How to overcome and survive the problems of constant stress at work

04/28/20205 minutes read 540

Anyone who has ever worked has at some point felt the pressure of work-related stress. Unfortunately, there is no type of activity that would not entail any stressful consequences, even if you love what you do, not to mention if you are just “working” the allotted time. The simplest and most understandable stress factor is the urgency or complexity of a particular work commitment. Annual report, difficult negotiations, difficult inspections by regulatory authorities. But when stress extends beyond individual work tasks and begins to accompany you every day, it becomes chronic, overwhelming, and harmful to both your physical and emotional health.

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Unfortunately, such long-term stress is all too common. In fact, an annual survey of working citizens consistently shows that work is a significant source of stress for most. You are not always able to avoid stressors that arise in the profession. However, you can take some steps to manage the causes of burnout.

Constant stress at work. Sources of stress

Certain factors tend to go hand in hand with work-related stress.

Here are some common occupational stressors:

Low pay.
Excessive load.
Little opportunity for growth or professional advancement.
Activities that are not attractive or challenging.
Lack of social support.
Lack of sufficient decision-making authority and professional independence.
Conflicting job requirements or unclear performance expectations.

All this often develops into full-fledged chronic stress.

What you can do and what is important to remember

To begin with, we note that the same Selye identified two types of stress: eustress and distress. The first inspires (mental processes are activated, emotions become sthenic in nature), the second depletes (including the human immune system). The key factor in distinguishing between the negative and positive effects of stress is its quantity (severity), which develops into quality.

In other words, stress itself is neutral: just non-standard situations, just a reaction of excitation of the body aimed at survival. But if the environment is chronically unfriendly, then mental and physical well-being becomes a serious problem.

Let's look at an example. An employee in your company is going through a period of adaptation to a new job (which is stressful in itself). At the same time, a tense situation arises at the enterprise - suppliers are missing deadlines. These two circumstances act cumulatively: they aggravate and intensify tension. That is, that same unfriendly environment appears. How to competently confront an objectively existing stressful situation?

There are a lot of studied coping strategies, that is, strategies for coping with stress, there are studies and recommendations on the effective construction of business processes and, in particular, on working with suppliers. But these are all general, abstract recommendations that are easy to evaluate when you are calm.

If the situation “goes into a tailspin,” then sobriety and balance can become a scarce resource. Cold calculation is replaced by strong emotions and even panic.

Consequences of uncontrolled stress

Unfortunately, work-related stress does not disappear when you return home after a day of work. Our psyche does not separate the professional from the personal and we drag work stress into our daily lives. Stress at work begins to affect your overall well-being, health, and relationships with loved ones. A stressful environment contributes to problems such as headaches, abdominal and lower back pain, sleep disturbances, short temper and difficulty concentrating. The effects of chronic stress can lead to anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure and a weakened immune system. In the future, worsening, stress becomes the cause of truly serious diseases, such as depression, obesity, and heart disease. Unhealthy ways of reducing stress, such as overeating, eating unhealthy foods, smoking, or drug and alcohol abuse, contribute to the worsening of these problems. And all this is done to us by the stress associated with professional activity.

Stages of development of professional stress

Stress is a normal adaptive reaction of the body, which is regulated by the nervous and endocrine systems. Depending on the duration of the irritating factor, the following phases of development of professional stress are distinguished:

Anxiety. The first reaction to a stimulus, the level of adrenaline in the blood rises, the body mobilizes strength to fight or save.
Resistance. Occurs when the stressor is very strong and its effect is prolonged. The result of the body's adaptation to new circumstances is a decrease in the activity of physiological processes. All changes occurring at this stage are reversible.
Exhaustion. The continuous action of a stress factor leads to the fact that the body has no strength left to fight, and its defense mechanisms are broken.

In the first two stages, stress can be overcome on your own. At the stage of exhaustion, it is already very difficult to overcome stress without outside help. It is imperative to eliminate the effect of the irritating factor or change your attitude towards it.

Dynamics of development and consequences of professional stress

Stress at work. How to cope?

Monitor your occupational stressors. Start by keeping an activity journal and completing it over the course of a week or two to determine which situations create the most stress and how you respond to them. Write down your thoughts, feelings and information about the professional environment, describe the people and circumstances involved, the physical environment and how you responded to it.

What consequences of your professional activity happened to you this week?

Did you have to raise your voice?
Did they raise their voice at you? Colleagues? The authorities? clients?
Did you have to eat away your stress with unhealthy food and sweets? Didn't have time for a normal snack?
Let's go for a walk to somehow distract ourselves and not get frustrated at work?

Keeping records of your professional activities will help you find patterns among your stressors. Try to develop healthy reactions. Instead of trying to eat fast food or relieve stress with a bottle of beer in the evening, do your best to make healthy choices when you feel stress rising in your activities.

Physical exercise

is a great way to minimize or completely eliminate the effects of professional stress. Yoga can be a great choice, and any form of physical activity is beneficial, even a simple daily walk.

Also make time for hobbies and favorite activities.

Whether it's reading books, attending concerts, exhibitions, or playing with your family, be sure to set aside time for activities that bring you pleasure.
Sleep
also plays a huge role in restoring mental well-being. Create healthy sleep habits: limit caffeine intake later in the day; Minimize mental stimulants such as computers, phones, and TV before bedtime. Set limits on your phone - in our world it's too easy to be connected 24/7. Artificially set yourself a limit and boundaries between your professional and personal life. Let no one be able to disturb you at the specific time you set. And don’t check your professional email, phone, instant messengers, etc. at this time.

Of course, for different people this border lies in different places; someone can leave work at 18.00, turn off the phone and forget about professional activities until 9.00 tomorrow. Someone is forced to be on duty even at 2 am. But, still, try, as much as possible, to draw a clear boundary between the two areas, only this can reduce the potential conflict between work and personal life and reduce the stress accompanying it.

Take time to recharge. To avoid the negative effects of chronic fatigue and burnout, we need time to recover and return to our pre-stress level of functioning.

This recovery process requires “switching off,” that is, periods of time when you are not engaged in occupation-related activities or thinking about work. That's why it's important that you unplug from time to time, and that it suits your needs and preferences. Don't let your days off go to waste. Whenever possible, take time off to relax and erase the effects of stress, so that when you return to work, you'll feel refreshed and ready to perform at your best. If you're unable to take a short vacation, get some quick relief by turning off your smartphone and focusing your attention on non-work activities for a while. Learn to relax. Techniques such as meditation, deep breathing exercises and mindfulness

(a state in which you actively observe current experiences and thoughts without judging them) can help you get rid of the causes of stress, even in the absence of a long-term reset.

Start with a few minutes a day to focus on simple activities such as: focusing on your breathing, walking, enjoying food, communicating with your children, family. The ability to focus single-mindedly on one activity without distraction will strengthen with practice, and you will find that you can apply it to many different aspects of your life.

Rules of conduct under stress:

observe yourself (meaning, it is necessary to monitor and realize changes in your reactions and behavior in a situation of stress);
look for ways to “stop” yourself (such as “take a break”, “take a break in communication”);
transfer your energy to another form of activity (get distracted and switch to another activity);
think about what helps relieve stress (What makes you more happy? What do you do with passion?...).

All of the above recommendations can help an employee learn to control the level of stress received during professional communication, regulate their behavior, stop “getting hung up” on the negative emotions received, and not take to heart situations that are most often associated not with a personal threat, but with the general psychological tension of the team when solving a general problem.

Thus, the employer’s task is to create optimal conditions for the employee, but an important resource is also the independent and conscious preventive work of the employees themselves, which must be stimulated through various organizational measures.

Find professional support

If you continue to feel depressed due to stress in your professional life, seek counseling to help you better manage your stress and change unhealthy behavior. At the same time, you do not need to add additional sources of stress to yourself, such as searching for a psychologist, traveling time, waiting for an appointment, and changing a professional if for some reason he did not suit you. At the moment, you have access to a convenient online consultation with a psychologist on the Helppoint online service. Here you will be matched with a suitable specialist for your request, in this case, one who has experience working with professional burnout. You will be able to communicate with him anytime and anywhere, even at work, between performing your professional duties using online chat or video consultations available on any device.

Don’t wait until professional burnout becomes irreversible, start using all the resources available to you to combat it at an early stage, and live a full, happy life in harmony with yourself and your work activities.

Author: Editorial staff of the Help-Point.net portal

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Lack of work-life balance

We live in a contradictory era. On the one hand, we are under pressure to be productive and successful in our careers, on the other hand, there are calls to live life to the fullest and have time to travel, play sports, spend time with family, friends and hobbies. Superhumans who succeed are said to have found work-life balance. And the rest experience stress due to the fact that they do not meet the high demands of society. In fact, work-life balance is not a superpower to do everything. Rather, it is an individual state of comfort in which you do not sacrifice one important part of life for another.

How to achieve work-life balance:

Remember that there is no right or wrong balance.
For some, work-life balance means working from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and relaxed evenings with family; for others, it means a twelve-hour work day and active sports on weekends. Don’t focus on others, look for your own option.
Know your quirks.
The level of vitality largely depends on temperament. For example, if you are a phlegmatic person, then you will not have problems with perseverance and scrupulousness, but you will quickly become exhausted in a situation of time pressure. This is not a weakness that needs to be dealt with, but your specificity. Take this into account when choosing an operating mode.
Listen to your feelings.
When the regime is not balanced, the body immediately begins to signal this. The main thing is not to ignore these signs. If you constantly feel depressed and tired, forget about things and lose your keys, then it’s time to change something.
Do not use temporary measures.
To cope with burnout and chronic fatigue, it is not enough to get enough sleep or go on vacation for a week. This will help, but not for long. The problems will return as soon as you return to work. Therefore, it is better to think about how to globally rebuild your regime so as not to drive yourself to exhaustion.