32 Stress Management: Meaning, Sources and Strategies III

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Content Outline

 

1.     Objectives

 

2.     Consequences of Stress

 

2.2.1.        Decline of performance

 

3.     Stress Management

 

4.     Strategies to Manage the Stress 4.1. Individual Level

 

4.1.1.Exercise

 

4.1.2.Relaxation

 

4.1.3.Readjusting life goals

 

4.1.4.Social support

 

4.1.5.Role management

 

4.1.6.Time management

 

5.     Job Related Strategies/Organizational Coping Strategies 5.1. Proper Selection and Placement

 

5.2.  Proper job delegation

 

5.3.    Training to reduce stress

 

5.4.   Counselling

 

5.5.    Creating open communication

 

5.6.    Wellness programme

 

5.7.    Team building and trust building exercises

 

 

1. Objectives

 

This module will familiarize the learner with the Stress Management. At the end of the module, the learner will be able to,

 

Differentiate the individual consequence and organizational consequence Use strategies to manage stress in his/her life

 

2.Consequences of Stress

 

The consequences of the stress could be classified as individual consequences and organisational consequences.

 

2.1. Individual Consequences

 

2.1.1. Psychological and Behavioural Consequences

 

One has to pay attention to signs of stress and take steps to deal with it. The indications of the presence of stress could be various. The person experiencing stress is not able to take decision, suffer from poor concentration, could be prone to accident, become violent, mood change, and suffer from appetite disorder. All these are refereed as the behavioural consequences of the stress.

 

The psychological consequences could be a person may feel worry, anxiety, and experience low self- esteem, boredom, feel rejected, become lose temper, feel depression, depressed or pessimistic thought and feeling, loss of motivation, sense of irritation.

 

2.1.2.     Medical Consequences

 

The stress also affects health of the person. Headache, heart disease, back pain, dizziness, fatigue, stomach disorder, blood pressure, sweating, high cholesterol, muscle tension, sleep problem could emerge because of stressful situation.

 

2.2. Organizational Consequences

 

2.2.1.     Decline of performance

 

The stress affects the performance of an individual. If the stress is very high most of the people give up to the situation

 

2.2.2.     Withdrawal

 

The stressful situations leads to withdrawal symptoms. The withdrawal could be seen as absenteeism or even quitting. The deadlines are missed, unscheduled breaks are taken and carelessness about work could be observed because of stress in work.

 

2.2.3.     Attitude

 

Stress also affects commitment related to job. This results in complaining about minor things, unimportant things. Of course it affects job satisfaction. The person starts arriving late to work more than usual. The behaviour at the workplace is effected by mood changes.

 

Not all stress is bad. The prolonged stress can lead to physical and mental illness.

 

Therefore, it is important not to ignore stress symptoms for too long.

 

3.     Stress Management

 

The high levels of stress, puts your entire well-being at risk. Stress brings havoc on the emotional life, as well as physical health of a person. It narrows the ability of thinking think and enjoy life.

 

Stress is part and parcel of our life. One cannot eliminate stress from the life. But one can learn to react to stress positively. One should not allow stress to control the life situation. Stress management includes techniques essential to equip a person with effective coping mechanisms to deal with stress. The concept of one-size-fits-all is not applicable in stress management.

 

The following strategies will help in stress management.

 

4.     Strategies to Manage the Stress 4.1. Individual Level

 

4.1.1.     Exercise

 

The physical activity is a huge stress reliever. You need not be an athlete or join a gym to experience its benefits. Exercise releases endorphins that make you feel good. It serves as a distraction from your daily worries. You can add up in you routine.

 

Some activities which could be added in daily routine are-

  • Put on some music while doing work
  • Go for a walk
  • Do cycling
  • Use the stairs at home or work rather than an elevator
  • Play with your kids

 

The regular exercise lead to fewer chances of heart attack, less tension. Yoga is structured set of exercise. The meditation trains in concentration which helps in reducing stress and clearing away all the disturbing thoughts.

 

4.2. Relaxation

 

In stress the muscles get tight. The pain is experience in back, neck, or shoulders. It increases the stress. The relaxation is an effective way to adapt. The regular breaks during work, vacations helps in re-energizing the mind.

 

4.2.1.     Readjusting life goals

 

The individuals set high goals for himself and expect more from themselves in less time. The fear of failure accompanies with it. Everyone has to readjust the goals by thinking about availability of time, resources, energy, and capacity of an individual.

 

4.2.2.     Social support

 

Man is a social animal. One requires emotional support from friends, family. In tragedy of life is we have more friends online, but there are less who are available when you need. The social support is required in times of trouble. The best way is to spend quality time with people who makes you feel safe and understood. They require to be the good listeners should not transfer more worries to you. It strengthens the bond. It is a natural stress reliever.

 

4.2.3.     Role management

 

The stress inducing problems are role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload. An individual has to actively work to avoid these problems. The Clarification from the in-charge about duties to perform, learning to say “no” are some ways to solve this problem.

 

4.2.4.     Time management

 

The time management is the most important skill which individual has to learn to overcome stress. It helps to utilize available time in most fruitful manner. Poor time management leads to stress. Therefore do not schedule things back-to-back, even try to adjust too much into one day. Many a times one underestimate the time require to complete the task. Make a list of work to be accomplished, and tackle them in order of importance. If a large project seems overwhelming, make a step-by-step plan.

 

Focus on one prioritize the work. Many a times delegation of duties works the best.

 

One don’t have to do it all oneself.

 

5.     Job Related Strategies/Organizational Coping Strategies

 

Organization is partially responsible for creating stress. It can play an important role in managing stress of the employees. It has to take responsibility to enhance performance, job satisfaction, job related attitude of the employee.

 

5.1. Proper selection and placement

 

The correct person at correct place has kept in mind while selection of the employees and during placement. The placement should be delegated keeping in mind expertise, capabilities and interest of the person.

 

5.2. Proper job delegation

 

The democratic style of management should be followed while assigning the duties. The individual should not feel the duties as burden. Therefore the interest and expertise has to be kept in mind while delegating the duties.

 

5.3. Training to reduce stress

 

The person suffering from stress is significantly less productive and gives worst performance. The employees could be provided training in the strategies mentioned above to reduce the stress. The stress management training provides understanding of how the stress response activates under pressure and how to manage it. They are taught to change the thoughts that brings in stress.

 

5.4. Counselling

 

The counselling facility could be made available by the organization to help employees to cope up with stress. The organization can also have some Emotion focused strategies.

 

5.5. Creating open communication

 

Open communication shows democratic leadership. The changes needed to be conveyed to the employer. The expectations about the performance need to be made clear and at the same time leader should keep a track of the work completed and stress aroused while completing the task. The environment should be such that the employer will feel free to discuss the problems faced during the work. The open communication will help in removing role ambiguity and also role overburden.

 

5.6. Wellness programme

 

The programmes related to healthy life, meditation will help in wellbeing of the employees. The program trains to control situational stress, trains to provide responses to stressful situations and also deals with the cases suffering from stress. The wellness program equips one with skills to deal with stress and helps in development of optimistic view.

 

5.7. Team building & trust building exercises

 

The work place is full of people with different needs, ambitions and personalities. It is important to know each other which will build trusting team. The ability to manage stress and ability to work with others is related to each other. When one is stressed out he feels the reason of frustration is other person’s behaviour. They become impatience with one another which results into interpersonal conflict. The team building, trust building exercises help in better bonding among all.

 

For further reading I would like to provide following cases:

 

A study done by Ophelia Janefer M. on Stress among 8th &12th Standard School Teachers which is published in IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science. The researcher collected data from 200 school teachers from Chennai. Some of the findings are:

 

The poor pay does not cause work related stress to the school teachers. But when comparison is made between the genders, male school teachers feel poor pay cause them stress compared to the female school teachers. The female teachers feel more stressed when they need to do their house hold work after school hours. The problems in their family affect the school work of the female teachers. The most common physical sufferings faced by the teachers of all cadres are lack of sleep. School teachers strongly agree that meditation or prayer helps them to manage stress. If the class strength / number of students they handle is more than 30 the teachers face tiredness. Management support / administrative support help the teachers to reduce stress. Group support helps the teachers to reduce stress.

 

A study published in The Times of India in July 2016

 

A survey conducted on school students revealed startling figures of stress among adolescents. The study was conducted by department of paediatrics, Sawai Man Singh Medical College and attached hospitals, Jaipur in association with department of physiology, SMS Medical College, Jaipur at a city’s senior secondary school, Jaipur after getting the requisite clearance from the Institute Research Review Board. It shows that a month before the examination, just 13% of students have high stress level but before a week’s time of examination, 82.2% of students have high stress level.

 

The investigators, all government doctors, mentioned in the study ‘Assessment of Examination Stress in Adolescents and its Association with Heart Rate Variability’ published in National Journal of Integrated Research in Medicine that stress is a major cause of suicide among students. The survey showed that examination stress is not only affecting mind but also causing heart beat variations which is dangerous.

 

The investigators conducted two same tests on students – once it was conducted a month before the examination and the other was conducted one week before the examination. Seven days before examination, 82.2% students have incidence of stress. It shows that as the examination draws nearer, more and more students develop stress. It happens because performance in examination becomes detrimental as how much a student is intelligent. There is always a pressure of expectation like what will my parents, teachers and others will think if I do not get good marks, which develop stress among students.

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References

 

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