It is unfortunate that humans have placed themselves in positions where they have become slaves to money to be able to simply live and enjoy life.
In an ideal world a workplace would have enough flexibility to allow workers to be able to change their job description through redesign or transfer as felt needed. Since we do not live in an ideal world nor will we be doing so anytime soon, this is not the case.
The effect occupational stress has on health appears to be substantial as many researchers have proven. In the workplace, individual and environmental factors interact to produce circumstances that may elicit stress responses that could range from tension headaches and migraines to full blown physical or psychiatric illnesses. Here we focus mainly on individual person and work related factors.
Factors that may be related to the individual person include things like conflicting non- occupational demands or lack of adequate communication/inter-personal skills. Another serious source is to have moral conflicts with the goals of the organization that you represent as you constantly find yourself in a moral dilemma.
The feeling of being victimized with lack of social support mechanisms or being subjected to massively charged emotional life events will without a doubt result in a stress reaction the magnitude of which may vary. Finally, being a person who has extreme personality traits such as the infamous Type “A” personality or having obsessive compulsive patterns of behaviour add to stress build up.
Factors that are related to the work environment include acute organizational change within the company mostly resulting in acute stress. Your relationship with your boss or supervisor is high on the list of stress causing factors and so is being in atmosphere of corporate conflict.
The feeling of being stuck at a certain level or position beyond which you have not been given the option to advance causes stress just as a promotion would. Also the common trends of the metropolitan busy lifestyle where frequent mental and physical job unloading or overloading, rotating shift work, noise and vibration pollution, ergonomic issues, odours, temperature extremes, bad lighting and having the heavy burden of being responsible for others work all come to play in adding insult to injury when it comes to stress overflow. Similar effects result from having a repetitive, boring or machine based job that does not stimulate the thinker in you.
So what are the manifestations of stress?
Early Manifestations:
These include things like decreased satisfaction, feeling unhappy, anxiety; tension and easy irritability are some of the hallmarks of stress. Trouble concentrating or focusing, decreased family participation and marital problems may begin to develop. Some develop altered social interaction, reduced stamina and require more time to recover from physical activities, and may have increased accidents rates.
Late Manifestations:
Here clinical depression peeks its ugly head; trauma disorders develop such as PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), adjustment disorders and substance abuse. Somatic symptoms (aches and pains) become more prominent and pre-existing medical and psychiatric conditions worsen, gastrointestinal distress (especially peptic ulcer) develops, and finally the rapid acceleration to violence ensues which may present as work place violence, a nasty but not too infrequent scenario.
These are the stressors as defined by Stover Snook, PhD, of ergonomic research. Recognize them before you spiral into a life filled with confusion and dissatisfaction. Most importantly, once you recognize them... seek help.
