Confucius once said, “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky enough to be doing what they want to do, let alone love. There are still a lot of people who hate their jobs and would drag themselves to work related stress day after day. Long hours at the office and the stress of the work could take a toll on one’s physical and mental health.

Deal with stress at work and Causes of work related stress

Work Related Stress

Stress can sometimes be unavoidable. In fact there are times when stress can actually help us go through certain tough situations. However, it is important that you are able to identify whether these are temporary or whether you are chronically stressed. This is especially true if you are doing something that you don’t really like. When you are under stress, the body’s production of cortisol increases and this affects the overall health – physically, mentally and emotionally. Here are some effects that work related stress may have on your body:

 

• It could worsen whatever skin conditions you have like acne and eczema.
• You could experience frequent headaches.
• Your blood pressure could elevate, increasing your risk of heart problems and diabetes.
• You could experience gastrointestinal issues like reflux.
• Your judgement could be impaired.
• Productivity may be decreased so is your ability to concentrate at the task at hand.
• You may feel irritable, depressed and unmotivated.
• You could end up having unhealthy behaviors like overeating and increase in alcohol consumption, which also leads to weight problems.

 

How Your Job Is Harming You and Your Health with Work Related Stress

There is a link between job stressors and the physical ailments that one may be experiencing. Here are the different stressors and how you can possibly deal with work related stress.

 

Workload

This comes as a no surprise. Too big of a workload is probably one of the main reasons why people are in so much work welated stress as this could feel overwhelming. Most of the time employees end up spending long hours at the office in order to complete their tasks at the expense of sacrificing family time and the time spent at home. When this becomes a problem, delegating other tasks or asking for help from other people could be an option. Or you can weigh in which tasks are more important so you can prioritize them.

 

Organizational Limitations

Nothing can be more stressful than having to work in an organization that prevents you from getting things done in a timely manner even if the workload is fairly manageable. This lead to work related stress. It could either be because the resources available are inadequate, the software used are outdated or the lack of facilities in the workplace. The first step to take is to approach your supervisor and discuss the situation. Let management know what you need in order for you to be more productive.

 

Conflict In Management

You may be getting a different set of directives from different people and you are put in a position where you no longer know which way to go. Like if Manager A tells you to complete the analysis and Manager B tells you to hold off until further notice. Nobody wants to be in this situation but what could you do?

The best possible way to handle this is to understand the organizational structure and find out who you are directly reporting to. By discussing this conflict with your supervisor you are bringing in a third person who will help you in managing the situation better. After all, whatever you do or did not do will reflect on his performance as a supervisor.

 

Interpersonal Relationship

This refers to the kind of relationship that you have with your co-workers who are counterproductive. You could be working with a distractive person or is there is a bully in the workplace. You can resolve this conflict by initiating a talk with your co-worker and if it doesn’t work then you can bring in your supervisor to mediate the situation.

 

Equivocal Role

Not knowing clearly what your role in the organization is and what your specific responsibilities are can be extremely frustrating. This is often caused by the lack of communication during the hiring process or when there were recent changes made in the organization. What you can do in this case is to approach your direct supervisor and ask for a copy of your job description. If there are things that you don’t understand, immediately raise that question.

 

Being in work related stress environment and doing a job that you hate is not a good situation to be in. You have to ask yourself why are you there in the first place but never think that you do not have a choice. You always do. You can either take action, stand up and do something to make your situation a lot better.