Job stress occurs when you work too much; work in conflict with your values and talents or work under difficult circumstances. It is not news to anyone that stress can make you physically sick.
Not only can work stress make you sick, but once you get sick, your lower energy levels affect the quality and quantity of your work. Eventually, impaired performance can ruin your career.
Whether you work for yourself, own a business or are an employee, stress on the job is a growing problem. With increasing financial constraints, employers are asking more of each worker with fewer resources. You are not only concerned about your stress, but also the stress of the people around you. Other’s stress can affect your work and health as well.
Take a moment to write down a few of the things that stress you at work. Look at the items on your list. What do the items all have in common? Do you have control over any of them?
Situations that cause you stress are situations you feel you cannot control – too much to do with too little time or resources, other people not pulling their load, negative or demanding supervisors or coworkers, or fear of job loss for example.
The key to reducing your stress is focusing your time and energy on the things within your control, namely your own thoughts, feelings and choices within the situation.
The Key Principle for Stress ReductionYou have NO control of anything outside yourself.You have TOTAL control of everything inside yourself.
This does not seem earth-shattering until you look at daily reactions to what stresses you.
You reduce your stress when you put your time and energy into the one area where it will pay off, where you have total control and power to direct your life – in YOU, what you think, feel and choose (your actions). This brings you the confidence and freedom of Self-Mastery.
Keeping this principle in mind will serve you well as you learn to reduce your stress in any area of your life, including your work life.
Recommended book:
Work Stress by Lorne Sulsky
While many popular press books deal with issues of stress in the workplace, their target audience has typically been managers and administrators, not work psychologists or psychologists-in-training. This text is written by working psychologists focused at the level of the individual worker. It critically reviews the literature across the broad domain of work stress in a fairly non-technical manner, while retaining scientific integrity. Because of rapid changes in work environments from technological advances and a myriad of economic, social and other factors, this ongoing transformation of work stress creates a "moving target" for this subject. Giving structure to this fluid topic, the text outlines a conceptual model in chapter one that approaches work stress as a process. This model serves as an organizing framework for the book, and as a way to integrate a variety of research streams within a unified "conceptual umbrella." Instead of approaching work stress as a problem, the authors use their experience as active psychologists to help readers understand work stress as a process, and to help them cope with stress in the modern workplace.
Recommended book:
Work Stress by Lorne Sulsky
While many popular press books deal with issues of stress in the workplace, their target audience has typically been managers and administrators, not work psychologists or psychologists-in-training. This text is written by working psychologists focused at the level of the individual worker. It critically reviews the literature across the broad domain of work stress in a fairly non-technical manner, while retaining scientific integrity. Because of rapid changes in work environments from technological advances and a myriad of economic, social and other factors, this ongoing transformation of work stress creates a "moving target" for this subject. Giving structure to this fluid topic, the text outlines a conceptual model in chapter one that approaches work stress as a process. This model serves as an organizing framework for the book, and as a way to integrate a variety of research streams within a unified "conceptual umbrella." Instead of approaching work stress as a problem, the authors use their experience as active psychologists to help readers understand work stress as a process, and to help them cope with stress in the modern workplace.
