Stress Management - A Spice of Life

The word Stress is derived from the Latin word “Stringere", stress was popularly used in the
seventeenth century to mean hard ship, strain, adversity or Affliction. It was used in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to denote force, pressure, strain or strong effort with
reference to an object or person.
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In modern times Stress has become a Buzzword and legitimate concern for people of all
walks of life. Stress is an inevitable part of work life. No one is immune to stress. Straight
from the birth till death an individual is exposed to various to stress. Stress is such a field,
which can never be avoided. The recent Assocham Survey lists construction, shipping,
banks, trading houses , electronic and print media, courier companies, retail, card franchise
companies and even government hospitals as high stress prone zones. The stress is truly
spreading everywhere!

A Stress acts as a force on body to produce strain. It is an adaptive response to a situation

that is challenging or retaining to a person.

The concept of stress was first introduced in Life sciences by Hans Selye in 1936. There are
different views of different persons on the basis of their personal experiences, like for some
business man it is an frustration or emotional tension, some suggest that it is an physical or
mental pressure, these restrict and act as an hindrance in the performance of an individual.

It is pressure people feel in life due to their reaction to situation. Hans Selye defines stress
as “adaptive response to the external situation that results in physical, psychological or
behavioral deviation for organizational participants."

It is a condition arising from the interaction of people their job and characterized by change
within people that forced them to deviate from their normal functioning.

There are two sides of stress A positive and Negative side. A Force that deviates from the
normal functioning is distress, --- a negative side. The negative impacts of stress are one
start to miss deadlines, tend to work harder, longer, leads to work quality suffers. he will
not be at home when family needs him, boss is angry, family is angry, he is unhappy. he
feel lousy, cheated, bitter…All this reflects into his work and slowly he enters into the vertex
of stress that can only pull him one way down, if he do not quickly extricate himself from it.

Out comes of Stress:

There are certain outcomes of stress. The stress results as an hindrance in an individuals
performance, his work profile, his ability to work, Migraine, Fatigue, heart disease,
miscarriage and also his personal life .
At the Escorts Heart Institute in Delhi, India, routine cardiac screening indicate that most
executives are in the advanced stages."

There are certain results which is shown in the form of diagram below:

The Stress is a response of an individual to the pressure and anxiety .there are both the
Positive and negative occurrences which gives rise to stress. There are generally three
stages through which an individual goes namely: Alarm, Resistance, and Exhaustion. In
Alarm the stress act upon an individual and the defence mechanism is brought into action.
The next is the Resistance here the individual adapts to new stressful situations. If the
defence mechanism is not successful then the last stage the Exhaustion comes into
operation. Here the individual's resistance collapses and the organism do not perform
satisfactorily.

A positive side is called a Eutress, which refers to healthy, positive, constructive outcome
of stressful event .It is an experience that motivates people to achieve goals and attain
success in every field of their life. High level of stress also impairs ability to remember
information, make effective decisions, and take appropriate action.

Stress denial mode:

Some people deny the fact that they are not stressed and ultimately become a victim of it.
They remain in the state of denial and forget its potential impact on themselves, their work
and family.

Many top executives would like to believe that they can “indeed do it all” and that they are
strong enough to with stand whatever life tosses their way. Change, conflict and pressure
are the most common cause of stress in the present time. But in situations like this one
needs to take a step back and truly listen to ones heart and body. Trouble in sleeping,
stiffness of back and neck, constant tiredness and irritability… are all signs.

Stress cannot be avoided. First one needs to be aware that one feels stress and
acknowledge it. Awareness of this is half the battle won.

Causes of stress:

It is difficult to manage stress unless the individual experiencing stress is aware of the
causes or sources of Stress. There are few common causes of stress namely the working
environment, satisfaction through monetary sides, Job profile, relationship with our seniors,
subordinates, Family Problems etc.

There are certain major sources or causes of stress which are listed as:

• Environmental Causes: These are the factors to which an employee responds includes fast
technological change, Family demands economic and financial conditions, etc.

• Organizational Causes: These come in the forms of organizational policies, procedures,

structures, etc.

• Group Causes: These would include the lack of group cohesiveness, lack of social support
and interpersonal conflict.

• Individual Causes: These are the roles played by the individual in an organization. This
would include Role plays, Workload. Etc.

It has been surveyed that mostly Indian executives suffer from obesity and 44 percent of
middle – level executives report that job stress drives them to high level of alcohol
consumption.

Spice of Life ---- STRESS

Business environment

The demands of the current business environment are increasing stress on professionals of
today…, and this is impacting their work, personal life, physical health and emotional well
being. Expectations of better people management, coupled with deadlines and competition,
is taking a toll on top executives. The constant changes in the industry, ups and downs in
employment markets and challenges of hiring and retaining best talent, aligning all
functions with business objectives in the current environments are increasingly posing
threats to their stress levels. All in all, the economic down turn has increasingly put
pressure on HR heads to manage and stretch themselves to the hilt as far as talent
management goes.
The research evidence shows that stress is both helpful and harmful to task performance.
We can also say, stress is both a friend and enemy. Absence and too low level of stress
does not stimulate the employee to work more or and perform better increasing research
evidences show that increase in stress level till its mild level serves as a stimulus to activate
employee to respond to the challenges of task and, in turn, facilitates employee's task
performance.

Newstrom and Devis "have compared the relationship between stress and performance with
that of strings and music on a violin, just as either too little or too much tension on the
strings does not produce suitable music and the violin strings need to be readjusted to
accommodate the changing conditions, such as increased humidity either too low or too
high stress level interferes with employees performance and thus stress needs to be
periodically adjusted and moderated.

Reduction in Stress: There is a need for coping with stress. Stress is harmful, as it hinders
the employee's health and his or her task performance. There are certain tactics to cope
with stress, which depends upon demands and constrain in which it is used. There are
different techniques used for Stress reduction like Yoga, Counseling services Training
Programmes etc.

De- stressing @ work

Everybody reacts to stress in different ways and even deals with it differently. Physical
exercises can help de-stress. Moderate to intense aerobic exercise for longer durations and
resistance training protocols of longer duration , lighter resistance and longer inter-set
intervals , cause the greatest release of endogenous opioids (stress busting or feel good
hormones) in the blood stream and hence help in relieving stress. This secretion increases
pain tolerance, improves appetite control and reduces anxiety, tension, anger, confusion.
Also with regular exercise the individual becomes more sensitive to the opioid effects so
that it takes less of the hormone to induce a specific effect. Therefore, apart from improving
physical fitness and overall health, regular physical exercise also has psychological benefits.

India Inc. has woken up to the menace of stress and companies are taking to novel ideas
like teaching employees dancing and music, trekking etc, to reduce stress at the work place.
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. Has a variety of clubs… Theatre club, Bibliophile club,
Adventure Trekking Club, Fitness Club, Sanctuary Club, Music club and Community Services
Club,etc. to provide employees that much needed break. Infosys Technologies Ltd. Focuses
on increasing self awareness and proving employees with guidance on how to cope with
stress with a series of workshops by experts. Several organizations conduct off-site picnics,
games and inter departmental competitions. Some companies use mentorship programs or
promote open communication to improve inter actions and camaraderie at the workplace.
Some employee nutritionists to provide healthy food in office cafeterias and counsel
employees on healthy eating habbits and lifestyle. Others are offering employees in house
counseling services or considering employing psychologists to counsel employees. Some
organizations like Emami uproot employees stress through spiritual discourses and gyms for
regular exercises to unwind and keep fit.

Humor as a stress remedy

Humor is a wonderful stress reducer. Experts say a good laugh relaxes tense muscles,
speeds more oxygen. Tune into your favorite program or comedy shows on television. Read
a funny book. Attend comedy shows. Call a friend and chuckle for a few minutes. Share
funny episodes with your spouse that can relieve stress as well improve communication. It
even helps to force a laugh once in a while. One will find stress melting away instantly.
Humor is used to facilitate communication and avoid conflict.

Stress Busting Tips

 Develop a capacity for detached involvement. Be sensitive to personnel issues and

individual employee concerns but resist the rescuer one.
 While processing downsizing of staff or upgrading technology get experts help as well
while handling with the dysfunctional employees, collaborate with an employee
assistance program counselor.
 Walk around the organization. Swap stories with the employees on the work floor,
become a bridge between management and employees.
 Juggle various roles and responsibilities to promote autonomy by setting boundaries.
Delegate work where ever possible.
 Listen to your family and friends as they know you best, and are often first to tell
you that you are stressed. Seek their support to help ease workload, which in turn
will help reduce your stress load.
 Avoid being an over achiever. Doing everything for everybody all the time can be
rewarding, but it can also be mentally and physically draining.
 Learn to say no. If you find that you are being asked to do more than you can
manage whether physically, emotionally or financially-learn to set boundaries and
remember that “no” is a complete sentence.

Conclusion:

The concept of Stress is from the natural sciences. Stress is a force which acts in a body to
produce strain. It is becoming common in organization because of increasing job complexity
and economic pressure. There is a need to manage stress, which is both harmful and useful
but ultimately affects the performance of an employee. In competitative and complex world
implementation of strategies is to manage stress, which is a continuous process and
essential aspect in everyday life.

“The bottom line is manage your stress effectively, or it can manage you.”
References:

Kale Latif Ahmed (June 1998); "Management and Human Resource Development''; Manisha
Prakashan, Mumbai.

Sharma AM (2005); " Personal and Human Resource Development"; Himalayan Publishing
House, New Delhi.

Mamoria CB and Gankar (2002) ; "Personal Management"; Himalayan Publishing House.

John W. Newstrom and Keith Davis: Organizational Behavior : Human Behavior at work,
tata Mc Graw-Hill Publishing company Ltd., New Delhi.

Web sites:

www.stressdoc.com

www.strengthforcaring.com

www.holisticonline.com

www.google.com

www.altavista.com