An Introduction To Stress Management
Stress has many different definitions, depending on whether you talk to a psychologist, management consultants or even the person who is experiencing the stress. Stress is often subtle, and can come from a number of sources, including stressful work environments, workloads and deadlines, conflicting priorities or values.
Hans Selye, one of the founding fathers of stress research, suggested in the mid-1950s that stress need not be something bad – and that a lot depended on how you take it. In his definition, stress can be detrimental or beneficial, and in some cases even exhilarating. Since this time, stress has been defined as a negative experience or state in which a person perceives that the demands made on him exceed the resources, both personal and social, he is able to mobilize.
When individuals are under stress, they have three instinctive responses as to how to manage the stress. The first response is a short-term basic survival instinct or “Fight-or-Flight” response. The second is a long-term response to exposure to stress called “General Adaptation Syndrome and Burnout”. The third response is the Mental Response to Stress. These three responses together are called the integrated stress response.
During the “Fight-or-Flight” phase can be likened to a shock response. The body’s heart and blood pressure go up, delivering more oxygen and blood sugar to power important muscles. Individuals go into this fight-or-flight response simply when they encounter something unexpected or when they are frustrated, interrupted or excessively challenged by a situation with is new. This stress phase, however, may go unnoticed because the intensity is so low we do not notice it. Individuals who experience this phase of stress are anxious, jumpy and oftentimes irritable. They are not able to work effectively with others easily, and are more accident-prone and less able to make good decisions. It’s important to keep this fight-or-flight response under control in order to be able to work well.
During the “General Adaptation Syndrome and Burnout” phase, individual experience three stages: the Alarm phase, the Resistance phase and the Exhaustion phase. During the Alarm phase, the individual reacts to the stressor. Then during the Resistance phase, the individual adapts to the stressor, and builds a certain resistance. Then the individual enters the Exhaustion phase, where resistance declines significantly, and the exhaustion is seen in “burnout”.
Finally, an individual’s stress levels are increased or decreased by how he interprets the stressful situation.
Stress reduces our performance and typically causes a great deal of unhappiness.
