INDIVIDUAL STRATEGIES FOR COPING WITH STRESS

Time management. 

Many people manage their time poorly. The things we have to accomplish in any given day or week are not necessarily beyond completion if we manage our time properly. The well-organized employee, like the well organized student, can often accomplish twice as much as the person who is poorly organized. So understanding and using basic time management principles can help individuals cope better with tensions created by job demands.

A few of the more well-known time management principles are: 

(1) making daily lists of activities to be accomplished;

(2) prioritizing activities by importance and urgency; 

(3) scheduling activities according to the priorities set;

(4) knowing your daily cycle and handling the most demanding parts of your job during the high part of your cycle, when you are most alert and productive.

Physical activity. 

Noncompetitive physical exercise, such as aerobics, walking, jogging, swimming, and riding a bicycle, has long been recommended by physicians as a way to deal with excessive stress levels. These forms of physical exercise increase heart capacity, lower at-rest heart rate, provide a mental diversion from work pressures, and offer a means to “let off steam.”

Relaxation techniques. 

Individuals can teach themselves to reduce tension through relaxation techniques such as meditation, hypnosis,

and biofeedback. The objective is to reach a state of deep relaxation, where you feel physically relaxed, somewhat detached from the immediate environment, and detached from body sensations.37 Fifteen or 20 minutes a day of deep relaxation releases tension and provides a person with a pronounced sense of peacefulness. Importantly, significant changes in heart rate, blood pressure, and other physiological factors result from achieving the deep relaxation condition.

Building social supports. 

Having friends, family, or colleagues to talk to provides an outlet when stress levels become excessive. Expanding your social support network, therefore, can be a means for tension reduction. It provides you with someone to listen to your problems and to offer a more objective perspective on the situation. Research also demonstrates that social support moderates the stress burnout relationship.That is, high support reduces the likelihood that heavy work stress will result in job burnout.

IS WORK STRESS BAD?

Good Stress Versus Bad Stress

So if stress can be so bad for you, how can there be "good" or "positive" stress?

If you are suffering from extreme stress or long-term stress, your body will eventually wear itself down. But sometimes, small amounts of stress can actually be good.

Understanding your stress level is important. If nothing in your life causes you any stress or excitement, you may become bored or may not be living up to your potential. If everything in your life, or large portions of your life, cause you stress, you may experience health or mental problems that will make your behavior worse.

Recognizing when you are stressed and managing your stress can greatly improve your life. Some short-term stress -- for example what you feel before an important job presentation, test, interview, or sporting event -- may give you the extra energy you need to perform at your best. But long-term stress -- for example constant worry over your job, school, or family -- may actually drain your energy and your ability to perform well.

• Initially with rising stress  performance rises.
• This positive aspect of stress is Eustress
• At an optimum stress level performance is maximum
• Beyond the optimum point with increasing stress performance falls.
• This negative aspect of stress is distress.

BEHAVIOURAL CONSEQUENCES OF DISTRESS

• Low job performance
• More accident
• Faulty decisions
• Higher absenteeism
• Work place agression

Causes of Burnout

1. Work Estimation: Overwork is generally considered to be a major cause for burnout.

But it not so. Burnout take place in a chaotic, unstable environment. It often happens

when there is a confusion about duties and future managerial directions. Burnout

takes place when there is management by crisis. Low work estimation may also cause

burnout. When executives feel that there is no challenge and innovativeness in the

work, burnout take place.

2. Job Mismatch: It has been observed that executives choose and accept jobs which has

higher extrinsic reward like high salaries and power. These hygiene factors generally

fail to motivate executives for a longer time. Decision to choose extrinsic reward over

intrinsic rewards results in unhappiness. Job mismatch may be observed in personal

value and organizational value system and autonomy provided by organization in

work environment. Lack of gratification from the work generally leads to burnout.

BURNOUT

Burnout is a psychological response to “long-term exhaustion and diminished interest,” and may take months or years to bubble to the surface. First defined by American psychoanalyst Herbert J. Freudenberger in 1972, burnout is “a demon born of the society and times we live in and our ongoing struggle to invest our lives with meaning.” He goes on to say that burnout “is not a condition that gets better by being ignored. Nor is it any kind of disgrace. On the contrary, it’s a problem born of good intentions.” Another description in New York Magazine calls burnout "a problem that's both physical Job burnout is the process of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment resulting from pronged exposure to stress.

and existential, an untidy conglomeration of external symptoms and personal frustrations."

PSYSIOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF DISTRESS

1. Heart disease
2. Ulcer
3. High BP
4. Headaches
5. Sleep disturbances
6. More illnesses
7. Job dissatisfaction
8. Depression
9. Exhaustion
10. Moodiness
11. Burnout