2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Every office worker is familiar with such concepts as stress, emotional burnout, helplessness. We all know that this, together with a sedentary lifestyle and habits, leads to poor health and relationships with others. We spend the long-awaited weekend watching TV series, or we just do nothing and stare into space.
How did we come to this?
Consider the main components of psychological stressors identified by R. Sapolsky:
- A way out for frustration … Frustration is a negative mental state that we get into when we cannot get what we want. It's time to go home, and you cannot complete the project, because you are waiting for the manager to sign. You have to wait, and the irritation grows by the minute. You wait an hour, one and a half two. At the end, he informs you that he is too busy today. When irritation builds up, your body mobilizes energy to attack, instantly releases the appropriate hormones, blood rushes, heart rate increases, breathing becomes shallow and rapid. Are you ready to fight! But restrain yourself and the face is saved. Where to put the accumulated energy? A chicken, for example, beats a junior chicken, a test rat drinks water, eats, or runs around the cage. Exercise will be useful to you and me. The exit will be effective if you distract from the stressor and experience positive emotions.
- Social support. Even in a stressful situation, we will experience less negative emotions if we have friends around. There is a concept of "safe friends". It was suggested by body psychotherapist Lisbeth Marcher. These are people with whom you can share your feelings, mood, give the necessary support at any time of the day for no reason. They don't have to be friends or family. To effectively cope with difficult situations, there must be at least twenty such people. Don't be discouraged if they are not there yet. Write a list of people you know, and opposite each one - what he can do for you. For example, help bring bags from the store, choose an air ticket, support before an interview, lend money, allow you to stay with you for a few days, just have a heart-to-heart talk, etc.
- Predictability reduces the ability of stressors to cause stress. Forewarned is forearmed. You know that every day you need to edit 30 pages of the text of the monograph, and work as usual. Your supervisor tells you that the second editor has quit, and you will need to edit 60 pages daily for the next month. Doubling your load is definitely stressful. But here's the second situation - you are editing 30 pages, the day ends, and suddenly you are informed that today you need to submit a very important order, 40 more pages. In the second situation, the stress is much stronger, because you did not have time to prepare for it.
- The control. For most office workers, stress comes from a high degree of responsibility and a lack of self-control. For example, you control a project, and your result directly depends on the work of other people. Sometimes it is simply impossible to influence the result for which you need to account. It is also important to be able to control your working conditions. For example, transfer to a different location, change the lighting, reduce the noise level, take short breaks, etc. A stressor that cannot be controlled or avoided causes many negative changes in a person. He is convinced that he cannot control any situation at all, that he is powerless, and falls into a state of acquired helplessness. Such a person is indifferent to the joys of life, he develops psychomotor retardation, loss of appetite, deterioration in the quality of sleep, and a decrease in resistance to stressors in the future. Changes at the neurochemical level also occur, and all of this together with prolonged exposure can lead to the development of depression.
- The impression that life is getting harder. You used to leave work on time, but now you stay late. You worked in a team, and now you are not attracted to interesting projects. Our condition depends not only on what is already there, but on what is expected. If it seems to you that it will only get harder further, the likelihood of a strong stress reaction, even to small stressors, increases. Let's say you have the opportunity to monitor the fulfillment of the sales plan and the amount of your bonus during the month. At the beginning of the month, the amount is 100%, after a week the results worsened and the amount is 70%, after another week - 30%. The chances that things can be fixed are diminishing. They would be higher if at the beginning of the month the amount was 0%, and it grew, depending on the fulfillment of the plan. This gives the impression that the situation is improving and it makes sense to put in more effort.
What if you are a leader and your subordinates are suffering from stress?
- Accept that you yourself are a source of stress for your subordinates.
- Give them a chance to get out of the office to take a walk.
- Suggest a vacation together. Bowling, go-karting, rock climbing lessons, rides, or other physical activity can be helpful.
- Let them know that you are on their side and are ready to listen to advice and requests.
- Ensure a comfortable working environment.
- Give your employees the opportunity to communicate more often. Yes, right during business hours.
- Distribute the workload on employees so that they know in advance what to prepare for. Set tasks once a day in the morning, and don't drop anything from above during the day.
- Employees must be able to influence their income. They will take on more complex projects if they know it will increase their income. But it won't work if you don't have the option to opt out.
- Share information about plans and changes in the company, show what has changed for the better.
- Let each employee have the time and opportunity to show their talents, to help a colleague.
What to read:
"The Psychology of Stress" by Robert Sapolsky
"The Encyclopedia of the Body: The Psychological Function of the Muscular System", Lisbeth Marcher
Break All The Rules First, Kurt Coffman
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