• There is no escape from stress in modern

life and stress is killing.

• Therefore, we have to find ways of

managing and using stress in a productive
way reducing dysfunctional stress.
• Stress is a non-specific response of the body to
any perceived demand

• Too little stress = bored, unmotivated

• Too much stress = overwhelmed, fearful, frozen

• Moderate stress = energized, on-task, efficient

• Eustress: The stress that comes from good sources
• New marriage
• Birth of a baby
• Winning the lottery

• Distress: The stress that comes from bad sources

• Difficult work environment
• Overwhelming sights and sounds
• Threat of personal injury
• Every transition or change produces stress.

• Young adult in the age group of 20 to 30 years

of age have been found to report twice as many
stressful events compared to older ones.
• Stress have been found to be more prevalent
among the urban population than the rural ones.
• And it is higher among educated persons.
• Types of Stress

• General Stress: Everyone has this stress at

any time. It generally resolves within a day or
two
• Cumulative Stress: Prolonged stress which
builds up after time and can lead to adverse
mental and/or physical consequences
• With increasing time spent on the job, job stress is
becoming a painful reality for many workers.
• • 40% of workers reported that their job was very often
extremely stressful.
• • 25% view their jobs as the number one stressor in their
lives.
• • 75% of employees believe that they have more
• on-the-job stress than the generation before them.
• • 26% of workers said they were, “often or very often
burned out or stressed by their work.”
• Information society brings new
freedom but also new problems –
stress and addiction included
• The most important factor causing
psychological stress is the increasing
information work. It loads the central
nervous system, causes information
overload and problems in processing the
information and deficiencies in
competences
• Information work and stress
• Professor Jorma Rantanen from the Finnish
Institute of Occupational Health: “Most
important factor causing psychological
stress is the increasing information work. It
loads the central nervous system, causes
information overload and problems in processing
the information and deficiencies in
competences.”
• More than 60 % of the Finnish work force use
information technology
• 70 % of the information technology employees in
Finland had difficulties to cope with the large amount
of information. Half had symptoms and 7 % severe
symptoms of stress
• One of the psychological stress problems is net
addiction which is recognized as a problem by 87 % of
Finns
• Types of net addiction
• (Uncontrollable or compulsive use of net)
• 1. Chat addiction (also SMS)
• 2. Net games addiction
• 3. Net gambling addiction (also day shares trade)
• 4. Net relationships addiction (dating sites)
• 5. On-line sex addiction (also phone)
• 6. Surfing addiction
• 7. Information addiction (news; cf. info-glut)
• 8. Mobile phone addiction (calls, messages, games)
• 9. General addiction on computers and ICT
• Examples of symptoms of net addiction

• unable to control the use of internet

• stays on-line longer than intended
• withdrawal symptoms if not using internet
• prefers internet to relationships, work or study
• uses internet to feel better
• conceals the extent of Internet use from family
• There are 3 things we think we can control:

• The environment, other people and

• Ourselves.

• Guess which one you have the most control

over?
• How People Fail to Manage Stress

“If I ignore it, it will go away.”

• “It” may, but there will likely be more

right behind it.

• “Other people cause my stress.”

• You control your response to other

people.
• “Next time I’ll do it differently.”

• Unless you plan for changing what you

do and learn new skills, chances are
you’ll do the same thing.
• “If I just push a little harder…”

• Physical and mental health is the basic

foundation of all stress management

• Coping with stress:-

• Approach (functional) strategy : Confront the

problem of stress as a challenge and increase
capability of dealing with it.

• It includes efforts to increase physical and mental

preparedness through physical exercises, diet
management, yoga and creative diversion through
emotional enrichment by music, art, theatre etc.
• Escape or avoidance (dysfunctional)
strategy: - To reduce feeling of stress
through smoking, alcohol, drug or other
escapist behavior which distracts oneself
from the stressor.
• What Influences Coping?

• Skills
• • The more skills you have across a wide variety of
• dimensions, the more you will feel that you can handle
• whatever comes your way.

• Health
• • The more fit you are, physically and emotionally, the more
• energy you will have to devote to dealing with each
• demand.
• Stress arises because of :-

• Self-role distance : A little introvert person

who is fond of studying and writing rather than
socializing, may find considerable conflict
between his self concept and expectation from
role if he is assigned a job of salesperson.
• Strategies to cope with :-

• Self role distance: Some people stick to self

concept and perform role routinely while others
emerge in role and forget original self concept.

• In the first case he is ineffective as a manager

and in the second ineffective as an individual.
• A functional strategy will be attempt to role integration.

• He may analyze various aspects of the role that are

causing self role distance and may acquire skills to
bridge the gap. Or he may carry his own self into the role
by defining some aspects of the role according to his
own strengths.
• Such integration is not easy but can be achieved with
systematic efforts.
• Inter-role conflict – Arises due to incompatibility
among various expectations from his / her role

• A professor may find an incompatibility between

expectations of teaching students and of doing
research. He may go for role linkage with other professor
who is good in research and jointly undertake a
research.
• Role stagnation – arises when individuals get into
new role as a result of promotion or taking over new
assignment. He may be apprehensive that perhaps he
does not have necessary skills to handle such new role
and he prefers to perform his previous role.
• A functional way to resolve it is by way of successful
“Role transition” through socialization, role clarity and
other role transition processes such as training and
development.
• Inter-role distance:- It arises in person while
occupying more than one role.

• For example an executive often experiences

conflict between his organizational role as an
executive and role as spouse and parent.
• A functional way of handling is “Role negotiation”
with others in role set.
• Role overload: arises when the occupant feels that
there are too many expectations from the significant role
senders.
• Most executive role occupants experience role overload
particularly when there is absence of delegation of
authority and power.
• A functional approach is to redefine the role and see
which aspects of the role may be delegated to others
who may be developed to take up the delegated roles.
The process is called “Role slimming”.
• Role erosion: Arises when role occupant
feels that some of the functions that he is
supposed to perform are being performed by
others.
• A functional approach may be “Role
enrichment”. It may be done by analysing the
role systematically and helping individual various
strengths and challenges in the role.
• Role isolation:- It arises when each role occupant
play his or her role most efficiently but avoid
interactions. He confines himself to his own role – role
boundaries to avoid conflicts. We find some highly
competent executives do not take corporate
responsibility and his linkage with other roles is very
weak.
• A functional strategy is Role negotiation.
• Resource inadequacy

• Personal inadequacy
• Burnout: Stress is like electric power. It can
make a bulb light up and provide brilliant
illumination. However, if the voltage is higher
than what the bulb can take, it can burn the bulb
out.

• Burnout is end result of stress experienced but

not properly coped with.
• The opposite phenomenon of “glow up”
takes place when stress is properly
channeled, resulting in a feeling of
challenge, high job satisfaction, creativity,
effectiveness and better adjustment to
work and life.
• Type A personality is more prone to burnout.

• Recent study indicates that two specific elements in type

A personality contribute more to burnout – cynicism (low
inter personal trust) and a sense of loneliness.

• A few other personality factors are low self esteem,

rigidity and Machiavellism ( manipulative orientation).
• General Adaptation Syndrome

• Alarm reaction
• The first stage of the general adaptation stage, the alarm
reaction, is the immediate reaction to a stressor.

In the initial phase of stress, humans exhibit a "fight or flight“

response, which causes one to be ready for physical activity.

However, this initial response can also decrease the

effectiveness of the immune system, making persons more
susceptible to illness during this phase.
• Stage 2 - the stage of adaptation or the stage of
resistance.

• During this phase, if the stress continues, the body adapts to

the stressors it is exposed to.
• Changes at many levels take place in order to reduce the effect
of the stressor.
• For example, if the stressor is starvation (possibly due to
anorexia), the person might experienced a reduced desire for
physical activity to conserve energy, and the absorption of
nutrients from food might be maximized
• Stage of exhaustion
• At this stage, the stress has continued for some time. The body's
resistance to the stress may gradually be reduced, or may collapse
quickly.
• Generally, this means the immune system, and the body's ability to
resist disease, may be almost totally eliminated.
• Persons who experience long-term stress may succumb to heart
attacks or severe infection due to their reduced immunity.
• For example, a person with a stressful job may experience long-
term stress that might lead to high blood pressure and an eventual
heart attack
• Short term Physical Stress Symptoms

• •Dry Mouth

• •Cool skin

• •Cold hands and feet

• •Increased sweating

• •Rapid Breathing

• •Faster heart beat

• •Tense Muscles

• •Feelings of nausea, or 'Butterflies in stomach

• Long Term Physical Stress Symptoms
• •Insomnia
• •change in appetite
• •sexual disorders
• •aches and pains
• •frequent colds
• asthma
• back pain
• digestive problems
• headaches
• •feelings of intense and long-term tiredness
• Behavioral Stress Symptoms
• •Yawning
• •Talking too fast or too loud
• •Fiddling and twitching, nail biting, grinding teeth, drumming fingers, pacing,
etc.

• •Bad moods:

• Defensiveness
• Irrationality
• Being irritable

• Being critical

• Aggression
• Overreaction and reacting emotionally
• Behavioral Stress Symptoms
• •Reduced personal effectiveness:
• Being more forgetful

• Being unreasonably negative

• Making less realistic judgements
• Making more mistakes
• Being more accident prone
• •Neglect of personal appearance
• •Changing work habits
• •Increased absenteeism
• Performance Stress Symptoms
• •It interferes with clear judgement and makes it difficult to take the time to
make good decisions.
• •Where you need good physical skills it gets in the way of fine motor control.
• •It can seriously reduce your enjoyment of your work
• •It damages the positive frame of mind you need for high quality work by:
• narrowing attention,
• damaging self-confidence,
• promoting negative thinking,
• disrupting focus and concentration and making it difficult to cope with
distractions •It consumes mental energy in distraction, anxiety, frustration
and temper.
• THINGS YOU CAN DO FOR YOURSELF
• DIET - LOWER SALT, REFINED CARBOHYDRATES, SUGAR,
AND CAFFIENE. NEED MORE VEGETABLES, FRUITS,
COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES, AND VITAMINS.
• REST - 4 HOURS CONTINUOS

• EXERCISE - 20 MINUTES. IT INCREASES ENDORPHIN

PRODUCTION.
• TALK - FAMILY, FRIENDS. PEERS
• PLAN/ORGANIZE/DELEGATE - SPOUSE, KIDS, FRIENDS
• YOGA, PROGRESSIVE RELAXATION, MEDITATION
• THINGS YOU CAN DO AT WORK
• BE GOAL ORIENTED, BUT BE FLEXIBLE - YOUR
WAY’S NOT THE ONLY WAY
• APPROPRIATE WORKPLACE INTERACTIONS –
FRIENDS REDUCE STRESS/ENEMIES ENHANCE IT,
DON’T GOSSIP
• ESTABLISH A ROUTINE
• COMMUNICATE WITH EVERYONE SUPERVISOR,
PEER, SUBORDINATE
• MAINTAIN A SENSE OF HUMOR