-Piyush Gautam
As a common buzzword ‘stress’ is taking its height for use and misuse, to address any of the situations an ordinary person’s faces. Stress is just looked at its dark side regardless of its antidote for careless, negligence, and procrastination. Stress is understood as the “non-specific response produced by one’s body to any demand for change”, with reference to the founder of ‘stress theory’ Hans Selye.
There are two sides of stress one is eu-stress; the mild level of stress which acts as the booster dose on accomplishing a task with less error and time-bound, next is distress; it’s the level that had begun to impact the person emotionally, behaviorally, and cognitively in other than normal ways. Stress from psychological specks; is always the misbalance between one’s ability and the demand of the environment
So on the foreground of knowledge of stress the ‘stress at work place’ can be defined as the abnormal emotional and physical reaction commenced due to the conflict between personnel’s capacity and performance demand. Stressors at the workplace may vary from personal to organizational. The work environment is always demanding to personnel’s and the feeling of stress is majorly a subjective matter. It must be a matter of concern when the degree rises to employees’ overall harm and descending productivity for the organization.
Most importantly this stress is alarming in developing countries like ours. From my analytical view, we Nepalese are not that energetic in our work rather daydream for the highest pay for the lowest labor. Another important thing is the lack of enough placements; leads us to jump on any vacancies without tallying ourselves with the job descriptions.
Seeds of Work Place Stress
Stress is alarming in most of workplaces. Some common reasons may be the nature of the job, excessive load, underused ability, health of employees, poor decisions of employers, physical environment of workplace, and employee support system.
Specifically, the seeds of workplace stress can be categorized as;
– Individual – it includes the attitude, personality, ability, and personal hassles. The negative attitude of the employee towards their job and the company, sensitive nature and internalizing qualities, thinking their ability is beyond the task demand or the task never meet their potentialities, going through economic hardship and major life transitions, these factors are always irrigating to the seed of stress.
– Organizational – the organization becomes responsible to nurture the employees stress when there is no concern on the issues like distributed work, clear roles, reasonable deadlines, peace and soothing sitting, praise and feedback, bulling and harassments.
– Environmental – these are out of control either for individual or organization. These are to be coped up instead of managing and minimizing. These include politics, economical liquidity, weather and more.
Better not to sow these seeds. But I can say sowing would be choice of none. Then also we are not that obliged to bother it. There are some tips to trim, so that not to be trapped in its shadow. As a psychologist I always suggest three cost free and no side effect medicines; share, smile, and sleep, one can use without prescriptions. In reference to APA (American Psychological Association) work place stress can be managed with:
– Tracking the stressors – it should be done at both; individual and organizational level. Make a journal to find out the stressors and reaction to those stressors. Awareness itself leads towards the solution.
– Developing healthy response – please do not create support system with alcohol, fast-foods, caffeine and conflict. Instead share, relaxation, napping, stretching, breaks would be beneficial.
– Establishing boundaries – always keep a space between personal and professional life. Try to keep them at their own borders, spend a healthy and relaxing time with family and self putting aside the work baggage. This will give a full fledge recharged battery.
– Communicate to employers – if there are any issues clearly talk to boss and try to shut it down. But please do not make a chart of disappointments.
Finally, stress at work place is universal and are not eradicable; this doesn’t mean they can’t be controlled. Start from individual level beginning at the time of applying. As an employer treat your employees as a person first, not as a producer.
(Mr. Gautam is Psychologist and trainer)
