Stress
New guidance has been published to help organisations reduce stress in the workplace. Taken from indepth research involving interviews and surveys with hundreds of managers and employees, as well as an evaluation of manager training in stress management competencies across 17 organisations. It sets out key management behaviours for managing stress at work. To download the guidance click here.
STRESS - Feeling the Strain?
An article by Jo Johnson in The RoSPA Occupational Safety & Health Journal, published May 2009
Stress has been given many definitions over the years and essentially it means the extent and management of forces and pressures that make up our daily living and experiences.
Not all stress is bad for you, as without a certain degree of stress we would find ourselves a lot less motivated and less likely to achieve our goals or get much work done at all. Sometimes it feels good to have an adrenalin surge and feel our hearts beat a little faster when we are busy, challenged or have problems to solve and for most of us this is healthy. But when stress levels rise too much, this can have the opposite effect on our ability to function.
The workplace is often one of the most problematic areas when dealing with stress. How we function and cope at work depends on our personality type, how we react to those around us, how we are treated by others and our ability to carry out the tasks that we are set.
Launching the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) revised Stress Management Standards recently, Peter Brown, head of HSE’s health and work division, said : "Pressure is part and parcel of all work and helps to keep us motivated, but excessive pressure can lead to stress which undermines performance, is costly to employers and can make people ill."
Stress is a major cause of occupational ill health resulting in sickness absence, high staff turnover and poor performance for organisations. The level of stress we experience at work can depend on many factors with time, money, pressure and ability being the most likely candidates for causing stress.
If you find that you are not taking proper breaks, continually worry about meeting targets or deadlines or achieving what has been asked of you, are doing lots of overtime but not for the money or are taking work home with you regularly, the chances are you are experiencing high levels of stress whilst at work.
And you are not alone. In 2007/2008 around 450,000 emplyees in Britain believed that they were experiencing work-related stress at a level that was making them ill and, according to the 2008 Psycholsocial Working Conditions (PWC) survey, around 17.1 percent of employees in Great Britain think their job is very or extremely stressful.
It can be difficult in modern society to admit to feeling stressed or if you have acknowledged it, find time to deal with it. People can be fearful of losing their job if they admit feeling stressed or of being offered less opportunities than their colleagues, and so often the early signs that stress is having a negative effect are ignored, the long term results of which could cause ill health.
In order to avoid periods of sickness and absence from work, it is in both the employers’ and the employees’ interests to keep on top of stress, understand how it affects the body and, most importantly, know when stress is becoming an issue and plan how to avoid it developing into a bigger problem.
HSE’s Stress Management Standards are a good starting point here. These highlight the six main factors that contribute to work related stress and the simple steps employers, working together with employees and their representatives, should take to address it.
CAUSES OF STRESS
Stress can be caused by so many different factors (stressors) it would probably be impossible to list every issue that may increase tension and anxiety but these stressors usually fall into the following categories : financial; emotional (relationships, bereavement, worrying about the family or the future); circumstantial (such as planning an event, moving home or divorce); ill health; trauma or traumatic incident and work.
The cause of stress is not the only issue though - in many cases the cause of stress may be unavoidable - it is as much about how we manage it and what action we take to reduce its occurrence.
Stress doesn’t actually have to be bad for us, as long as it is not a permanent fixture in our lives and it is of a level that we can manage. Our body is designed to react to stress and will either ’fight’ or ’flight’ when we are faced with a stressful episode. These responses are determined by the chemical releases (such as hormones like adrenalin and cortisol) that take place in othe body, and will determine our subsequent actions and reactions to stressful stimuli.
Many people manage stressful episodes very productively and safely, however, if the stress level is high and continous, stress can have a serious effect on a person’s physical health and in some cases can contribute to serious illness. A huge amount of research in this area has been undertaken and it is now known that high stress levels can contribute to work-related injuries, back pain, sexual dysfuntion, illness related to your immune system, long-term psychological disorders, and heart disease.
Last year, researchers produced strong evidence of how work stress is linked to the onset of heart disease. Based on a long-term study of over 10,000 civil servants, researchers found that the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) was on average 68% higher in people who suffered chronic stress at work than for people who reported no stress at work. They identified that stress had a direct biological effect on the autononomic nervous system (ANS) which in turn affects the signals to the heart, leading to cardiac instability,.
The researchers also found work stress was associated with poor health behaviours such as smoking, eating less fruit and vegetables and taking less exercise - all of which can impact on heart health.
MANAGEMENT
When stress is becoming an issue and is starting to negatively affect us, we may not be able to identify it in the first stages ourselves. Often irritability, tiredness, poor concentration and a bad memory can be the first indicators of a problem, and these are usually detected by those around us rather than by ourselves (which can lead to arguments causing stress to increase further). As time goes on though and the stress is not dealt with, symptoms become more noticeable. For example, sleep can be affected, both difficulties in getting to sleep and sustaining sleep, and a person can exprience appetite changes.
To help cope with chronic stress, some people turn to tobacco, alcohol or recreational drugs, which in turn will lead to further physical and mental health problems and thus a cycle begins.
It is therefore absolutely essential that high levels of stress are managed successfully in order to maintain good physical and mental health.
Stress can be dealt with in two ways: either we try to determine the cause of the stress and address this issue by either reducing it or eliminating it or we find ways in which we learn to cope and manage stress better on an individual basis.
There are so many ways in which we as individuals can be instrumental in changing the way in which we cope with stress. Firstly, diet and exercise must be addressed. Taking regular exercise will improve your cardiac function which will help lower blood pressure and ensure your internal organs and tissues stay healthy.
By increasing the oxygenation of your organs your ability to fight illness and disease will improve, as will your concentration.
Exercise will generally help improve your mood and reaction to stressful stimuli.
Exercise also helps by providing a good outlet for frustration, built-up energy and any aggression that has accumulated. It also provides the opportunity to relax by spending time either alone or with friends outside the home and workplace.
Diet is also very important. Eating the right foods will help maintain physical and mental wellbing. Stess can lead us to neglect our nutritional requirements, and whilst using comfort foods as a crutch can be very tempting,the weight gain that can come from this will put further pressue on the heart and lungs to perform and also may negatively affect your mental health status and provide a source of further stress in the future if weight gain is very noticeable.
Finding time for yourself is essential, even if you are not currently experiencing stress. We all need time to unwind and relax even if it only foir a few minutres a day. A long bath with your favourite music or a good book may be all it takes to recharge.
One of the most important factors of self help in dealing with stress is learning techniques that relax you in a shorty space of time. These methods can include deep breathing exercises or other techniques involving anxiety management, both of which will often be very beneficial to those suffering with stress. There are many good books, articles, tapes, CDs and DVDs available that have been written by experts and will offer a variety of methods of practising these techniques.
And, if you are feeling highly stressed or have a lot on your mind, finding time to unwind, for example, by walking for ten minutes, can provide the ideal chance to spend some time mentally addressing the issues and reorganising your thoughts and give you time to make informed and carefully judged decisions.
Learning your own limiations is also very important. Learning how to effectively delegate or share your workload is vital - and this doesn’t just mean at work. Running a busy household can be very difficult and with added financial pressures the tasck can sometimes seem impossible.
But sometimes stress levels can rise so greatly that your physical or mental health may be in serious danger of real damage. At times like these it may be too late to practise self-help techniques alone and professional help may be needed to help regain control of stress and anxiety.
If you are suffering from palpitations, find it difficult to control your emotions, are getting angry or feel violent or depressed, you must seek advice from your doctor or a mental health professional who will assess your condition and provide an evaluation of your needs on an individual basis.
Experts now agree that stress is a contributory factor to many serious health conditions and that we could all benefit from learning ways of reducing our stress levels and discovering ways of mangeing stress that work for us as individuals.
Identifying what is causing your stress is vital in making the first steps towards combating it. If your work is making you stressed try and pinpoint exactly what aspect of it is causing the problem and speak to your line manager, human resources department or union rep. Try to work together to resolve the problem, undertaking additional training if needed. Take some time out if necessary or look at altering your duties and responsibilities to take away some of the pressure.
The best advice is don’t put up with stress. If you are finding you are constantly under pressure at work and feeling stressed out, seek aedvice, talk to people, whether that’s your line mangaer, H&S adviser or a medical profesional. Most importantly, take action, there is a lot you can do to help yourself.
HIGH RISK OCCUPATIONS
Teachers, nurses, housing, welfar5e officers and othyer public sector workers, along with some prefssional and managerial groups, all have high prevalence rates of self-reported work-related stress, according to the latest UK Labour Force Study.
STRESS BY NUBERS
13.5 million - the total number of working days lost due to work-related stress in the UK during 2007-08
30.6 - estimated number of days off work taken by each employee suffering from stress
442,000 - number of employees who believed they were suffering from work-related stress, anxiety or depression in the UK during 2007-08
£530 million - cost to the British economy each year of work-related stress, depression and anxiety
237,000 =- number of workers who reported new cases of work related stress in the UK during 2007-08
WEBSITE
A new website has been launched to help businesses prevent work-related stress. The site includes updated advice and guidance, including HSE’s revised Stress Management Stanards, tools to help prevent stress at work, a self-assessment questionnaire for line managers, case studies and good practical examples of solutions that have worked well for other organistions.
The site breakds down the management standards into invidivual roles and highlights the responsibilities associated with each role.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/
Other work related advice sites
www.mindfulemployer.net/about_us.html.
www.dignityatwork.org/default.htm
www.shift.org.uk