How to Survive Work Stress
	With more than 50 important stress management tools, this Mind Tools course shows you how to tackle the deep structural problems that cause job stress. More >>

Introduction to Stress Management

A lot of research has been conducted into stress over the last hundred years. Some of the theories behind it are now settled and accepted; others are still being researched and debated. During this time, there seems to have been something approaching open warfare between competing theories and definitions: Views have been passionately held and aggressively defended.

What complicates this is that intuitively we all feel that we know what stress is, as it is something we have all experienced. A definition should therefore be obvious…except that it is not.

Definitions

Hans Selye was one of the founding fathers of stress research. His view in 1956 was that “stress is not necessarily something bad – it all depends on how you take it. The stress of exhilarating, creative successful work is beneficial, while that of failure, humiliation or infection is detrimental.” Selye believed that the biochemical effects of stress would be experienced irrespective of whether the situation was positive or negative.

Since then, a great deal of further research has been conducted, and ideas have moved on. Stress is now viewed as a "bad thing", with a range of harmful biochemical and long-term effects. These effects have rarely been observed in positive situations.

The most commonly accepted definition of stress (mainly attributed to Richard S Lazarus) is that stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that “demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize.” In short, it's what we feel when we think we've lost control of events.

This is the main definition used by this section of Mind Tools, although we also recognize that there is an intertwined instinctive stress response to unexpected events. The stress response inside us is therefore part instinct and part to do with the way we think.

Fight-or-Flight

Some of the early research on stress (conducted by Walter Cannon in 1932) established the existence of the well-known “fight-or-flight” response. His work showed that when an organism experiences a shock or perceives a threat, it quickly releases hormones that help it to survive.

In humans, as in other animals, these hormones help us to run faster and fight harder. They increase heart rate and blood pressure, delivering more oxygen and blood sugar to power important muscles. They increase sweating in an effort to cool these muscles, and help them stay efficient. They divert blood away from the skin to the core of our bodies, reducing blood loss if we are damaged. As well as this, these hormones focus our attention on the threat, to the exclusion of everything else. All of this significantly improves our ability to survive life-threatening events.

Not only life-threatening events trigger this reaction: We experience it almost any time we come across something unexpected or something that frustrates our goals. When the threat is small, our response is small and we often do not notice it among the many other distractions of a stressful situation.

Unfortunately, this mobilization of the body for survival also has negative consequences. In this state, we are excitable, anxious, jumpy and irritable. This actually reduces our ability to work effectively with other people. With trembling and a pounding heart, we can find it difficult to execute precise, controlled skills. The intensity of our focus on survival interferes with our ability to make fine judgments by drawing information from many sources. We find ourselves more accident-prone and less able to make good decisions.

There are very few situations in modern working life where this response is useful. Most situations benefit from a calm, rational, controlled and socially sensitive approach.

In the short term, we need to keep this fight-or-flight response under control to be effective in our jobs. In the long term we need to keep it under control to avoid problems of poor health and burnout.

Managing Stress

There are very many proven skills that we can use to manage stress. These help us to remain calm and effective in high pressure situations, and help us avoid the problems of long term stress. In the rest of this section of Mind Tools, we look at some important techniques in each of these three groups.

Keeping a Stress Diary or carrying out the Burnout Self-Test will help you to identify your current levels of stress, so you can decide what action, if any, you need to take. Job Analysis and Performance Planning will help you to get on top of your workload. While the emotionally-oriented skills of Imagery, Physical Techniques and Rational Positive Thinking will help you change the way you see apparently stressful situations. Finally, the article on Anger Management will help you to channel your feelings into performance.

This is a much-abridged excerpt from the ‘Understanding Stress and Stress Management’ module of the Mind Tools Stress Management Masterclass. As well as covering this material in more detail, it also discusses:

• Long-term stress: The General Adaptation Syndrome and Burnout
• The Integrated Stress Response
• Stress and Health
• Stress and its Affect on the Way We Think
• Pressure andPerformance: Flow and the ‘Inverted-U’

These sections give you a deeper understanding of stress, helping you to develop your own stress management strategies for handling unique circumstances. Click here to find out more about the Stress Management Masterclass and here to visit the Stress.MindTools.Com site, which has many more articles on stress management.

June 2009 is Leadership Month in Mind Tools’ Career Excellence Club! Develop the qualities of an exceptional leader. Create an inspiring vision of the future. Build a highly motivated, talented team. Deliver your vision successfully. Learn all of this, and get fantastic leadership bonuses, for just US$1 for the first month (cancel at any time). Click here. Find out more. Lead excellently! >>

The first of these articles shows you how to keep a stress diary - an important technique for understanding the most important sources of stress in your life. To read this, click 'Next article' below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list underneath.

Warning: Stress can cause severe health problems and, in extreme cases, can cause death. While these stress management techniques have been shown to have a positive effect on reducing stress, they are for guidance only, and readers should take the advice of suitably qualified health professionals if they have any concerns over stress-related illnesses or if stress is causing significant or persistent unhappiness. Health professionals should also be consulted before any major change in diet or levels of exercise.

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Extension Resources (Not included in the Mind Tools E-book.)

* Shows articles available in full only to Career Excellence Club members.

Beating Self-Sabotage - Recognizing and overcoming it*
The Breaking Point - by Bruna Martinuzzi
The Green-Eyed Monster - Keeping envy out of the workplace, by Bruna Martinuzzi
Ready for a Real Vacation? - Preparing to make the most of your precious time*
Thinking On Your Feet - Staying cool and confident under pressure
Getting a Good Night's Sleep - Starting each day fresh, and full of energy*
Rest, Relaxation & Sleep*
Toffler's Stability Zones - Finding peace amid chaos*
How to Relax After a Hard Day - Leaving work at work*

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Learn to manage the stress in your life with our sister site, stress.mindtools.com.

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