Stress Management 2021
The Effects of Stress on Your Body
You’re sitting in traffic, late for an important meeting, watching the minutes tick away. Your hypothalamus, a tiny control tower in your brain, decides to send out the order: Send in the stress hormones! These stress hormones are the same ones that trigger your body’s “fight or flight” response. Your heart races, your breath quickens, and your muscles ready for action. This response was designed to protect your body in an emergency by preparing you to react quickly. But when the stress response keeps firing, day after day, it could put your health at serious risk.
Stress and depression
Excessive stress often causes depression. Stress hormones suppress stem cells in the hippocampus. As a result, connections between neurons are disrupted, the process of formation of new neurons is interrupted and nerve circuits are destroyed.
Types of Stress:
There are 4 types of stress, and they have different effects on a person’s well-being.
Psychological or emotional, arising from strong positive or negative emotions.
Physiological, associated with the influence of such external factors as thirst, hunger, pain, heat.
Short-term, expressed in a short-term natural reaction to external irritation.
Chronic, from which it is impossible to get out without additional effort.
What is work-related stress?
Work-related stress is the response people may have when presented with work demands and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and which challenge their ability to cope. Stress occurs in a wide range of work circumstances but is often made worse when employees feel they have little support from supervisors and colleagues, as well as little control over work processes. There is often confusion between pressure or challenge and stress, and sometimes this is used to excuse bad management practice.
Pressure at the workplace is unavoidable due to the demands of the contemporary work environment. Pressure perceived as acceptable by an individual may even keep workers alert, motivated, able to work and learn, depending on the available resources and personal characteristics. However, when that pressure becomes excessive or otherwise unmanageable it leads to stress. Stress can damage an employees' health and the business performance.
Employees are less likely to experience work-related stress when demands and pressures of work are matched to their knowledge and abilities, control can be exercised over their work and the way they do it, support is received from supervisors and colleagues, and participation in decisions that concern their jobs is provided.
Ways to Reduce Stress in the Workplace
Stress is one of the most daunting obstacles to employee engagement in the modern workplace.
Workload, lack of job security, and personnel problems gang up on and overwhelm employees, dragging down their satisfaction levels. In fact, the negative consequences from stress are so strong that it has been declared a Worldwide Epidemic by the World Health Organization.
In the workplace, employee-environment fit should be the primary focus. If it's a good match, the employee is likely to be relaxed. A poor fit increases tension and stress.
We need to examine the employees and the environments we create for them. We need to make sure we are providing an office that fits our employees' definition of “not stressful,” not just what we think that looks like.
Encourage Workplace Wellness
Exercise and healthy living are two of your best weapons against workplace stress. Exercise takes employees' minds off the stress of their job to focus on the task at hand. It also improves moods by increasing the production of endorphins, the brain's feel-good neurotransmitters.
Encourage employees to go on a walk during lunch breaks
Subsidize gym memberships
Bring a yoga instructor into the office once a month
Hold a steps contest among teams for those who own fitness trackers
Offer healthy snacks in the office
Revamp the office
A lot of stress comes from environment. Think about every aspect of your office space and what it does (or doesn’t do) for the wellness of your team. Simple things like the quality of the coffee or the height of the cubicle walls can affect employee engagement.
Update the office with an upbeat colour scheme, additional plants, or new silverware. If you have the space, think about adding a ping pong or foosball table to allow employees to take their mind off their stress for a few minutes. Any changes that increase employee enjoyment will leave them feeling less stressed.
Allow for flexible hours and remote working
You hired your employees because you have confidence in their ability to do their jobs well and in a timely manner, so let them prove it. Your office should not feel like a cell, but rather a place that facilitates getting a job done. Let your employees know that their job is defined by the quality and timeliness of their work, not when they punch the clock.
Allow your employees to work remotely and give flexibility for start and end times. This freedom is great for office morale, and the policy shows employees that you trust them enough not to babysit.
Encourage communication
Employees spend a lot of time together, and the more comfortable they are, the less stress they will feel. As co-workers get to know each other, expectations and communication barriers are broken down, greasing the wheels for easier future interactions.
Create quiet time
Stress can't be completely avoided, but you can help alleviate it when it arrives. Ensure your employees have a place where they can take a break.
If your organization can afford to do so, consider implementing "No Meeting Mondays" or something similar, essentially blocking off time for employees to focus in on individual task and kept from getting bogged down with meetings or overwhelmed by a heavy workload.
Recognize employee achievement.
Employee’s love being praised for a job well done and recognizing their success results in a serious boost in engagement. Each employee has a different personality, so be mindful when considering how and when to recognize. Some employees appreciate a call-out during a meeting or praise in a company-wide email, while more reserved types might prefer a card on their desk or a thank you in person.
However, you choose to recognize, your employees will appreciate that you are aware of their success and want to share it with others. This makes them happier and more comfortable, in turn lowering stress levels.
Provide onsite or distance counselling
Many companies have begun providing counselling to help employees to deal with stress. This strategy, in or out of the office, in group settings or individually can help employees prepare for and cope with the stress that come their way.
