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Report on Stress Management

Submitted by: Jaswinder Kaur

1. Stress management: It is the amelioration of stress and especially chronic stress often for the purpose of improving everyday functioning. Stress produces numerous symptoms which vary according to persons, situations, and severity. These can include physical health decline as well as depression.

2. Types of Stress Management: (A)Acute Stress Acute stress is usually for short time and may be due to work pressure, meeting deadlines pressure or minor accident, over exertion, increased physical activity, searching something but you misplaced it, or similar things. Symptoms of this type of tension are headaches, back pain, stomach problems, rapid heartbeat, muscle aches or body pain. (B)Acute Stress Acute stress is common in people who take too many responsibilities and are overloaded or overworked, disorganized, always in a hurry and never in time. These people are generally in positions of importance at their workplace and stressful lifestyle is inherent in them. Symptoms of this type of stress are prolonged tension headaches, hypertension, migraines, chest pain and heart disease. (C)Chronic Stress This type of stress is the most serious of all the 3 stress types. Chronic stress is a prolonged stress that exists for weeks, months, or even years. This stress is due to poverty, broken or stressed families and marriages, chronic illness and successive failures in life. People suffering from this type of stress get used to it and may even not realize that they are under chronic stress. It is very harmful to their health

3. Causes of Stress Management: Whenever our body feels something not favorable, then it tries to defend itself. If this situation continues for a long time, then our body is working overtime. There are several causes of stress. For example, you are under stress when you are worried about something, worried about your children, worried about the illness of your father, worried about your job security, or worried about your loans or similar things. You may be under stress due to several causes. Look at the following causes of stress.

1. Causes of Stress at Home

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Death of spouse, family, near relative or friend. Injury or illness of any family member. Marriage of self or son or daughter or brother or sister. Separation or divorce from partner. Pregnancy or birth of a new baby. Children's behavior or disobedience. Children's educational performance. Hyperactive children. Sexual molestation. Argument or heated conversations with spouse, family members or friends or neighbors. Not sufficient money to meet out daily expenses or unexpected expenditure. Not sufficient money to raise your standard of living. Loss of money in burglary, pick-pocketed or share market. Moving house. Change of place or change of city or change of country.

2. Causes of Stress at Work

To meet out the demands of the job. o Your relationship with colleagues. o To control staff under you. o To train your staff and take work from them. o Support you receive from your boss, colleagues and juniors. o Excessive work pressure. o To meet out deadlines. o To give new results. o To produce new publications if you are in research area. o Working overtime and on holidays. o New work hours. o Promotion or you have not been promoted or your junior has superseded you. o Argument or heated conversations with co-workers or boss. o Change of job. o Work against will. o Harassment. o Sexual molestation. 3. Other Causes of Stress o Fear, intermittent or continuous. o Threats: physical threats, social threats, financial threat, other threats. o Uncertainty. o Lack of sleep. o Somebody misunderstands you. o Setback to your position in society.
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4. Stress Management in Work Place: There is no doubt that stress is one on of the leading factors in illness and absenteeism among employees. Besides lowering a person's immune response, stress makes us want to avoid whatever is causing it. If there is stress at work, workers who feel mildly off will feel even worse and resist coming to work. This costs many hours of productivity, especially when key personnel or production workers are absent-in fact, it's estimated that $300 billion is lost on stress-caused illnesses and absenteeism. A workplace that supports stress management through workplace wellness programs not only helps their employees to handle pressure better and stay healthier during times of stress, it also sends a message that their company cares about them. This provides emotional support as well as physical support for fighting the effects of stress. How a Workplace Wellness Program Can Help

when your employees are stressed, very likely there is one primary cause and several secondary causes. For instance, a worker may suffer stress due to poor interpersonal relationships with other workers and problems communicating. Addressing stress will help the worker feel better and regain connections to other workers, thereby reducing the stress in those areas. Although a workplace wellness program can't de-stress everything a worker faces-like layoffs, cutbacks, firings, etc.-it can help with the physical effects of stress and help the worker cope when getting the pink slip. A healthy employee will have enough energy to move on and find another job but the unhealthy employee may suffer even more physical maladies from stress and plunge into

depression. An employee who is watching others get fired or laid off will always be thinking, "When am I going to get the axe?" There are several steps you can take to reduce job stress. Get a clear job description to avoid miscommunications that cause stress, and to make sure you are doing tasks within your sphere of responsibility only. Get a new job. While this is not always an ideal solution, sometimes it's the only one-a workplace wellness program will help with the stress of this change. Find supportive agencies and programs to help you either deal with the stress-such as the workplace wellness program-or find a new position. Isolation is destructive. Change positions within the company. Perhaps your training is not in the field where you are working, or you are being asked by a supervisor to do things far outside work hours and described responsibilities. If you like the company you work for but hate your job, this may be the answer. See if your company has an employee assistance program, which is sometimes part of a workplace wellness program, if there are layoffs and firings going on around you. If so, use these services even if you have been told you will remain at the company-things change daily in the business world.

5. Need of Stress Management: In the past decade, the news headlines have definitely made it clear that the need for stress management should be one of the top agendas in modern day society. The rages alone such as Road Rage and the trends of violent acts in life today prove a lot of it well. Living today is a lot tougher than it was even in the days of the great depression. It's been coming out in many ways such as all time occurrences of stomach and intestinal ulcers. Others find sleep disorders and wind up zombies during their busy days. Insomnia is growing in leaps and bounds. Today stress management is important in everyone's lives. It's necessary for long happy lives with less trouble that will come about. There are many ways to deal with stress ranging from the dealing with the causes of stress to simply burning off its effects.

6. Advantages of Stress Management: Business advantages of stress management: absenteeism due to stress-related disorders worker's compensation loss due to stress-related illness or accidents job performance stressful, more efficient workplace employee attitude employee overall health

Health advantages of stress management: stress-related symptoms slee anxiety use of medications reduced pain, increased ability to manage pain ability to relax physiologically sense of control and improved self-esteem "Research studies demonstrated that stress management techniques can lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure independent of diet." -Dean Ornish, Reversing Heart Disease Consumer advantages of stress management: side-effects -pharmacological -surgical -effective

7. Disadvantages of Stress Management: Stress can be a motivator. For example, if youre stressed out because you have a big assignment due, this may motivate you to work on it and complete it. The stress can help you to put in your very best effort. If you're afraid of losing your job, stress may encourage you to raise your own standards and make improvements you most likely would not have made without the threat of unemployment. Stress is a disadvantage because it can potentially raise your heart rate and weaken your immune system. Also, it can be a factor in poor decision making because under stress we may not think logically or consider the consequences of the choices we make. While we all experience stress frequently in our daily lives, not everyone handles it in positive ways. The key for us all is to learn what strategies and behaviors help us to cope with stress in a positive manner. Finding a friend or family member who'll listen as you vent about the stresses in your life is a much better way to handle tension than isolating yourself and worrying. Going for a walk, listening to music or doing something you enjoy are much better ways to clear your mind than drinking, eating, smoking etc. To me the key is realizing that some of the ways we choose to deal with stress can make our situation worse than just weathering out the hectic time. Realizing that we always have choices when dealing with stress is the first key to making stress work for us and not against us.