Stress In The Workplace Reasons And Consequences

There are potential consequences to having stress at work.  Robbins & Judge (2018) shares that stress can present itself in several ways from having high blood pressure, to ulcers, irritability, difficulty making decisions, changes in appetite, and even accident proneness.  Stress at work can create physiological, psychological, and behavioral symptoms (Robbins & Judge, 2018, p. 302).  

Stress is a part of daily life.  It is not uncommon to feel some form of stress for everyone.  As Heathfield (2020) confirms, everyone feels stress related to work, their families, making decisions, their futures, among many other personal and workplace changes.  Personal stress and workplace stress are inevitable, occurring both mentally and physically.  While stress is inevitable it can be induced by life altering events such as death of someone close to you or a loved one, illnesses, large purchases, and changes in the workplace environment and workplace responsibilities (Heathfield, 2020).  Choosing to deal with the stress or choosing to avoid it, does not change the fact that the stress will occur.

Daily stress will affect you in many ways, your body has automatic responses that attempt to deal with the stress.  Heathfield (2020) shares that increased blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, metabolism, and blood flow to muscles, are just some of the ways that the body will automatically respond to stress.  It is possible to cause harm to your health and well-being, when you are constantly reacting to small or large stressful situations, without making physical, mental, and emotional adjustments to counter the effects of the stress (Heathfield, 2020). Although stress is often seen as negative it can be positive.

To perform your best at work according to Heathfield (2020), you need a certain amount of stress to give you energy, ambition, and enthusiasm.  The amount of stress that is healthy must be managed and is different for everyone.  There are some issues that affect almost everyone such as; feeling out of control, feeling directionless, guilt over procrastination, failing to keep commitments, not enough time to accomplish everything planned, change, unplanned change, uncertainty, and high expectations of oneself (Heathfield, 2020).  The ability to focus and foresee these stressors can increase one’s stress before the actions even occur.

There are many different types of people and many ways of coping with stress.  Heathfield (2020) states that there are different ways of regarding stress; there are people that have difficulty accepting the unknown or any type of change, while others relish in it.  There are stresses that may devastate one person, excite another, and mildly irritate a third; the different response to stress may be attributed to the experience the individual has in stress and/or change management (Heathfield, 2020).  

The responses to stress can include but are not limited to: people talking the stressor through, complaining about the situation, or even sabotage of the efforts of what is causing the stress (Heathfield, 2020).  Too much stress according to Heathfield (2020) can cause loss of sleep, irritability, backaches, headaches, or even potentially life-threatening disease such as heart disease and high blood pressure.  People often blame themselves during stressful times (Heathfield, 2020).  Organizational managers can have difficulty adapting to change and normal progression and don’t always understand why employees are unable to immediately return to full production after a stressful event (Heathfield, 2020).  There are many levels of stress that can occur outside the workplace, that can affect how stress in the workplace is handled.  

Once there is spillover into the workplace from personal stress, the workplace can be affected.  If an individual is having difficulty handling stress, workplace stress may be even more difficult to handle.  Heathfield (2020) shares that it is important to recognize people that are experiencing serious stress and they may not be capable of performing exactly as they have in the past.  Managers must be sure to provide support in a large capacity to many different types of individuals with diverse feelings (Heathfield, 2020).  Acknowledging that there are different reactions to stress from different types of people will help to cope with others' stress.

Being open minded and acceptable to change is perhaps the easiest way to start to deal with stress.  Understanding that individuals are affected in different ways by stressors and change, will help to support others when they are stressed.  Knowing how to identify stress will make adapting to it come more naturally.