Stress Management

STRESS MANAGEMENT

 

“It is not work that kills men, it is worry”.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

 

People like work that is rewarding and gives them satisfaction. For this, a reasonable amount of pressure may be necessary: many employees want work that stretches them, to have the feeling that it can sometimes be difficult, but that it is also stimulating and challenging. This is necessary if one is to have pleasant feelings of achievement. But nowadays increasing job insecurity, fear of redundancies, working long hours are becoming common across the world. The general consensus is that most jobs have become more demanding, with longer hours and greater pressures. But when pressure builds up, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by work, and this can produce feeling of stress. It is possible to become stressed out through overwork or other problems. People burn out and as a result they are so stressed and tired that may never be able to work again.

 

Dangerous effect of stress

Stress has far reaching effects on a person's physical and psychological well being.  The data show that between fifty and seventy percent of all medical complaints are stress related. Even higher percentages are thought to exist in psychological disorders. Heart attacks, hypertension, and other related stress disorders are on the increase. That is why one of the major concerns of modern organizations should become training managers by raising their awareness and giving them skills to prevent and reduce stress at work.

 

General outline of stress

 

Stress can be defined as a generalized physiological reaction to pressures created by the environment.  Generally, stress is elicited by the flight or fight response pattern.  This is an instinctual tendency to run away or to fight.  As Stroebel (1978(p.2).) states, “When your ancestors lived in the wilds, they needed a 'fight or flight' reaction to survive.  When they came upon a tiger, a mastodon, or a warring tribe, their bodies responded with a shot of adrenalin, faster breathing, and a quicker heart rate.  This gave them the extra strength they needed to either fight or flee to safety”.   Today, a person is very rarely placed in a life threatening situation.  However, these primitive responses are elicited by many stressful situations a person encounters in modern life.  When a fight or flight response is elicited inappropriately, which is most of the time, a large amount of stress is generated which places a severe demand upon the bodily system.

 

"Overstress"/"understress"

 

Every one of us must learn to recognize what for oneself is "overstress," when we have exceeded the limits of our adaptability, or "understress", when we suffer from lack of self-realization (physical immobility, boredom or sensory deprivation). Being overwrought is just as bad as being frustrated by the inability to express ourselves and to find free outlets for our innate muscular or mental energy.

 

The General Adaptation Syndrome

 

Selye (1974), a physiologist who initiated much of the original work on stress, has labeled these reactions as the General Adaptation Syndrome.  The first state is alarm, where the person focuses his attention on the stressor (the stress causing agent) and is totally aroused. As in the case of psychological stress, this could include a "burning" in the chest, tightening of muscles, and other related tension responses.

   The second phase is the stage of resistance, where reactions become specialized in an attempt to bring the stressor into tolerable limits.  Muscles become tight and perhaps exclude awareness of painful feelings and thoughts.  Defense mechanisms, as described by Freud, could also decrease awareness of painful or anxiety producing situations in this stage.

The final stage is exhaustion.  Depression, psychological breakdown, and even death could be a consequence in this stage.  Tension generated in the previous stages cannot be tolerated.  So, this stage may be a part of a healing process to protect the organism from severe tissue damage.

These three stages resemble the three stages of normal human life: childhood (with its characteristic low resistance and excessive responses to any kind of stimulus), adulthood (during which adaptation to most commonly encountered agents has occurred and resistance is increased), and finally senility (characterized by irreversible loss of adaptability and eventual exhaustion) ending with death. According to Selye, the diseases of adaptation can include headaches, ulcers, gastric disorders, kidney disease, high blood pressure, and heart attacks or strokes. At a psychological level, emotional problems in which a person is trying to cope with life problems weaken a person so that they are more susceptible to actual physical disorders. Some of the signs within the General Adaptation Syndrome that indicate excessive stress are rapid mood changes; abrupt changes in behavior; excessive usage of drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco; sleep disturbances; a decrease in self confidence; being overly critical of one's self and others; compulsive work habits (workaholic); thinking about things in a repetitive manner; feeling overwhelmed by what are usually normal situations; being suspicious and hostile to others; and other similar types of behavior.

 

Cumulative reactions of stress

 

Stress reactions appear to be cumulative. Muscle tension, for instance, can increase over time due to stress. A person may also be unaware of the increased tension.  An analogy would be that of taking a hot bath.  Even if the water is very hot, one can gradually adjust to it.  In contrast, a person who immediately submerges himself would experience extreme physical and psychological distress.

If stress responses become permanent (state of resistance), 
they can have a tremendously, adverse impact on a person's physiological system.  Take for instance, a person whose heart rate increases from 90 to 110 beats per minute.  The heart is beating 20 beats more a minute.  In an hour, this would be 1200 times above the normal rate. Just as any machine gradually wears out, even if it has enough fuel, so does the human body sooner or later become the victim of rapid wear and tear under heavy demands.  The system is overworked.  Some forms of the treatment of muscle tension include running and other types of physical exercise (Henderson, 1976).  An approach used in California is that of the Rolfing Technique. This method involves the manipulation of deep body muscles; this stretching the muscles is thought to relieve body tension.

 

Externalizers and internalizers

 

Some people appear to be more susceptible to stress.  A useful way to separate individuals as to how they deal with stress is to divide them into two groups, externalizers and internalizers (Rotter, 1966). Some people believe they are responsible for their behavior and what happens to them.  Sources of satisfaction and control are initiated primarily from within.  They see themselves as masters of their own fate.  What they do to cope makes a difference.  These persons are largely autonomous and are called internalizers.  On the other hand, some believe themselves to be victims of their environment.  In their perception to cope with the environment, what they do has little impact.  Personal control is outside themselves.  What they need, feeling of well being, are controlled by events or persons outside themselves. Chance, or luck, plays an important role in their lives.  Rotter refers to these individuals as externalizers. Externalizers appear to be people who cannot separate themselves from the environment in which they live. 

It is possible that large numbers of drug consumers can be 
related to the reduction of stress.  Most people seem to take drugs to 
decrease anxiety due to stressful interpersonal relationships.  How- 
ever, a person should realize there are alternate choices for handling 
interpersonal relationships.  For instance, a few choices include: different techniques, meditation, social skills groups, encounter groups and therapy.  In fact, some people who experience these growing processes give up drugs because they interfere with their new way of experiencing the world.  A reality a person shapes for himself is most often the best trip!

 

Styles of coping with stress and the tension

 

Tension is a complex phenomenon which has dramatic implications for an individual's psychological and physical well being.  Styles of coping with stress and the tension it produces can be divided into two broad categories.  The first involves the identification of stressors and minimizing their impact by increased interpersonal skills and awareness.  The second style is establishment of the relaxation response, which is physiologically antagonistic to tension (Walker, 1975).

 

Relaxation as a response that can be learned

 

Recently there has been an increasing realization that relaxation procedures have common elements, and that these approaches significantly overlap.  They are more similar than they are different.  Benson (1975), for example, notes that all relaxation training procedures have four basic elements.  The first is a quiet environment to minimize external distractions.  Second, a body position is assumed which is comfortable enough to allow a person to sit for at least 20 minutes. Third, a mental device—a word which is repeated over and over—is used to interfere with logical thought patterns which occur as the person is becoming relaxed.  The fourth and most essential element is a passive attitude.  It is the expectation of "letting go."

Relaxation is viewed as a response that can be learned—as well as a phenomenon with measurable dimensions.  As such, it can be investigated by use of scientific methods.  Physiological measures of relaxation, for instance, include decreases in lactate, oxygen consumption, respiratory rate, heart rate, muscle tension, and 
an increase in alpha activity in the brain.  These changes can be triggered by activities, such as closing one's eyes, monitoring breathing, slowing respiratory rate, imagining circumstances which are tranquil in quality, along with other exercises.

Thus, stress is inevitable but we can learn how to adapt ourselves to life’s circumstances, we can discover how to modify and gradually transform our environment, we can lean how to deal with stress.

 

Key Terms, Phrases and Concepts

 

Become Stressed out

Feel overwhelmed by work

Burn out

Psychological disorders

Defense mechanisms

Related stress disorders

Exhaustion

Depression

Psychological breakdown

Abrupt changes in behavior

Be susceptible to stress