Why are we hearing so much about stress
these days?
It seems to be a new way of describing how we as
individuals are coping. Some stress is good for us but the amount we can cope
with depends on the number and type of challenges in our life and the type of
person we are. Stress is personal and that is why different people handle it
differently.
The 21st Century lifestyle is hectic, busy, challenging,
often exciting, and we spend a lot of time 'doing'. Fifty years ago, people had
different challenges but life was not so hectic and people had more time for
just 'being'. People had more time for others and more time for themselves. We
are, after all, human beings - not human doings! The line from W.H. Davies'
poem, "Leisure" - "we have no time to stand and stare", has never been more
apt. Managing our time is one of the most relevant issues we confront
today.
Many people today lead very unbalanced lives. The statement "all
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is relevant not only to Jack but to all
of us! Indeed, most people agree that too much of anything is bad for us!
Balance in life is healthy in the widest sense. For instance, if we divide our
life into eight areas:
- physical environment - home / work
- financial state
- career
- exercise / fun / health
- personal growth
- personal relationships
- work relationships
- friends and family
We can begin to look at how balanced our
life really is. Ask yourself in which areas do you spend most of your time? Are
there any areas you ignore? Which areas would you like to spend more time
in?
How is this important in the workplace?
Businesses are
lean on people at the moment - some would even go as far as saying that
businesses are anorexic - but they still need people. It is therefore important
that the people they have are fit and healthy in body and mind. A well-balanced
workforce will have reduced absentee rates, reduced staff turnover, reduced
re-training, improved staff motivation, improved performance - all leading to
improved profits.
What can be done in the workplace to help create a
balanced workforce?
Many companies have pecked at the surface of
the stress iceberg by offering crisis telephone lines and/or counselling for
individuals who feel stressed. They may have sent some managers on a stress
management course and, while this may have changed their lives, it may also
have had no effect at all.
However, many companies are now recognising
the need to take a whole company view and start by finding out whether there is
a problem (for example high absentee rates, high sickness levels, high
personnel turnover), discovering the staff's perception of their stress levels,
and assessing the effect of management style(s) and company ethos. This can be
done through a thorough stress risk assessment. If a risk is clearly defined
and quantified, the next step is to raise awareness of how to identify stress
in individual people.
Identifying stress is easily the most challenging
task, because everyone reacts differently due to differences in physiology and
belief patterns. For example some people:
- get headaches/migraines/anxiety
- develop stomach problems and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
- develop skin disturbances (psoriasis, eczema, rashes)
- become irritable and less flexible
- lose their self confidence
- have difficulty sleeping
- .................the list is almost endless
This variety of symptoms has baffled
practitioners who have been trained to treat individual symptoms. Stress is a
whole body response, not an individual organ or system reaction. We are looking
at the in vivo (whole body) response instead of an isolated and controlled in
vitro (test tube) result. Too much stress over a period of time produces a
build-up of neurotransmitters, which affect organs and tissues throughout the
body. Research by Pert and others shows that how you react depends on your
physiology and metabolism, hence the very different symptoms.
Having
recognised that too much stress may be making someone ill, what does a manager
or a company do? If a risk assessment was carried out at company level, there
may be some indications of possible causes. The person themselves will have the
answer but, depending on their awareness, may not have connected cause and
effect. Sometimes a line manager may not be the person they wish to confide in;
sometimes it may be the line manager or other senior colleague who is the
problem! Or, alternatively, it may be personal concerns that the individual
wishes to keep private.
Whatever the cause, it is affecting the
well-being of the staff member and may have even wider repercussions on teams
and even whole departments. Stressed staff can cause havoc in a department,
sowing discontent, uncertainty and animosity due to their inability to perform
effectively.
Health & Safety Law requires companies to provide a
healthy workplace and this includes an acceptable level of stress, but it also
requires the staff to take reasonable care of their own well-being. The
challenge is both to empower the staff to take responsibility for their stress
and to learn successful coping strategies and also to empower the management to
recognise the problem and permit it to be solved.
About the author
Ann
McCracken is Director of AMC Mentoring, providing Human Resource Risk
Assessments, Stress Management Courses and Personal Consultations and Coaching
throughout the UK. For further information call: 01621 891963 or visit the
website: www.amc-mentoring co.uk.
