Strategies to manage Stress in the Workplace
The management of stress and fatigue in the workplace must be done in order to avoid problems to be huge. Managing stress is important in order to cope up with the load of work in the workplace. According to Pfizer Australia (2004) strategies in coping up with stress are grouped in the following categories and these are:
Direct Action Coping Strategies- wherein the person tries to counter the stressor it involves devising a plan to get out of the stressful situation or confronting the person or the situation that causes stress.
Action Inhibition Coping Strategies- it is a response to stress wherein the individual does nothing from doing anything that could worsen the scenario it includes waiting for information, not responding impulsively, and waiting for other people to help cope up with the situation.
Information Seeking Coping Strategies- it is appropriate to use in situations that are ambiguous. Depending on the facts obtained the response of the person could either be low or high.
Intrapsychic Scoping Strategy- it includes thinking about the stressful situations in order to decrease the emotional impact, this strategy could enable the person to realise that he or she is placing too much relevance on the stressor or the result that he or she devalues the potential impact. According Kendall, Murphy, O'Neill and Bursnall (2000) the interventions in the stress management are classified into primary, secondary, and tertiary approaches.
Primary Approach- in the primary approach it can be on the national level and the organisational level. Strategies that can be utilised in the national level are having legislation, monitoring systems of the government, and the active transfer of information regarding risk management in stress and fatigue in the workplace. In the organisational level, stress prevention are being implemented and discussed in the development of the organisation.
Secondary Approaches- it emphasis on decreasing the impact of stress response before it worsens; approaches include training the workers to be flexible with the stressors in the workplace.
Tertiary Approaches- these approaches emphasis the improvement of the determined stress condition. Kendall et al discussed that in the workplace in Australia tertiary stress approaches include case, injury, and disability management. Tertiary approaches could also include post-traumatic assistance and psychotherapy (Koompier, Cooper, and Geurts, 2000).
Aside from the approaches for stress management Gertker, Popkin, Nelson and O'Neill (2002) discussed some countermeasure that workers could do in order to combat stress and fatigue in the workplace and it includes the following:
Obtaining adequate sleep- researchers have agreed in an umber of studies that adults require an average of 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep every night to be alert and perform a good job in the workplace.
Napping- when utilised in an appropriate manner napping can be a good strategy for supplementing inadequate sleep at night and could even improve the alertness of the worker in the job.
Anchor sleep- anchor sleeping could be utilised as a coping mechanism for situations wherein a worker cannot obtain a full and continuous eight hours of sleep during night time. Anchor sleep has the benefit of stabilising the circardian biological clock of an individual.
Caffeine- it is one of the most widely used countermeasures for fatigue usually drinking coffee, it has the advantage of breaking the routine in the job that causes fatigue and stress.
Good sleeping environment- a good sleeping environment is important in assuring the individual will get adequate sleep. The environment should be quiet and dark and the temperature must be approximately 65°F.
