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Stress: Productivity-Factor or Sickness?


Definition, Explanation

In various activities in workplaces and in private, you often hear people say “I'm in stress”, “that project is stressing me” or “I'm under stress, at work”. This is subjective experience of stress. Negative stress is called distress, positive stress is called eustress. Too much as well as too little stress decreases people's performance and shows as tenseness, hecticness, difficulty in concentration as well as diseases like depressions, cardio-vascular diseases, diseases of the immune system or of the vertebral column, also as tiredness and boredom and burnout. “Healthy” stress, in contrast, like stagefright does, helps to perform at one's best and to experience a flow effect, which is a name for perceiving one's activity as bliss. Building this positive-side pressure is the goal of motivation.

In general, what is called stress is when the body reacts to a stimulus by activation, from which the S-O-R model is derived (stimulus – organism – reaction)

Persons especially affected by frequent stress are those who suffer lack of time, have great responsibilities, are over-challenged, do shift work, are afraid of failure, are under-challenged, uncontented or are bullied at work.

Stressors include:

  • Physical stressors: noise, heat, cold, fluctuations in temperature and in air pressure, hunger, infections, injuries, physically hard work, long driving of a car, sensory overload
  • Psychic stressors: fear of failure, over-challengedness, under-challengedness, being controlled, lack of time, hustling, loss of autonomy
  • Social stressors: conflicts, isolation, unwanted visitors, loss of familiar persons, being bullied

Stress, however, is a result of interacting stressors, the persons estimation of the situation and his/ her ability to handle it. A threatening situation only becomes stress if there are no ways seen to cope with it. Stress also arises when occupational challenges and social rewards get out of balance.

Signs of being stressed are:

  • Increased heartbeat frequency, and, in consequence, cardio-vascular diseases
  • Depressive disorders
  • Addictive behaviour, e.g. with alcohol, nicotine

Within the stress reaction, 5 levels are discerned:

  • Cognitive level: thinking and perceptive processes
    • Thinking barriers
    • Fears of failure
    • Decrease of
      • concentrating ability
      • long-term thinking
      • creativity
      • short- and long-term memory
      • reaction speed
    • Increase of
      • illusions
      • thought-disorders
      • distractibility
      • frequency of errors
  • Emotional level: feelings and sensitivities
    • Increase of
      • illusive symptoms (hypochondria)
      • surges of emotion
      • aggression
    • Decrease of
      • self-esteem
      • contentedness
    • Development of depression and the feeiling of helplessness
    • Change of personality traits, e.g. enthusiastic persons become lukewarm
    • Arising of anxieties: performance anxiety, social anxiety (anxiety about communicating with others), anger and aggression towards non-involved persons or objects
  • Vegetative-hormonal level:
    • dry mouth, harrumphing, palpitations, nausea, sweating, blushing
    • in permanent stress: cardio-vascular disorders, gastric and intestinal ulcers, hypertension, indigestion, sleeping disorders, tiredness, menstruation disorders, skin changes, dizzy waves, dyspnoea, migraine
  • Muscular level: reactions of sceletal muscles
    • short-term reactions: frozen mimic, trembling, tapping one's toes, backaches, stammering
    • Long-term: chronic tensions, muscle aches
  • Behavioural
    • Controlling: active reacting to the stressor by effort or escape
    • Tolerating: accepting stressors and raising one's frustration tolerance
    • Resigning: standing the stressor

Too much stress over a longer period of time seriously affects the behaoviour:

  • Decrease of enthusiasm, short- and long-term goals are cancelled, hebetude predominates
  • Increased frequency of absence from the workplace due to illness, being late, doctor's appointments etc.
  • Increased consumption of drugs like alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, medication

Stress coping can be achieved by:

  • Learning of long-term stress coping strategies
  • Reducing the stressors
  • Short-term coping with current stress

The authors Litzke/Schuh discern

  • Stress coping strategies with short-term effect
    • Blowing off by physical activity (try to avoid rages of anger, they just generate more problems)
    • Distraction (cleaning one's desk, going for walks, call friends)
    • Stop of thoughts (say “stop” out loud and concentrate on something like a made-up word, to direct your thinking to something else)
    • Creating events of contentedness
    • Positive self-instruction using positive statements and thoughts
    • Spontaneous relaxing by progressive muscle relaxation, autogenic training or deep breathing
    • Deceleration by slow speaking and decreasing the time of acting to the benefit of the time of thinking
  • Stress coping strategies with long-term effect
    • Unlearning victimhood (no more complaining and ending helplessness)
    • New ways of assessing and getting at the bottom of stress situations
    • Lowering one's expectation level
    • Setting of few, realistic and explicite goals
    • Social support by bosses and colleagues, also by friends and family
    • Time management meaning conscious handling of one's time. Set your priorities
    • Regular, scheduled relaxing by progressive muscle relaxation, autogenic training and deep breathing, also using music
    • A way of life with much movement, balanced nutrition, normal body weight and healthy sleep

Tips, Checklist

  • Consider
    • What are your personal stressors?
    • How do you react on typical stress situations?
    • What are your ways of coping?
  • Practice composure
  • Laugh often, be self-ironic
  • Follow other interests besides your occupational ones
  • Purposely create yourself events of contentedness and general personal liberty
  • Cultivate social contacts
  • Practice to phrase your state positively
  • Have some appreciation of the persons around you and ask them about their goals and motivation
  • Develop patience
  • Try to decelerate your allday business. Take your timefor your activities, cancel less important appointments, do not do several things at a time
  • Delegate
  • Schedule your free time
  • Give yourself some time to be on your own. It can be a walk, a pleasure bath, calm reading of the newspaper or a book
  • Keep mentally fit
  • Discuss with friends or colleagues, read, or travel in your freetime
  • Set your priorities
  • Plan your activities rating them by importance. The highest-prio tasks are to be instantly done. And ask yourself: do I have to do this, do I have to do this now, do I have to do it this way?
  • Program yourself positive
  • Take tasks as a challenge and go about them with confidence and having fun. Unnecessary fear and doubts would bring pressure
  • Fight stress down with movement
  • Sport helps diminishing stress, thinking creatively and gaining some verve. But do not make sport the thing that puts additional pressure on you but do a sport that is fun for you and schedule it among your allday business
  • Drink enough
  • Drink water, tea and juices instead of coffee, black tea and lemonade. The latter are even dehydrating. Recommendation is 2 litres of fluid a day
  • Have vitamin rich nutrition
  • Vitamins, and minerals bring energy and strengthen your immune system. So eat fruit and vegetables every day
  • Have regular and sufficient sleep
  • Do without caffeine, nicotine and other stimulants
  • Keep an eye on your body weight

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Last update: 07/09/2010
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Copyright: Angela Bauer