Who cares if you're stressed?

Words: 708 Reading time: 2 minutes 22 seconds

The Health & Safety Executive have published figures showing that 6.7 million working days are lost each year due to the effects of stress. The cost to society is estimated to be in the region of £3.8 billion.

Stress is believed to be responsible for up to 40 per cent of all absences from work and can reduce employee performance by up to 70 per cent.

Now we have more labour-saving devices than at any time since the world began, why is it that?

When I ask ‘What is stress?’ I get different answers.

One set of answers is a list of symptoms, some of which are emotional, such as feeling irritable, frustration at having to wait for something, barely suppressed anger, generally feeling upset, lack of sense of humour, etc.

Other symptoms listed are physical, such as muscle tension, neck or shoulder pain, stomach upsets, 'pounding' or 'racing' heart, sweaty palms, 'butterflies', insomnia or excessive sleep, shortness of breath, etc.

Another set of answers list what people see as possible causes, such as job insecurity, heavy workload, infrequent rest breaks, poor communication in the organization, crowding, noise, insufficient leisure time, etc.

A third set of answers merely uses synonyms for stress, such as anxiety, hassle, pressure, strain, tension, worry.

But none of these actually tells me what stress is.

Aching joints and a runny nose might tell me I have influenza, but it is not influenza itself. Getting soaked in a downpour might make me susceptible to influenza, but it does not cause influenza. As we all now know, the true cause is viral.

So, what single root cause covers all of the above factors and manifestations of stress? What is the equivalent of the viral or bacterial agent where stress is concerned?

My suggestion is that stress only occurs when the situation, as we perceive it, demands more resources than we believe we have available at present to resolve it

Situation > Resources

As far as I can see that definition covers all cases and it helps by providing four different avenues of escape:

The situation can be avoid, vacated or mitigated.

Our perception of the situation can be revised, or reframed.

The resources required can be augmented, assembled, bought or borrowed.

Our beliefs about our resources can be challenged, replaced or adapted.

The other important point about this definition is that underlines the part played by perceptions and beliefs in the whole subject of stress. That is not to dismiss or denigrate the trauma reported by those experiencing stress, it merely points up the fact that we cannot isolate this stuff called stress and hold it in our hands. We cannot isolate it from the person directly concerned and measure it separately.

Because stress is not an objective reality, it is not equally experienced. Two individuals can be seated side by side in the same work environment, doing the same tasks and with the same demands place on them, in the same way, yet one individual will experience greater stress than the other.

This tells us that one other precondition is needed for someone to experience stress – the person concerned must actually care about the outcome. This is crucial, because unless you really care there will be no anxiety on your part about what may or may not transpire.

At the end of the football season, as various teams face demotion from one league to another, some fans become genuinely anguished. However, for those who do not follow football in general, or that team in particular, there is no concern one way or the other. Indeed, the whole organizational structure surrounding the sport could collapse and non-fans would be totally unaffected.

Stress is an internal phenomenon. We manufacture it ourselves. Sometimes we manufacture it inappropriately by caring about inconsequentials, or by caring too much about the wrong things. So when we are stress it is extremely useful to ask ourselves what is it that we care about so much, and is that sensible.

Who cares if you’re stressed?

You do!

As a parting thought, is it therefore nonsensical to blame employers for causing stress? And if stress arises because people care, how wise is it to work on increasing employee engagement? Isn’t this ultimately self-defeating?