Wear and tear on body and mind.

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Article The Effect of Stress Management on Occupational Stress and S...

Stress causes physiological and psychological changes within the body that we feel and recognise; 'fight or flight'. It might be the way an individual physically escapes from a dangerous situation. The heart speeds up, lungs dilate, he/she does not feel hunger and the liver releases glucose for energy.

This is quite a good (and simple) website describing acute stress:

https://www.simplypsychology.org/stress-biology.html

But for some people, stress becomes a chronic problem and can have a serious toll on the body and become the cause of chronic illnesses.

This is another simple website summarising such health problems:

https://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/features/10-fixable-stress-related-health-problems#1

So, what was originally a sometimes life saving response can become life endangering.

It may be the occupation that causes stress or just the challenges of life.

What do we mean by stress or the occupational stress?

There are several conceptions of stress. I find most illuminating the one proposed by Lazarus (1984). For him, stress is a personal reaction to situations that an individual perceives as threatening and for which the individual does not have sufficient resources to handle effectively. Thus the perception of stress produced by a given situation may vary from one person to the other and depend on the characteristics of the person. What one person considers stressful, another may believe that it is an easy challenge.

Occupational stress refers to situations, practices, and responsibilities that individuals and groups perceive as producing stress (stressors). When stressors affect one or more group of employees, there is a basis to suspect that has an organizational basis. Some of these may be based on the quality and amount of supervision, corporate rules, and requirements, role conflict or ambiguity of roles, etc. These organizational stressors are of particular interest to organizational psychologists that work to eliminate them or reduce them.

In general, there are several ways for handling stress: augmenting the individual's resources (as for example training, obtaining more knowledge or skills), reducing the demands of the situation (changing organizational rules), psychological re-structure (approaching the situation and finding out it is not what one thought of it), and fleeing the situation (changing jobs).

One of our projects is the development of an organizational stress inventory that will be available online. At this time the inventory is in the field testing phase, and we accept participation from all. We believe it will be helpful for both individuals and organizations. We have included the following scales:

Nature of type of work

This scale evaluates what is produced by aspects inherent to the specific kind of work that is carried out. Some job stressors are frequent changes in technology, tedious work, dangerous work, and others.

Organizational Policies

This scale assesses the stress produced by regulatory policies such as frequent transfers, frequent shift changes, the discrepancy between the goals and values ​​of the organization and their own, and other similar procedures.

Supervision

This scale evaluates the stress produced by the actions of the supervisors with whom one does not agree. In turn, the stress depends on the conception one has of the nature of the supervision, the quantity and quality of the supervision received and the preference for a particular kind of control. Examples of these perceptions are lack of supervisor's knowledge on how to supervise. Receive confusing orders.Showing favoritism when assigning work and recognizing performance.

Social Environment

This scale evaluates the stress produced by a social environment created by a set of interpersonal relationships that are usually considered harmful to the person and to organizational health. Examples of these interactions are gossip, power struggles, favoritism by some employees and others similar. The degree of stress that can potentially be experienced depends, to a large extent, on the degree to which the environment is harmful.

Role Conflict

This scale assesses the stress produced by the conflict that arises between the different roles we perform as employees, co-workers and supervised. Examples of these conflicts are: Having to remain silent before the mistakes of coworkers. Receive criticism from citizens who do not understand the work that is done. Scores on this scale are included in the total stress scale.

Family and Work Balance

This scale evaluates the stress produced by the perception that a balance cannot be established between the demands of work and those of the family. Examples of items included in the scale are: Being late to work for family matters. Feel that the family is failing.

Physical Symptoms

This scale evaluates the consequences of physical nature that result from experiencing high levels of stress for a long time. Stress can be expressed in terms of symptoms and physical conditions (dizziness, headache, high pressure, heart conditions, etc.) which is technically known as somatization. Prolonged stress can result in physical conditions that require medical treatment in addition to intervention with stress. Scores on this scale are included in the scale of consequences.

Psychological symptoms

This scale evaluates negative feelings that may be related to experimental levels of stress for a long time. As part of the way the body handles stress, negative feelings often develop towards themselves, other people, life and society in general. Some of these negative feelings are sadness, anxiety, depression. If these feelings persist for a long time without attending, they may result in conditions that require help from a health professional.

In simple words: your "motor" is too small and your burden is too heavy, then you start panting; if this goes on for some time you may start to experience anxiety and eventually panic attacks. Then we know that you are really stressed out.

Then in an occupation like nursing or health care in general, you may be forced to do things that goes against what you think is wrong (e.g. abortion, abstain from resuscitation) and then your response is a conflict we call moral stress or distress.

Béatrice Marianne Ewalds-Kvist - I really like (especially) your first paragraph above, describing stress. What a lovely explanation; thank you for that.

When we do not take an Action for an Emotional necessity, we allow Stigma to build. A small dose is healthy, as it supports ...Intuition.

When we do not make a Decision for a Rational necessity, we aggregate the Sorrows (Burden). A small dose generates Motivation.

When we do not find a Solution for a Social necessity, we snow-ball the Stress. A small dose generates Emotion. Without it, no empathy could occur.

So, Stigma, Sorrow & Stress are keeping the energies flowing.

Only the parameters (limits) can be challenging.

This question is stimulating some thought provoking responses. The above reply from Anamaria Popescu is one of those - what a lovely explanation. Thankyou!

Mary,

Thank you!

Occupational stress is stress related to one's job. Occupational stress often stems from unexpected responsibilities and pressures that do not align with a person's knowledge, skills, or expectations, inhibiting one's ability to cope. Occupational stress can increase when workers do not feel supported by supervisors or colleagues, or feel as if they have little control over work processes