pain, sexual dysfunction, and problems in sleeping. Emotional problems can also result from distress. These problems include depression, panic attacks, or other forms of anxiety and worry.
Apart from this stress is also known as a silent killer. There are various causes of death in which 6 of them are directly related to stress. The major reasons are heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide. Apart from this, there are other factors responsible for stress. When people consume various types of substance to relieve stress such as alcohol, tobacco, smoking and drugs, these substances tend to keep the body in the stressed mode as well as makes the situation worse than ever.
The Warning Signs of Stress
There are many symptoms mentioned below which shows the signs of stress.
- Dizziness or a general feeling of “being out of it.”
- General aches and pains.
- Grinding teeth, clenched jaw.
- Headaches.
- Indigestion or acid reflux symptoms.
- Increase in or loss of appetite.
- Muscle tension in neck, face or shoulders.
- Problems sleeping.
- Racing heart.
- Cold and sweaty palms.
- Tiredness, exhaustion.
- Trembling/shaking.
- Weight gain or loss.
- Upset stomach, diarrhoea.
- Sexual difficulties.
Stress is a part of life it has been divided into two parts: –
(1.) Acute Stress: – Basically this is a common type of stress that goes away quickly. As this stress stays for a short duration it helps you to manage dangerous situations and come out with a bright colour. All people suffer from stress at some point of time.
(2.) Chronic Stress: – The chronic stress stays with you for a longer time. There are many factors responsible for chronic stress like an unpleasant work environment, unhappy marriage, financial problems, etc. The stress which stays for a long time like weeks, months, and years is categorized as chronic stress. If the person becomes used to chronic stress it may lead to serious health complications.
The Art of Stress Management
There are a majority of people who are facing stress in daily lives due to many factors. To control the situation and emerge as a winner it is very important to learn the art of stress management. Stress management teaches you to make some minor changes in your lifestyle by practising relaxing and self-care. Stress management teaches you to deal with stressful situations when they occur.
Before knowing the techniques of stress management, it is important to know that stress is a kind of survival response which the body activates when its in danger. There is a sympathetic nervous system that kicks and releases the energy hormone, adrenaline. This is known as flight and fight response.
Amazing Techniques to Get Rid of Stress
(1.) Go for a Walk: – Going out for a walk is the best way to deal with stress. According to the experts while you go out for a walk it will help you to reduce the levels of endorphins in the immune system that is responsible for causing stress.
(2.) Practice Mindfulness: – Practice meditation on an everyday basis. Learn to focus on your breathing and spend some time in silence that will contribute a lot to reduce the level of stress.
(3.) Make a workout Plan: – To boost up your immune system it is important to make a workout plan. Time spend to reduce the stress level will make you better and healthier like never before.
(4.) Read Motivational Books: – Reading motivational books from some of the renowned authors will teach you the right way to look the brighter side of life. It will teach you the way to stay focussed and positive even in the worst situation.
(5.) Learn to organize yourself: – Create a planner for yourself on a daily basis which will help you to stay organized even if you are surrounded by negative situations.
Benefits of Stress Management at the Work Place: –
(1.) Motivate the employees
Stress affects the performance of employees in the workplace. As a result, it affects the business graphs of a particular organization. With stress, there is a higher ratio of absent leaves and employee turnover. With techniques of stress management, it’s easy to boost your employee morale and keeps them focused on their jobs and performance.
(2.) Helps to Improve productivity
An employee with high morale gets easily attached to the workplace relationship. It increases employee productivity. With the help of good stress management skills, there are fewer chances of customer complaints and poor decision making during stressful situations.
(3.) Guide your employees in a tough time
Employees look for guidance and direction during a tough time. Employees may seek guidance from superiors to discuss the issue one after another. Stress management skills and identifying the issues correctly will prove helpful for you in tough times.
(4.) Reduce the chances of conflicts
Conflict is very common in the workplace and mostly occurs due to differences in opinions, personalities and style of working. It increases the probability of breaking the relationship with the firm as well as the effects of the work culture. Good stress management will prevent such situations and make a healthy workplace.
(5.) Lowers the chances of unethical issues
There are higher chances of unethical issues during high stress. There are instances when people have taken a shortcut to accomplish a piece of job. However, good stress management skills provide ethics and stress seminars to reduce the chances of unethical practices.
(6.) Help to complete projects within deadlines
With an increased level of stress, the employees get distracted depending upon the source of a stressor. Due to this, they are not able to perform up to the expected level and miss deadlines. A good stress management skill will help to identify stressors before they become an issue to ensure the smooth running of the business to meet the deadlines.
(7.) Helps to command the communication process
The communication process gets affected by high levels of stress. As a result, employees don’t discuss job issues among individuals. They start looking for managers to solve a particular set of problem. As effective stress management will strengthen the communication processes.
(8.) Ensures the smooth running of the projects
Stress and management go parallelly at the workplace. While handling a project you are completely unaware of the fact that when a vendor will delay or not give the proper input. These are the common issues making it hard to reach the required deadline. There are instances when an employee of the project is responsible to deal with stress and meeting the deadline within the given timeframe.
(9.) Helps to develop a good team
It is very difficult to concentrate on high levels of stress. As a result, there is no team coordination and unity. The situation gets worst when employees are dealing with high stress. With an effective art of stress management, it is quite easy to handle stress as a tool and use effective stress management resources, to build and keep the team united.
(10.) Give Space to your employees
Long working hours make it difficult for the employees to tackle work pressure as a result, it creates a stressful situation for them. The employees need to take short breaks between work to relax their mind to combat stress and enjoy a healthy lifestyle. When employees are engaged in work and continuously busy, they don’t get time to take rest and relax which in turn creates stress.
Use effective stress management skills and provide space to your employees so they can take a rest or a break. Allowing employees to take a breather at work helps them to regain their energy and reduce the effects of stress.
(11.) Performance appraisal for employees
The frequency of stress is different for every employee. It may be related to job performance as well as maintaining the balance among the team members. With the help of stress management, it is quite easy to manage stress as well as raise your performance up to the next level.
The Final Thoughts
Stress has become a part of everyone’s life. With the help of right stress management techniques, it will help employees within the organization to combat the stress and stay fit physically, mentally and emotionally. Staying away from addictions and taking a healthy diet will help you to enjoy a healthy lifestyle as well as prove yourself as an asset to the organization.
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