STRESS AND IDENTIFYING WORK STRESS

STRESS AND TWO STEPS TO KNOW IF YOU ARE DEALING WITH WORK STRESS

Dealing with work stress or workplace stress is a difficult process for both employers and employees.

Stress from work is often associated with high staff turnover, high absenteeism, increased industrial disputes and more injuries in the workplace.

Developing effective stress management and stress relief strategies for the workplace is extremely important.

But how do you really know as an individual if you are dealing with work stress?

How do you determine this?

Here are two simple steps to begin to understand whether you are dealing with work stress.

STEP ONE – THIS IS THE DAILY GRIND, DRUDGE AND STRUGGLE

Step one in determining whether your stress is work related is to consider the words you use when describing your job. For the next three minutes, write down the words you would use to describe your job or work. Do not think too long about what you are writing just get down as many descriptive words as you can.

WHAT DID YOU FIND OUT?

Did you find yourself using words like grindstone, slogging, drudgery, servitude, toil and more to describe your work life? These are very negative descriptions of your working experience and are very stressful words.

Compare these to a series of more positive words that may be used to describe your job. Words like endeavor, striving,
commitment, undertaking, assignment, production and performance. Just from these words alone you are able to gain an understanding as to whether your job is a positive or negative experience for you.

STEP TWO – WORRY, PRESSURE, STRESS AND ANXIETY

Step two in deciding whether you are stressing at work is to explore your feelings when you use such words above to describe your job. Your words combined with your feelings and emotions are very powerful indicators of work and stress. Look at your list of descriptive words you wrote down and next to each of those words write a word or two to describe how you feel. Again, do not think too much about this just write the first words that come into your head.

WHAT DID YOU NOTICE?

If your list contains many negative words then you will most likely have written about having feelings of anxiety, frustration, trepidation, strain and more.

DEALING WITH WORK STRESS AND THOSE WORDS AND FEELINGS

Now have a look again at your list of work related words and your emotional words about your feelings. If the words about your work are predominantly negative and your emotional words are also negative, then you are certainly experiencing work or job stress.

WORK STRESS MANAGEMENT AND WORK STRESS RELIEF

Although you have not yet determined your degree of stress you are experiencing in your workplace. Once you understand that your working life is one of the major stress causes in your life, then you can begin to consider ways for you to reduce work stress. Developing a range of stress management and stress relief strategies will now be important to help you in dealing with this stress in your working life.

FROM THE GLOBAL ORGANIZATION FOR STRESS

These stress related articles and information are brought to you by the Association of the Global Organization for Stress. Sign up as a member and you’ll receive free membership and a copy of our complimentary to ‘101 Ways to Less Stress’ Guide.

Please Note: Stress can result in severe health related issues. This stress related information is provided as guidance only and should not be considered as a form of therapy or professional advice. If expert assistance is needed, then a suitably competent health professional should be consulted.

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