Stressful situations damage the body. What are the consequences of stress and how to deal with them. Effects of stress on human physiological health
Stress is the body's reaction to a possible danger. Adrenaline and cortisol increase alertness, increase heart rate, and increase blood flow to the muscles. In an ideal world, the body reacts to danger and then returns to a calm state. But when stress becomes chronic, serious health problems appear.
Sleep is disturbed
Psychiatrists at the leading medical universities of Chicago and Pittsburgh spent nine years following middle-aged women in a state of stress of varying severity. Women with high levels of stress complained of intermittent shallow sleep, and in most cases suffered from insomnia. National Institute US Health: Chronic sleep problems can negatively impact heart function, memory, diabetes, and weight gain.
Constantly want to eat
In a state of stress, food is perceived as a comfort. The production of the satiety hormone leptin and the hunger hormone ghrelin is disrupted, so overeating most often becomes side effect. According to Boston's leading nutritionists, nervous tension and bad dream predetermine food choices: low protein, high fat, lack of vegetables and fruits, frequent high-calorie snacks in the evening and at night. All this inevitably leads to weight gain.
Skin problems develop
The skin can also be affected by stress. Scientists from the University of California conducted and revealed the relationship between emotional health and skin condition. Stress can cause acne, psoriasis, eczema, or make the symptoms of these diseases more obvious. The more severe the degree of the disorder, the more pronounced the form skin disease, and on this soil may appear psychological problems: Decreased self-esteem, depression or social phobia. Doctors at the Oxford University Hospital that stress also significantly slows down the healing process.
Heart disease occurs
Due to stressful situations, adrenaline levels increase. As a result, blood pressure rises, heart rate increases. A person may feel a sharp pain in the chest, have difficulty breathing - these symptoms are related to broken heart syndrome. It is similar to a heart attack, but is less life-threatening. Until now, scientists have not found a direct link between chronic stress and the occurrence of heart disease. However, the leading American recommend to stop smoking and drinking alcohol. These habits do not help to cope with anxiety, but only increase the risk possible complications. Doctors advise to make a choice in favor of proper nutrition and regular exercise and yoga.
Increased risk of catching a cold
Surely you have noticed that nervous periods of life are often accompanied by a cold. Specialists at the University of Maryland Medical Center, this phenomenon is as follows: a regular excess of cortisol weakens the immune system, which makes it difficult for the body to fight viruses. At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, healthy people were seen who complained of varying levels of stress, infected with rhinoviruses. Volunteers, whose nervous condition was more severe, actually got sick, in contrast to people with a low degree of stress.
Depression sets in
Harvard Medical School published a report that concluded that stress inhibits the growth of new nerve cells in the hippocampus. According to studies, in people prone to depression, this part of the brain is 9-13% smaller. This directly affects the state of depression. The National Institutes of Health in the United States believes that depression occurs for completely different reasons, but stress is one of the risk factors.
Digestive problems appear
Many people are familiar with the feeling of nausea before an important event - stress affects the functioning of the organs of the gastrointestinal tract and manifests itself in different ways. Specialists at the University of Maryland Medical Center
Modern man is almost constantly exposed to various stresses. It is now considered that stress is a constant companion of progress and an indispensable component of life in megacities. This is true, but only in part. Even if a person moves to a cave and spends the whole day in meditation and prayer, then in this case he will hardly be able to avoid stress.
Many psychologists argue that stress in small doses is very useful, but when it takes on a protracted character, this is already very serious and fraught with health problems. Today we will tell you about what kind of stress harms the body, and what, on the contrary, is useful and mobilizes it.
Serious stress
1. Financial difficulties
The psychological consequences of a constant, chronic lack of money and worries about it are absent-mindedness, tearfulness, fatigue, constant despondency and bad mood. Someone experiences bouts of hunger and constantly empties the refrigerator, while someone, on the contrary, loses his appetite.
Advice: if you experience constant financial difficulties and often think about your “foggy” future, you urgently need to reconsider your attitude to life. You won't change anything if you constantly worry. Maybe it’s better to reconsider your lifestyle, take fewer loans, read literature on how to live within your means and understand that there is nothing more important in life than health. We live in order to rejoice, and not to be constantly sad! It is better to listen to good music and watch good films than to report on emergencies.
2. Daily, constant problems at work
Acute, short-term stress does not harm, on the contrary, it will only harden you. But if stress becomes chronic and the situation that causes it is not resolved in any way, then it can develop into depression, which cannot be cured by meditation and psychological sessions alone. Depression is treated with medications. If left untreated, it can lead to psychosomatic illnesses. Protracted, prolonged stress can lead to immunosuppression, when a person becomes almost completely defenseless against colds, viral and infectious diseases.
Advice: try to either change the situation or change your attitude towards it. Maybe it's time to take decisive action and change something in your life? Learn to go to the intended goal, realizing your needs, but at the same time, taking into account the needs of others. Know how to think through your actions and balance quick, immediate results with the long-term consequences of these actions.
3. Loss of a loved one
The loss of a loved one is not just stress, it is great sorrow. This is a blow that shakes the entire body, sometimes even posing a threat to life.
Advice: in this case, it is difficult to give advice, but you must try to understand that the worst has already happened and now it is important for you to find the strength in yourself in order to continue living normally. You have to wait a while and then devote yourself to something, find something for your soul, some business or hobby that will dull the pain and then give your life a new meaning.
4. Parting with a partner
This stressful situation can also become protracted. Of course, it is natural to experience suffering during parting, because when people part, they literally “cut to the quick”. But it is important to understand that stress can quickly turn into depression and no one will help you except yourself.
Advice: It is important to remember that every life conflict has both a beginning and an end. And if something is over for you, then the period of something new has come. The cause of stress is obvious, so do not delay the solution of your problem. Your life is in your hands and only you can make yourself happy. Every time we make a choice, the consequences of which we then reap. If your choice is to suffer and cry, then suffer and cry until the health problems become irreversible. Do you need it? Maybe make a choice - to enjoy every day and be happy no matter what?
Light stress
1. Bad work day
A call from a dissatisfied client, a quarrel with colleagues or superiors, and other “working” troubles can cause a stressful situation. However, all these troubles may not harm, but, on the contrary, help you! From a psychological point of view, stress is a threat to our stability, and from a physiological point of view, it is the body's natural response to a threat. The body strengthens its defense mechanisms, which in the future can help it resist infections! Therefore, if you gather yourself internally, you may have new strength, and an unbanal solution to your problem may come to mind.
Advice: do not sag, but, on the contrary, get together! Treat failure not as a nuisance, but as an obstacle that is interesting to overcome, so that later you can fully enjoy your victory. And never forget that a black stripe is always followed by a white one.
2. Public speaking
The need to speak and deliver a speech in front of a large crowd of people can unbalance almost every person. However, this kind of stress is super healthy! Of course, the body will turn on the defense and you may experience increased sweating and heart palpitations. However, the accompanying release of the hormones adrenaline and cortisone into the bloodstream will make your reactions faster, you will become more self-confident and after the experienced stress you will experience joy and pleasure.
Advice: do not postpone the implementation of your task for a long time, otherwise there is a risk of burnout and completely lose the forces mobilized by the body. So try to be one of the first.
3. Being late
If we are in a hurry somewhere and are late, we also experience stress. It is best to learn how to correctly calculate your time in order to avoid unnecessary fuss and unrest. Just leave the house earlier than necessary, at least for ten minutes.
Stress and intimate life
Chronic, lingering stress can take a toll on your intimate life. Being in a depressed state, a person experiences lethargy, irritation, despondency, apathy and sometimes even drowsiness. Well, in this state, we don’t care about intimate joys, well, we don’t want anything! At such moments, partners may move away from each other, quarrels and mutual reproaches are possible.
Advice: sex is fun! In order for stress not to negatively affect your libido, sex should be regular, since only regular sex increases the level of testosterone in the blood. During periods of depression and stress, try not to give up intimate relationships, but, on the contrary, perceive sex as a medicine. Orgasm is good way relax and de-stress. At such moments, the body releases hormones of joy and pleasure.
Physical exercise. When you're nervous and can't sit still because the stress hormone (cortisol) makes your muscles work harder, you need to warm up. First stretch your hands and massage your fingers, then you can do side bends and squats. An excellent option to relieve stress can be a trip to the gym or physical labor.
Any weird move. If you do not have the opportunity to exercise, then you can go down and up the stairs or walk like a penguin (waddling from foot to foot). You can also twist your eyes and move them, looking sharply to the right, then to the left.
Deep breathing. Deep, calm and even breathing is also very soothing. Sit, straighten your back, straighten your shoulders and slowly inhale deeply. Fill with air first the lower abdomen, then the chest, and then the clavicle. Hold your breath and exhale slowly, with a noise. Inhalation is done through the nose, exhalation through the mouth.
Muscle relaxation. At the moment of stress, we, like turtles, also pull our heads into our shoulders and tighten our scalp and facial muscles, as if preparing for protection. Lower your shoulders and try to relax your neck muscles by tilting your head forward and massaging your scalp with your fingers.
Warm palms. If you are very excited about something, rub your palms together, feel the warmth and energy in them, and put them on your face. This will allow you to calm down and feel safe.
Stress haunts us all the time and our task is not to give up, not to fall into its network and not to fall apart. To do this, it is important to understand that all difficulties are temporary, and dawn always follows sunset. And, no matter how trite it may sound, everything is always done for our highest good - for our experience, for our growing up, for our spiritual growth. And always, even in the most difficult situation, it is important not to give up and always remain a person, so that in the future you will not be ashamed of either your words or your actions.
Love to you, kindness and harmony!
If this article was useful for you, and you want to tell your friends about it, click on the buttons. Thank you very much!
What is stress? This is one of the varieties of adaptation of the body to external influences. In this case, hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline enter the bloodstream. The latter increases the heart rate, promotes growth blood pressure increases blood flow to the heart, lungs, brain and muscles. As for cortisol, it activates the production of glucose in the liver, which is the main source of energy for the body.
Is there a benefit to stress? When a person finds himself in a situation that requires significant physical or mental effort from him, it is stress that helps to overcome difficulties.
It has long been known that a short-term stressful state significantly improves memory. This happens due to increased production of adrenocorticotropic hormone in the pituitary gland. Therefore, those events that occur during stress are remembered much better than other events. This forms a certain life experience in a person, but at the same time, it can contribute to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Under stress, all the forces of the body are mobilized. A person in this state can work miracles. He can climb a sheer wall, jump over a wide obstacle, lift a heavy load and do many other unusual things that he will never do in a calm state.
But in general, it should be noted that short-term stress is not dangerous for the body. It is even useful in some ways, as it transforms a person psychologically, gives him a state of inner freedom and power. However, in addition to short-term stress, there is also long-term stress. In this case, it is already observed harm from stress, and quite tangible and serious.
Harmful effects from prolonged stress
Cardiovascular disease may develop. This is a heart attack, stroke, hypertension, cardiac arrhythmia. Adrenaline, with prolonged exposure, causes a spasm of the heart vessels. This can result in angina pectoris or a heart attack.
Prolonged psycho-emotional stress causes headache, can cause insomnia and depression.
For a very long time, doctors believed that it was stress that was the trigger that led to the development peptic ulcer stomach. However, then the connection of an unpleasant and dangerous disease with a certain type of bacterium was proved. But, despite this, some experts are of the opinion that stress contributes to the exacerbation of the disease. Others believe that there is no connection here.
Prolonged stress may cause overweight and obesity due to increased appetite. Doctors call this phenomenon a hyperphagic reaction.
The immune system is weakened. The body becomes extremely susceptible to infections. In addition, antitumor immunity is impaired, which leads to an increased risk of developing cancer.
At diabetes decompensation of the disease and hyperglycemic coma may occur. This is due to an increase in the concentration of glucose in the blood.
We should also not forget that during a long-term stressful state, the level of cortisol and adrenaline in the blood is constantly high. Therefore, in a critical dangerous situation they are not released into the body. And this leads to a decrease in adaptive capacity. So, for example, a student is worried for a whole week before an exam, and when he gets to it, he finally gets lost and forgets everything he knew.
Conclusion
So, there are 2 forms of stress − short-term And long-term. The first is rather useful than harmful, as it helps to think quickly, remember and mobilize all the possibilities of the body in a critical situation. But the harm from stress just stems from the second form. It contributes to the emergence and development of various dangerous diseases. Therefore, you can not give her a field for activity and you must constantly monitor your health.
Almost everyone talks about today, and most people tend to consider them the cause of their problems, including health problems. But what this concept means, few people think.
Our body is designed in such a way that it needs balance, and this is very wise. However, people often violate this balance with their behavior, attitude towards themselves and each other, and the body has to constantly work “on the verge”, trying to maintain the normal course of all physiological and mental processes, that is, practically not to rest.
External and internal stresses
Stress is divided into external and internal. It is believed that external stresses affect us from the outside, and internal ones - from the depths of the body.
Causes of stress
TO external reasons include exposure to aggressive ecology, bad habits, prolonged exposure to direct sunlight, workloads, problems in personal life: for example, breaking up with a loved one, as well as personal tragedies and misfortunes that can happen.
Internal factors include food allergy; disorders in the functioning of the immune system and endocrine system that cause diabetes and other diseases; inadequate, poor nutrition; depressive states due to lack of essential substances - vitamins and minerals.
At first glance, this division seems correct, but let's try to understand it more carefully. Of all the factors that are considered external, only tragedies and misfortunes that occur independently of the will of a person can really be considered as such, and, perhaps, ecological situation, although we also choose the place of residence consciously.
Concerning bad habits, being in the sun, stress at work and even problems in personal relationships, then much, if not all, depends on the person himself. It may seem to many that this is not so, but we ourselves make a choice: to smoke or not, whether to drink alcohol; we choose our own work; decide how to behave with a loved one.
Harm of stress: the effect of stress on the body
The effect of stress on the body considered very harmful. Why? The fact is that this reaction of the body is very ancient: even in the Stone Age, our ancestors, hunting wild animals, won and saved their lives precisely thanks to stress.
In an extreme situation, hormones are released into the bloodstream, ensuring the supply of energy to where it is needed - therefore, our ancestors managed to either kill the animal or run away from it, saving their lives.
In our time, although we do not hunt dangerous animals at the risk of life, the physiological response has remained the same. As soon as stress hormones are released into the bloodstream, the whole body comes to combat readiness, and the glucose supply from the liver abruptly enters the muscles.
At this time, many changes take place in the body. The pulse quickens; the heart begins to pump more blood; breathing also quickens - because we need more oxygen. The vessels expand - they also need to supply organs and tissues with blood faster; the spleen begins to work in an accelerated mode; the number of lymphocytes increases, and the ability of the blood to clot increases - suddenly an injury?
Pupils dilate to improve vision; the digestion process slows down dramatically, as the body needs energy for other purposes - for the work of the brain and muscles.
Our ancestors, after hunting the beast, rested and gained new strength, and the body at that time managed to restore balance and all important processes. Any predator, a lion or a leopard, does exactly the same, even if he fails to catch up with the antelope the first time.
Stress conceived by nature in order to allow us to make active actions in a very short period of time, and no more. But, unlike our ancestors, we do not allow ourselves to rest and relax, even when it is vital, and therefore the body is in a state of alert all the time. Imagine that your body works all the time as described above. How long will he last?
The body tries to restore balance by any means - it needs to adapt to stress, since it is delayed. Pressure begins to rise, the amount of glucose in the blood decreases - and all this is arbitrary, in search of optimal options.
But we do not allow our body to find these options - we add problems to it all the time: for example, we begin to take chemical drugs uncontrollably, trying to extinguish stress with their help. And it gets even worse...
Health and stress
Being in a protracted state, we weaken our immunity. The immune system, constantly being in a state of alert, cannot pay attention to the fight against infections, colds or developing oncology.
The state of danger caused by, for immune system more important than protection against infections and foreign microorganisms, and then the activity of the cells responsible for this protection is simply suppressed. The causative agents of any infections at this time can do anything in the body - there is no one to cope with them.
And the habit of "jamming" stress with various "goodies" sold ready-made in stores adds problems to an overloaded body, depleting the last reserves of energy. At the same time, normal appetite is disturbed, body weight decreases, or, conversely, increases; a person feels constant fatigue; mood often changes - there is unreasonable excitement or depression; itchy skin rashes may appear.
If this destructive process is not stopped, then our life will deteriorate until it turns into a nightmare. Have you ever wondered why life expectancy in our country, compared to developed countries, is significantly less, and we often look worse than our peers, for example, from European countries?
However, if we cannot influence most of the factors that cause it, then everyone can help the body - there would be a desire. After all, the body, whether we are under stress or not, needs to work - it has no days off, and it cannot take a vacation. Therefore, it is worth providing him with normal nutrition so that the organs, unsettled by stress, can support our very existence.
Stress Management: Eating Under Stress
Under the action, much more free radicals are formed in the body than in a normal environment. To combat them, nutrients are needed: vitamins and minerals. Vitamins do the best job with this task, and, selenium and zinc, which are abundant in citrus fruits, tomatoes, olive oil, kiwi, pumpkin, dark green vegetables, seafood, plums, sesame seeds.
Don't drink coffee or black tea when you're tired or upset: better drink freshly squeezed juice, or at least juice from a tetra pack - this will give your body a much better chance to last.
Change your diet if you can't change your environment. Stop eating refined foods and drinking carbonated drinks - include in your diet those foods that are necessary for stress management.
If your working day is too busy and there is not enough time for a full break, take with you such snacks that you can eat right at the workplace: crispbread sandwiches with apple and cheese; green leaf lettuce with pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, walnuts; toast with almond butter; whole grain bread and smoked salmon or fish liver pate. Natural yogurt after dinner will also bring much more benefits than energy drinks.
Make a decision: on weekends, while at home, eat only raw foods - prepare salads from vegetables and fruits, eat cereals, nuts, honey, fresh dairy products, drink freshly squeezed juices. Then work all week and deal with stress you will be much easier.
There are others ways to deal with stress and helping to cope with its consequences. For example, you should always set yourself clear and precise goals, and not worry about global problems. Massage, acupuncture, visualization, gymnastics and meditation, breathing exercises and water procedures - all this also helps.
When unpleasant moments happen in life, do not blame anyone, and especially yourself. Instead, ask yourself why this happened to you, and what can you learn from this situation? If you do not allow a negative reaction, then stress will become less and less.
By the way, the statement that laughter is the best medicine is absolutely true. Of course, when you are upset, you don’t feel like laughing at all, but it’s worth a try. At least turn on funny music or put on a funny movie: the well-known and beloved cartoons about the cat Leopold help a lot in such situations. There is just a magical installation: “Guys, let's live together!”
- What is stress?
- How does stress help in work, in personal development?
- In what situations is stress the key to success?
- How do you feel about the statement - "development is possible only outside the comfort zone"?
- Who is stressed out in the workplace and why?
- When is stress dangerous?
- How to understand the strength of stress, the reaction to it, when a person needs medical help?
Experts define stress as a state of mental tension of a person, arising in the process of activity in the most complex and difficult conditions. It must be understood that this is not just a dangerous or unpleasant situation, but the reaction of our body and consciousness to them. Stress can be caused by any overload, both excessive excitement and insufficient rest. If any system of the body cannot cope with some external factors, then stress arises.
Hans Selye identified three stages in the development of stress. First stage mobilization or anxiety, expressed by the concentration of all the resources of the body, increased heart rate, etc. And if the adaptive protective activity of the body mobilized by anxiety does not stop the effect of stress, then various programs for restructuring existing functional systems are activated. This process is the main content of the second period of the anxiety stage. This period is accompanied by a decrease in working capacity and a painful condition of a person. However, high motivation, psychological attitudes and other psychological factors are able to provide in this period the "supermobilization" of adaptive resources, which can provide high level performance, at least in healthy people. However, with great overwork, the presence of chronic diseases or in the elderly, such an “overmobilization” of reserves at this stage can only exacerbate latent diseases and cause any other stress diseases (cardiovascular, inflammatory or mental).
Second stage- this is the stage of resistance or adaptation, when the body manages to successfully cope with harmful effects due to previous mobilization, at this phase the expenditure of adaptive reserves is balanced; but if the organism fails to adapt to the extreme environmental factor for a certain time, i.e. rebuild in such a way as to stop experiencing stress, and the body's resources are at the limit, then third stage- exhaustion or, in other words, a strong overstrain, which leads to a decline in health, the development of neurological and psychosomatic diseases.
From the conclusions made by Hans Selye, it becomes quite obvious that the harmful effect of stress on a person increases as it develops from the first stage to the last, and, accordingly, its usefulness decreases. In other words, in order to achieve success in solving any task, it is highly desirable for a person to be in a state of some moderate excitement and anxiety, which can increase the overall performance of the body. Since a person in this state, as they say, is collected and concentrated, concentrates attention and mobilizes most of the body's resources, such as: sight, hearing, smell, touch. The work of the brain is also activated, often a person starts such a process as brainstorming. Of course, all this taken together cannot but affect the successful solution of any assigned task, whether it is the fulfillment of the task of the boss or the search for the necessary goods in stores. Of course, a successful result is not guaranteed at all, but all of the above signs of stress greatly help a person achieve it. And in many life and work situations, stress is simply the key to success. These are situations in which you need to overcome yourself, go beyond your capabilities, do such work that you have not done or have not done with such speed. In such cases, it is required not to give in to the difficulties that have arisen in front of you, namely, to start doing them, experiencing some stress. As they say, the eyes scare, but the hands or the head do. And this is possible only at the first stage of stress.
Many psychologists compare stress to the presence of salt in food. If the dish is too salty, then it is impossible to eat it, and if it is undersalted, then it is also impossible to eat it. Salt gives taste to food, and stressful situations give taste to life. A little stress is always good. It increases emotional coloring, improves attention, increases interest in achieving goals. The necessary level of stress is the “spark” that sets us in motion, it is a powerful motivation that drives us to succeed, it is the best remedy to improve our lives. We start fighting for justice, asking for better working conditions or an increase in wages. We can get up and go to something we didn't want to go to at first, and still be in a positive frame of mind.
Don't be afraid of stressful situations. It is impossible to live without them, no one is safe from them, no matter what some doctors tell us. And if you learn how to properly manage your stressful situations, skillfully keep them at a certain level, preventing them from developing into subsequent stages (second and third), then they can only benefit us all. Also, each of us should not forget the effective psychological attitude: "personal development is possible only outside the comfort zone," since a person's personal growth is always associated with the acquisition of new experience for him, whether it is a space of work, personal life or leisure.
All factors of stressful situations in a certain sense are manifested at the level of the individual. Studies also show that the development of stress is influenced by both individual factors of work or life situations, and the nature and characteristics of this particular person. For example, for a person who does not know how to set clear and precise priorities for himself, a severe stressful situation may be the need to coordinate his roles as an employee and as a family member (when the time factor and the corresponding requirements at work conflict with the requirements of the family and vice versa) .
Some individual character traits are also called as factors contributing to susceptibility to stress, such as authoritarianism, rigidity, emotionality, excitability, imbalance, psychological stability and the need for achievements, etc.
By studying various types nature and their ability to withstand stress, specialists took up as early as the 50s of the last century. For simplicity, they defined two opposing personality types, A and B. The Type A personality was defined as a person who has “the combination of all her actions and emotions, observed in every person, in a state of constant and tireless struggle to do more and more in as soon as possible and even, if necessary, despite the efforts of other people and circumstances. Or, in other words, Type A personalities are maximalists and/or perfectionists. Initially, on the basis of research, it was considered that type A is most susceptible to stress and one of its most serious consequences - heart attacks. However, some modern research do not confirm these data. Such results may be due to the fact that type A people, while often "designing" stressful situations for themselves, at the same time usually know how to release their stress and cope better with it than type B people. It turns out that susceptibility to stress contributes to not so much the impatience characteristic of type A, but the presence of emotions such as: anger, hostility and aggressiveness. Or, more precisely, it is not the ability to express them.
Another important personal property of modern experts consider the individual perception of control over the situation. Although control over the situation in the workplace, as a rule, is set organizationally, however, one cannot ignore such phenomena as the predisposition of a particular individual to take responsibility, take it partially or not at all, as well as the presence of a “learned helplessness syndrome”, which often indicates about the inability of the employee to withstand the stressful situations that accompany this workplace.
Important factors of stress tolerance are also:
- The nature of the stressor(the factor that causes the state of stress) is one of the most important situational factors that determine the reactions of people; the fear of losing a job is probably a greater stressor than, for example, being assigned an unwanted shift. But this factor is not some exclusive threat that causes the occurrence of stress; A combination of different factors can just as well lead to stress. Small everyday troubles, superimposed on each other, can lead to the same result as in the case of any one serious event.
- Combination of present and absent stressors also important in determining individual responses. Poor relationships with colleagues and other people at work, for example, are all potential sources of stress, but at the same time, it has been repeatedly noted that positive relationship can help reduce negative reactions to other stressors.
- Duration of exposure to the stressor is another situational factor that affects individual sensitivity. The daily lack of opportunity to influence the demands of work is more likely to lead to stress than temporary overload at work, caused, for example, by the illness of a colleague. Finally, as the researchers point out, the predictability of the stressor is also important: unpredictable stressors are more likely to cause negative reactions.
indicator negative impact stress is a change in human behavior. Behavioral responses such as malnutrition or overeating, smoking, alcohol, drugs and antidepressants can be a direct result of severe stress at work. A number of studies have provided some evidence of a direct relationship between stress and absenteeism, as well as employee turnover.
The boundary between optimal and excessive stress pressure, beyond which a person has to radically change his perception of the situation, is subjective and very thin. When pressure levels are too high, people describe how they feel: loss of control, inability to cope, overload. The point at which a positive mobilizing load turns into negative stages (distress) is an individual indicator and depends on personal characteristics, perception of the situation, the ability of a person to cope with such pressure. If a person is in a state of excessive stress for a long time, this can lead to extremely dangerous consequences for him.
Obviously, everyone experiences stress differently. In the same situation with the same physical and psychological stress, different people may experience different stages of stress. It often happens that those employees who think to themselves that they have a high coefficient of stress tolerance sometimes cannot understand the reasons for any “breakdown” at all, and thus their general negative state can intensify and deepen. In these cases, action must already be taken. A person is so arranged that when everything seems bad to him, he either suffers further, or nevertheless begins to take any measures to eliminate his problems. And in such situations, the environment of a person plays a significant role both at work and in the family.
There are enough Ways and methods of "fighting stress" both individual and organizational applications. Most of them are well known.
So, individual methods include:
- regular leisure;
- relaxation (yoga, meditation, auto-training);
- training of skills of self-control of behavior;
- competent planning of own time;
- ensuring sufficient sleep duration;
- a healthy lifestyle in general;
- cognitive psychotherapy, etc.
In foreign organizations, such methods are practiced as the inclusion in the employee's social package of payment for classes in the gym, swimming pool. Some of them try to ensure that specific simple techniques are communicated to employees to help them cope with stress. For example, BBC executives published an expensive booklet explaining to staff how to sit properly in chairs. This 57-page booklet on how to reduce stress in the workplace has much more to offer. In particular, there is a detailed diagram of how, in the event of a very poor condition of an employee, he can fold an airplane out of paper. If this does not help to cope with the difficulties that have arisen, then employees are advised to smell the lavender flower and look at the color photograph of the alpine landscape for a long time.
However, of course, the application of such measures is not enough. The problem needs to be approached comprehensively., not just help employees deal with existing severe stress or its consequences, but prevent it at the organizational level. As you know, prevention is both easier and cheaper than dealing with a running problem.
* Hans Selye (January 26, 1907, Vienna - October 16, 1982, Montreal) - Canadian endocrinologist of Austro-Hungarian origin. G. Selye - the author of the theory of stress, he considered physiological stress as a response to any demands placed on the body, and believed that no matter what difficulty the body faced, it could be dealt with by two types of reactions: active, or fight, and passive, or flight from difficulties or willingness to endure them. Selye did not consider stress to be harmful, but viewed it as a reaction that helps the body survive.