Managing stress

In order to understand the harmful consequences of stress and put mechanisms in place to prevent it, it is useful to reflect on the physical changes that take place. Under the perception of a threat, our body releases hormones and glucose to help prepare the fight or flight response. While this is an adaptive response in the short term, it can drain our energy over time leading to a variety of health-related problems such as tension headaches and high blood pressure.

Amongst the most cited causes of work-related stress are excessive workload and pressure to meet targets, lack of control over the task, and poorly trained managers (CIPD, 2013). From an individual level, we can work to diminish or change some these stressors (e.g. good organisation and time management skills can help you tackle the stress caused by tight targets) but unfortunately we can do little with others. In fact, the perception that we cannot control these events is what makes them extremely powerful stressors. Our ability to reduce the negative emotions caused by these stressors, and the changes in our body, will be key to preventing accumulated stress that results in the chronic syndrome referred to as burnout.

A stream of research in the stress literature has provided very useful evidence regarding the experiences that lead to increased coping ability through psychological recovery (Sonnentag, 2001). Psychological recovery is the process that allows us to recover the energy and resources spent whilst at work. Researchers have identified four main areas that help individuals recover the energy spent on a daily basis to prevent the cumulative effect of stress. The experiences include psychological detachment from work (i.e. engaging in activities completely unrelated to work), relaxation (directed to reduce the high arousal created in the fight/flight response), experiencing mastery (i.e. enjoying learning new things) and feeling able to control how you spend your own time (as opposed to feeling under pressure to constantly work over time).

The specific activities that lead to these recovery experiences may vary for different people, but whatever allows you to detach from work on a daily basis will increase your levels of relaxation, and decrease the tension and fatigue.