Having a job is not just about earning money, it’s also about making social connections, making friends with colleagues, sharing ideas, getting motivated to improve, achieving goals and boosting your self-esteem when you reach them. On the other hand, all this can be accompanied by tensions at work. Work stress is particularly acute when we change jobs or when the organisation in which we work undergoe...
Having a job is not just about earning money, it’s also about making social connections, making friends with colleagues, sharing ideas, getting motivated to improve, achieving goals and boosting your self-esteem when you reach them. On the other hand, all this can be accompanied by tensions at work. Work stress is particularly acute when we change jobs or when the organisation in which we work undergoes significant changes, such as a change in management, downsizing, restructuring, etc. Stress at work can be so intense that any benefits of having a job can fade away. On the contrary, the effects of stress on the body can be so severe that we may not only lose the ability to work, but also be forced to seek medical help.
Prolonged stress at work can lead to a variety of ailments. The first signs of illness can be increased irritability and nervousness and rapid fatigue. It may be that stress at work causes you to be constantly agitated, to react inappropriately acutely or excessively negatively to new tasks or problems, or to shut down and withdraw from communication with colleagues. Sometimes the constant worry about not being able to complete our work tasks, or even about losing a comfortable position or job, manifests itself in working without any breaks, taking our work home with us, or postponing our paid holidays.Causes of work stress
Managing stress at work is partly up to the employee, but also up to the employer. Work stress can arise and persist because employees are given unclear tasks, the work is poorly organised or the worker lacks organisation, the workload is too heavy, the employer assigns or the employee takes on several tasks at the same time, or the environment is physically or psychologically toxic – harmful working conditions, elements of mobbing, lack of support. If you notice one or more of these in your working environment, it is likely that stress at work is part of your daily routine and you should take care to reduce it without delay.Numerous studies have shown how stress can be a serious health hazard. We may not feel it at first, even though the damaging changes may have already begun. How does stress affect the body? If we start to suffer from headaches or insomnia, high blood pressure or obesity, we may look for underlying illnesses, when in fact these may simply be symptoms of stress. Meanwhile, stress can lead to various cardiovascular diseases or even diabetes.
Eating too much or too little, outbursts of anger, alcohol or drug abuse, smoking, sleep disturbances – all of these can be caused by stress at work, at home, or in a relationship. Worse still, if we experience stress in all our environments.
How can I relieve stress at work?
Would anti-stress medication be the only solution in similar circumstances? No medication can prevent stress, especially if it is caused by circumstances beyond our control or only poorly controlled. As has already been said, stress at work is not only dependent on the employee, but also on conditions outside the employee’s control.
In some cases, the negative factors in the working environment may be so numerous that the solution is to change jobs. But what if the job vacancies for your profession do not bode well? In that case, the first thing we should do is learn to manage stress. Plan our work more carefully, check our rights, get in touch with the trade union, balance work and rest, consult a psychologist, do self-care, breathing exercises, observe natural phenomena or animal behaviour, and find time for activities that do not require us to compete, to achieve results. It may take just a couple of these measures to make stress at work irrelevant or manage it.
Nowadays, there are plenty of techniques available to manage stress, you just have to look into it. The first remedy for stress should not be a strong sedative, and certainly not intoxicants, but natural supplements to strengthen the nervous system.
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