Stress Management (Management-1 15May 2021)

Stress Management

While it may seem like there’s nothing you can do about stress at work and home, there are steps you can take to relieve the pressure and regain control.

 

What Is Stress Management?

Our increasingly busy lives cause our minds a lot of stress. Stress is mental tension caused by demanding, taxing or burdensome circumstances. Stress doesn't just affect our mental state and mood; it affects our physical health as well. When we are very stressed, a hormone called cortisol is released into our bloodstream, suppressing the functioning of our immune, digestive and reproductive systems. That is why it is so important to practice stress management in order to keep our minds and bodies healthy.

 

Stress management consists of making changes to your life if you are in a constant stressful situation, preventing stress by practicing self-care and relaxation and managing your response to stressful situations when they do occur.

Before we move on to stress management techniques, it's important to note that not all stress is bad. Stress is actually a survival response when our body thinks that it is in danger. That is why our sympathetic nervous system kicks in and makes our heart rate increase and gives us a burst of the energy hormone, adrenaline, so that we can deal with whatever situation is being thrown at us. This is also called our flight or fight response.

 

The problem is when we deal with constant stress and worry, or when we don't know how to properly manage a stressful situation. That's why stress management is tremendously important for our health, quality of life and relationships.

Stress is basically the tension or anxiety caused by any sort of pressure in everyday life. The ability to handle or minimize the physical and emotional effects of such anxiety is known as one’s stress management skills.

 

The importance given to stress management skills in workplace can be guessed from the fact that employers, in many countries, have been burdened with a legal responsibility of recognizing as well as coping with the workplace stress in order to ensure good mental and physical health of employees in organization.

However, the question that remains is why do organizations consider it important even in countries where it is not a legal obligation?

 

Types of Stress

1. Frustration

2. Conflict

3. Change

4. Pressure

 

Why is stress management important?

A certain level of stress is always present in any workplace. As soon as the level of stress escalates to a point that it becomes dangerous for the well-being of the organization as well as employees, stress management becomes important. It has the following benefits:

1. Enables you to motivate employees better. Stressful situation can have a devastating effect on the morale of employees, causing increased absenteeism and employee turnover. However, good stress management skills help the morale of employees to stay intact so that they are more motivated and better focused on their jobs and performance.

 

2. Reduced chances of workplace conflicts. Among many other factors contributing to workplace conflicts such as differences in opinions, backgrounds and personalities, the increased level of stress also plays a major role. It shatters the workplace relationships, undermining the overall culture. However, effective stress management skills prevent such distractions and builds teamwork, making everyone’s lives easier and fun.

 

3. Improves productivity even in stressful situations. Since the employee morale and workplace relationships remain intact, stress management skills are considered to be one of the major contributors to the improved productivity. With ideal stress management skills, there will be lesser chances of customer complaints or poor decision-making even in the most stressful circumstances.

 

How to improve stress management skills

Bearing in mind how too much stress can be detrimental to employees’ morale and organization’s profits level, following measures can be taken to improve stress management skills:

1. Identify the sources of stress and prioritize. There can be personal as well as workplace pressures causing stress. The first step towards improvement of stress management skills is to be able to identify the source causing it. Once identified, make a priority list and tackle the stressors one at a time. Being more organized sometimes helps in relieving part of the stress.

 

2. Motivate yourself to find solutions. There are many ways you can boost up your morale for managing stress. For example, make a list of similar situations you have managed to handle in the past and recall how you did it, or promise yourself a reward after you have successfully managed to cope with the stressful situation. However, if the stressors are things that are completely out of your control, you must be able to remind yourself and be okay with the fact that there is nothing you can do.

 

3. Manage stress through exercise. Take care of your physical health by eating healthy, avoiding excessive sugar and, most of all, exercising regularly. Learn yoga as well as other exercises for muscle relaxation. This will help you manage your physical responses to a stressful situation.