In the case ofhuman beings, there is a “technical fault” that happens; men and women are also able to fear things or situations just by imagining them, without the thing or situation actually happening or being real. According to the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, between 50-60% of sick leave from work is stress related.
Ana Galera
It is not a new phenomenon and has been studied since the 1950’s when the term was first coined. It is by definition, a natural response that the body has when faced with a threat and is common in all living beings.
The symptoms are immediately clear in animals, one of them is that breathing accelerates and the heart rate increases in order for the heart to pump more blood, thereby supplying the muscles which tighten to prepare to flee from the danger or to fight the enemy. However, the immune system also becomes on guard, concentrating the defences in the extremities of the body and the muscles in case they suffer scratches, cuts or blows in what is literally the fight for survival.
In the case ofhuman beings, there is a “technical fault” that happens; men and women are also able to fear things or situations just by imagining them, without the thing or situation actually happening or being real.
The stress response is automatic and it kicks in either way each time we feel fear.
So when faced with the danger of losing your job, of not being able to pay the bills, or the fear of relationship breakdown, or that something should happen to one of your nearest or dearest, stress emerges.
Stress is felt only by imagining any of these situations, but real or imagined, they are situations that the body feels; the emotion of fear is the same.
The real problem occurs when stress becomes chronic and constant, we are worried or frightened by the dangers that threaten – or that we believe will happen – so the body is constantly experiencing tension.
This is when health related problems characteristic of prolonged stress occur: musculo-skeletal problems, such as backache, and strain, or problems with the digestive system, such as heartburn and ulcers, and even colds and flu, as the body finds itself with low defences. Long-term stress can lead to anxiety attacks or chronic anxiety which, can trigger off depression. Although it is true that a small dose of stress is helpful, according to Dr Kyriazis, who is famous for his Studies on anti-ageing, momentary stress is healthy because it helps keep our defences strong and helps combat ageing.
It is a bit like having to run for the bus or to pack for a trip in a rush, even having to hand in an essay on time.
The effect on work
The truth is that the prevalence of stress in professional life is very high; it is in and of itself one of the main causes of sick leave, which means a substantial loss for companies and cost for the National Health Service.
It also creates “absenteeism, a high level of staff turnover, a lack of punctuality, discipline problems, harassment, decreased productivity, accidents, mistakes and an increase in compensations costs or medical assistance”.
In the UK, the situation is exceptional, to such a degree that the International Labour Organization estimates that the cost of the losses incurred due to stress represents more than 10% of the country’s GDP. In the same way, it is well known that between 2010 and 2011, three quarters of the new work-related illnesses were linked with depression, anxiety, muscular-skeletal ailments or stress. There is growing trends opposed to this idea, it is known as body-mind medicine or psycho-medicine, which takes for granted that our brain, as the part of our body that governs the whole system, influences the symptoms and vice-versa.
Mind and body
In the 80’s, Lazarus and Folkman published, “Stress, Appraisal and Coping”, where they put forward their theory of the Interactive Bio-psychosocial Model which assumes that there are three components at play in stress; body-mind-behaviour. Meaning each individual has a different way of facing stress, and therefore it affects each one in a different way.
They suspected that there were cultures that were better at coping with stress than others, Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn, who based this on what he had learnt from Buddhist teaching, invented the “stress reduction programme based on mindfulness” at the University of Massachusetts.
The technique consists of a series of meditation exercises and it turned out to be useful for those suffering from stress-related illnesses. However, it also achieved good results with people suffering from depression, chronic pain and those with problems such as stammering.
Mindfulness is nowadays being practised by psychologists all over the world and it turns out to be a useful fool tool to treat health problems, rather than simply using medication. To tackle the problem of absenteeism, companies are already looking for solutions. Whether it be making their employees take part in mindfulness programmes or simply having a policy to reinforce acknowledgement and positive feedback to motivate staff.
Therefore they avoid putting staff under pressure to force them to be more productive. On an individual basis, it has been proven that practising sport when stressed is a way of giving the body what it is asking for. If the body is preparing itself to run and fight, then the best you can do is precisely that, to run and to fight. In this way the body will also become exhausted and will reach a state of relaxation. Not doing so will maintain the body in a state of alert.
It is important to take into account the alert signs that the body gives off. Physical ailments can often be solely a symptom of a state of being stressed. Of course it is also advisable to train the brain with activities such as meditation, but reading, playing an instrument or learning a language are also activities that keep the mind in shape.
The good news is that sick leave caused by stress has been falling during the recession, but it is not clear whether this is due to workers’ fear of losing their jobs or rather because of the success of the measures that have been implemented. Be that as it may, “in the first trimester of 2009, 2.1% of employees had a period of leave due to ill health, which is less than the 2.5% before the start of the recession”.
This is how the Office for National Statistics records it and without a doubt, the encouraging figures contribute to . . . relieving stress.
(Translated by Betty Poku – bettymarilyn@googlemail.com ) – Photos: Pixabay
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