Executive Summary

Stress is one of the major factors these days involved in lowering the potential of growth, success and development of individuals. In order to fight stress, first of all, we need to understand what exactly stress is, does it always result in downfall, how it is caused and what could be done to manage it and even use it to our advantage.

In the following project, we have discussed about the meaning of stress, classification, causes, symptoms, and hence the ways to help individuals who are not able to perform well due to negative stress and turning their biggest foe (negative stress) into their best ally (positive stress leading to motivation)

“Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.”

Well, for validating the sentence above firstly we need to understand, ‘What is stress’?

Introduction:

Stress is a response, both mental and physical, of our body towards any change in our daily living circumstances. In other words it’s a response of our physiology and psychology towards the change in environment around us whenever we are made to get out of our comfort zone.It’s engraved in our genes since eons. For example, when our primitive ancestors went out to hunt an animal like a bison or an elephant for food or clothing, adrenaline rush (positive stress) in their body helped them to be alert and avoid being complacent in such dangerous situations. It helped them to make quick judgments and move faster to bring that loaf of meat back home so that they could survive one more day. It’s one of our survival instincts, which helps us to fight or flee according to the situation.

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(www.all-history.org)

Classification:

Today the situations have changed, it’s not an animal anymore whom we need to hunt down. It’s even worse because it has no shape or weight or fangs or claws, it’s our day to day competition in this ever growing world. Money has replaced that loaf of meat just like skyscrapers have replaced trees in our daily lives, but the stress remains, that same instinct which pushes us forward to last a day more in this crunch. However, just like the common antibiotics of today, an excess of stress could prove to be fatal.

Hence we can classify stress in two categories:

- Eustress : It is that dose of stress which energizes us from within and lets us to think more quickly and increases our capacity to grasp vast volumes of knowledge in shorter time.

- Distress: It’s sort of an evil twin of eustress, or in other words the excess of stress to such an extent that our body and mind aren’t able to cope up with it. (www.brocku.ca)

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While eustress helps us to work more efficiently towards a given task, distress almost causes our senses to shut down due to anxiety overload. It renders us disable to perform even our daily routine functions. Unlike eustress, distress doesn’t give our body a chance to relax and rejuvenate for a very long time, which leads to burnout.

Causes:

What causes stress is rather a very broad range of things, but the psychologists bring them together under a common name i.e. Stressors.

Like stress itself stressors can work for the good and bad for our survival and prosperity, and it all depends on the individual on whom they are working. The effect of each and every stressor may work differently on different people. For eg., the thrill of a new house is really exhilarating till the time that is bearable, it could excite some people while making the others anxious.

Symptoms:

Well the good news is that distress is symptomatic and can be detected very easily, although there are no clear cut demarcation between the two twins i.e. eustress and distress, but some features of an anxious person are easily recognizable, few of them are listed below:

Headaches Migraines Cold sweats Rapid heart beat Insomnia Stiff muscles

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Although these symptoms are temporary but they could lead to long term chronic health problems like cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes, obesity and even nervous breakdown.

The best way to avoid stress is to avoid stressors but in this world of fast pace and herculean competitive tasks, one cannot remain hidden forever from stressful conditions. If one needs to grow, then he ought to get out of his comfort zone and when that happens stressors play the role of a welcoming committee in the ‘uncomfortable territory’.

So, how to cope up with it?

For now let’s take the case of the working class of people and to get the answer to this question firstly we need to identify the distressed population by gaining insight into what are the typical aspects of a distressed person and if you want to find out whether the employee concerned is negatively stressed or not? Here are some of the aspects to look into:

Absconding from work

Distressed employees aren’t able to cope up well with their professional and personal life, hence they start avoiding the stressful atmosphere, in this case the workplace, and start evading from work.

Accidents

Preoccupied with stress and fatigue, the employees aren’t able to focus on their work properly. High level of stress keeps their body in a state of fight or flight continuously which leads to blurring of vision, confusion and restlessness which hampers their cognitive as well as kinesthetic abilities leading to workplace accidents and mishappenings.

Irritability in behavior

Extreme stress effects our nervous system and causes limited release of certain relaxation hormones like dopamine, serotonin, etc which in turn induces irritable behavior in people. So next time if you see an employee shouting their lungs out on a co-worker or a subordinate it’s not necessarily their personality trait, it could be a sign of an overgrown stress.

Fear of change

Stressed out employees don’t accept change easily, they develop a fear towards any sort of change and it causes a terrible effect on the organization as all attempts to renovate or reorganize an organization turns out to be a fiasco.

Poor customer service

Employees who are dealing with a lot of work place stress are bound to provide the bottom most level of customer services leading to customer dissatisfaction. This holds true from the top most to the bottom most level of employees because even a smallest crack in customer satisfaction may hold serious consequences for the company in the near future.

(Vigoda,2002)

Transforming Distress into Eustress:

Having discussed about the meaning of stress, its forms, effects and symptoms, lets now focus upon how to turn a virtually negative force into a positive one. Well the answer lies in the introduction itself, stress is not a negative force per se but the effect of it depends upon the magnitude of it. So it will be logical to think that if the intensity of distress is lowered somehow then it will itself transform into eustress and that’s what is needed, isn’t it? But then how to do it? This is how:

As discussed, by the symptoms mentioned above we can, with some effort, identify the victim of this giant roadblock in the career of the victim and the prosperity of the organization. Once identification is done, we need to use some basic strategies to alleviate the pain of the suffering.

Counselling

One of the radical theories of relieving people suffering from stress is as one could say it, ”Talk Therapy”. This practice involves interacting one to one with the person and try to go deep down to the root of his anxiety. It may sound simple but it needs an insight of a professional counselor and therefore nowadays many organizations organize counseling sessions to find and if possible then eradicate the cause of the spike in their employees’ stress level. The idea is to know the distressed person better, try to zero in on their specific stressors and attacking them methodically.

Yoga and relaxation techniquesAlthough yoga practices are viewed through skeptical glasses but time and again it has proved its worth. All it needs is a patient mind and a “why not” attitude. Yoga practices like Pranayam, Siddhasana, etc are very popular stress alleviating exercises. Nowadays Yoganidra has taken front seat in all the relaxation techniques to relieve the body and mind of daily stress and improve the performance as well as the personality of the individual.

Psychiatric helpWhen distress reaches a threshold point, negativity rises like a wave which may even cause psycho-somatic illness. Psycho-somatic illnesses are those diseases which are present in the body and have a psychological cause rather than a particular or recognizable organic cause. For instance, a child who does extremely well in his academics but doesn’t get enough appreciation for his work from his parents, may develop asthma. Psychologically that asthma is the only way by which he could get the care and warmth he misses, and no matter how advanced treatment he receives he won’t recover until and unless the root cause of his illness is recognized. In such cases people shouldn’t hesitate at all in taking psychiatric help. In several societies and particularly Indian ones, a psychiatric consultation is considered a taboo, and here the requirement of a “self well being” attitude kicks in regardless of what the society is thinking.

Pharmaceutical interventionMedicines are also effective in lowering stress levels to a certain degree and hence considerate organizations allow employees to carry those pills with them in the workplace even after knowing their sedative effects because these organizations believe firstly in the well being of their work force.

“Learn how to say No?”One of the most important attitudes that is must for a distressed employee is the ability to say “NO”. Many people fail in it or express themselves in an offensive way which ultimately cost their interpersonal relationships with their co-workers, but if the right approach it taken then it could really help the person in shedding an extra load of work which sometimes isn’t even their’s. These days some organizations, colleges and even schools hold workshops on the art of “Saying No in a pleasant and professional manner”.

(Vigoda,2002)

Conclusion:

Stress is a major malefactor in the growth and development of an individual and his surroundings. It destabilizes the cognitive and bodily functions of the effected person rendering him helpless, but with right attitude like the ability to openly discuss the problems being faced with counselors and/or family, not fearing what the society may infer if you seek psychiatric help, being regular and patient in practicing relaxation exercises and the ability to professionally and pleasantly say No may transform the biggest roadblock(distress) in your growth into a beacon of hope and energy(eustress).In the end it all boils down to our attitude, how we react in adversary and change the course of events to our advantage.

As said by the all time genius Albert Einstein, “Within difficulty, lies opportunity.”

Referencing:

About.com Guide (2011)

‘Stress Definition’(online)(cited 19 January 2011).Avilable from<http://dying.about.com/od/glossary/g/stress.htm>

Brock University website (2010)‘Eustress vs Distress’(online)(cited 2010).Available from<http://www.brocku.ca/health-services/health-education/stress/eustress-distress>

Help Guide(2013)‘Stress Symptoms, Signs and Causes’(online)(cited July,2013).Available from<http://www.helpguide.org/mental/stress_signs.htm>

Vigoda,E. (2002) ‘Stress-related aftermaths to workplace politics: the relationships among politics,job distress, and aggressive behavior in organizations’, Journal of Organizational Behavior,pp.4-7.