To many workers, work is often associated with high levels of stress and the pressure to perform. Eventually, this situation can lead to serious situations, compromising your physical and emotional health.
Stress and How it Affects the Workplace
Stress is a normal response of the body that allows you to adapt and overcome challenging situations. However, when the stress response becomes a constant in your life and it starts to harm you it has become distressed. There are many different causes of distress and work is often cited as one of the main ones.
It has been observed that workers who are under too much stress can have worse performance than their colleagues who are under less stress. High levels of stress can lead to presenteeism, which is the phenomenon in which the worker is there, at their desk, but they’re not being productive.
There’s another phenomenon called absenteeism, which is when the worker often misses work, which can be caused by excessive stress. In addition, high levels of stress can lead to burnout. This syndrome makes the person feel like they are not productive at all and it also causes a sense of hopelessness and cynicism towards their job.
This all translates into harm for the mental and physical health of the individual and costly losses for the organization they work for. These long-term consequences need to be identified and addressed to implement measures that ensure excessive work stress is not affecting the health of the employees.
Physical Consequences of Workplace Stress and How to Cope with Them
Depression, anxiety, and burnout syndrome have been associated with workplace stress. However, as highlighted above there are also important physical consequences when it comes to workplace stress. These can be widespread, with different systems being affected due to excessive stress.
Studies have found that workplace stress can be involved in an increased risk of suffering from type 2 diabetes. Also, an unhealthy stress response can lead to cardiovascular disease, which is the first cause of death worldwide.
Plus, workplace stress has been associated with hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, and obesity, chronic diseases that can often be prevented with lifestyle changes. This happens because the body increases blood pressure and secretes cortisol when you are stressed. Some cortisol as stress response is good, but excess cortisol leads to hormonal changes that will predispose you to some of the aforementioned diseases.
As if this wasn’t enough, the immune system suffers when there’s excessive stress, which makes you more prone to suffering infectious diseases.
These diseases tend to come with not only a terrible impact on your quality of life but also hefty prescriptions and even costly hospitalizations. This has led employees to contact a knowledgeable personal injury lawyer in Las Vegas to understand what their options are when they’ve suffered these grave consequences of workplace stress.
Another part of the body that is often affected by workplace stress is the digestive system. People can develop ulcers, heartburn, and even irritable bowel syndrome. These are other ailments that make their days more difficult and seriously affect their physical health.
Emotional Traumas and Ways Leaders Can Help Employees Manage the Stress
Being under heavy stress can leave significant emotional traumas on people. This is because being alert and on the lookout for something to go wrong can become second-nature to them, which doesn’t let them relax and be calm.
Plus, these emotional traumas can lead to serious diseases and conditions such as depression and anxiety. These have become epidemics worldwide, with a large number of adults reporting suffering from one of these illnesses or even both simultaneously at some point in their lives.
Therefore, it is increasingly important that company leaders, managers, and supervisors receive training to be able to identify workplace stress and implement strategies to prevent it or address it.
1.Through proper training, these leaders can gain awareness of the signs of stress such as a decrease in performance, workplace issues, and even difficult relationships with colleagues.
2.Leaders can also learn to develop and implement plans or strategies to minimize the number of stressors at the workplace.
3.They can also promote activities to help employees cope and relax, which can also increase job adherence and improve the overall work environment.
4.Another strategy that can be used is allowing more flexibility. During the 2020 lockdowns, it has been observed that working from home is a more feasible alternative than it was previously believed. Even after companies and organizations resume activities, they can maintain a flexible schedule that allows employees to work from home a couple of days a week.
5.Overall changes that can promote a less stressful work environment include promoting educational workshops and growth opportunities for employees.
How Employees Can Help Themselves
The organization can only get to a certain point. As an employee, you can also implement strategies that will allow you to help yourself and decrease your emotional and physical response to workplace stress.
1.One of the best ways to achieve this is being aware of your stressors. You can do this by identifying when you are feeling stressed and what happened immediately before this response. You can even keep tabs and document it in a journal, which will allow you to track and identify what sets your stress responses off the charts.
2.Also, take a look at how you reacted and what you could do differently if the reaction is not the one you would like to have. For example, maybe you can take your break and go for a walk while you calm yourself.
3.You can also evaluate what your coping mechanisms are. Are they healthy? Do they affect your well-being? Sometimes, you might find yourself stress-eating or turning to alcohol and other numbing agents. While this might help your stress levels momentarily, it is going to further affect your health in the long term.
Building resilience and finding new ways to cope might not be easy but it is necessary.
Workplace stress is often overlooked and thought of as something that comes with the territory. However, it can have serious consequences for your health when not addressed properly. Always keep in mind that health is everything to living a happy life and that you have the power to develop healthy coping mechanisms and make changes in your work life.
Maria Azadian handles content marketing at Nevada Legal Group. Through her extensive research and commitment to her passion for Human rights, Maria has established herself as a prominent author in personal injury matters in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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