Managing Stress

Editor: Justin Healey
ISBN 978 1 920801 95 3
Year 2009

Price: $20.95

  

Managing Stress
Volume 285, Issues in Society

We all experience stress, however it is often difficult to recognise and control. A little stress is actually good for us, motivating us to explore new challenges and react to perceived threats with our innate ‘fight or flight’ response. Chronic stress, on the other hand, can play a role in many psychological and physiological ailments and cause serious harm. What exactly is stress, what is the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ stress, and how does it affect our health and mental wellbeing? What are the best techniques for coping with pressure? This book explores the topic in three chapters: Understanding and Managing Stress; Work-Related Stress; and Study Stress.

Chapter 1  Understanding and Managing Stress
Don’t stress, Teens stressed out, Stress, Recognising and managing stress, Reducing stress, Hints to avoid harmful stress, Stress and relaxation.

Chapter 2  Work-Related Stress
Stress in the workplace, Some signs and symptoms of work-related stress, Parents’ work stress can spill into the home, Women prone to job-stress blues, Workplace pressure takes its toll on business, The 11 key workplace stressors, Stressing a gloomy point, but we have to learn to relax, Tips for managing stress in the workplace, The role of employers, government and workers, Quick checklist for a stress-free, workplace.

Chapter 3  Study Stress
Students fail to cope with hard knocks, School exam stress extreme, Who to call? It’s stressbusters, Exam time: hints for managing stress, Exams – a survival guide, Overcoming exam anxiety, Managing exam anxiety and stress, Effortless exams, Surviving exams.

Glossary; Fast Facts; Web Links; Index



fast facts
FAST FACTS from this volume
  • In Australia, stress-related conditions are the leading cause of ‘sickies’, which means the cost of illness due to stress at work probably runs into billions.
  • Experts have proven that chronic stress plays a role in many psychological and physiological ailments, some of them life-threatening. These include depression, anxiety, allergies, digestive disorders, heart disease and cancer. So it makes sense to try and beat stress before it causes serious harm.
  • Youth is supposed to be a carefree time, but the latest figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that mental illness, including anxiety and depression, is currently the greatest burden of disease for people aged 15 to 24.
  • Most people suffer from stress at some point in their lives. Showing signs of stress does not mean that you are a weak person, just human like everybody else. Stress affects different people in different ways – your attitude and personality play a big part in how it affects you, and how you cope with it.
  • While some short-term stress is thought to be good for you, pushing you to make that extra effort in a sporting event or game, chronic or long-term stress can be harmful to your health. This kind of stress is when you feel under constant, intense pressure, or you just cannot see a way out of a terrible situation.
  • It is important to note that stress is not depression. However, acute distress associated with tough times can occur and may be a risk factor for depression if it persists.
  • Stress is a response to an event or situation. It can be positive or negative. Stress is common in daily life and may be associated with work, family or personal relationships. It usually means that something is happening that’s causing worry and affecting how we are thinking and feeling.
  • Stress is common in daily life and may be associated with work, family or personal relationships. Whatever the cause, there are some simple steps that can help you to reduce stress.
  • Our coping skills are something we’ve learnt, usually from parents. This means that we can all learn and take on new coping skills to increase our coping capacity and deal with stress better. The first step is to recognise the signs your body gives you when you’re feeling stressed and then listen to the signs.
  • The ACTU National Survey on Stress at Work found that one in four people took time off work because of stress.
  • Under state and territory health and safety laws, employers have a legal duty to provide a healthy and safe workplace and safe systems of work. This includes providing a working environment where the risk of stress is eliminated or minimised.
  • Stress prevention policies should be developed jointly by employers and workers and their representatives. Employers need to provide information, training and advice to workers and supervisors.
  • Parents who lack job security and control over their work are much more likely to suffer psychological distress than workers in better quality jobs. And they are also more likely to report behaviour and emotional problems in their children.
  • The study found a strong association between good mental health and good working conditions. Parents who enjoyed four optimum conditions – job security, a say in how they did their jobs, flexible working hours and paid family leave – were more likely to report the best mental health. The fewer of these conditions parents enjoyed, the more their wellbeing deteriorated.
  • Women and low-skilled workers are the most likely to suffer job stress-related depression because they have less control over their working conditions, new research shows.
  • Two out of 10 primary and secondary school students said they had felt depressed and so hopeless that they had stopped doing their schoolwork, seeing friends or competing in sport. The findings come from a four-year study of 10,000 students and their teachers at 81 schools across the country. Commissioned by the Australian Scholarships Group, the study found 60 per cent of students felt their schoolwork was not up to scratch. Fifty per cent of pupils – from Prep to Year 12 – reported not learning how to cope with stress; 40 per cent admitted not being taught how to make friends or solve personal problems. The report calls for urgent changes to address the emotional problems faced by the country’s children, saying that stress management should be part of school curriculum and teachers and parents should be better trained to deal with it.
  • Exams are a time when stress levels are higher than usual. Stress can be positive, helping you to stay motivated and focused. However, too much stress can be unhelpful, it can make you feel overwhelmed, confused, exhausted and edgy. It’s important to try and keep things in perspective and find ways of reducing stress if things seem to be getting on top of you.
  • It is most useful to keep your anxiety about exams at a level that allows your best performance – not so low that you lack motivation to study and not so high that it gets in the way of you performing well. The goal is to find ways of managing your anxiety so it promotes alertness and performance.
  • Preparing to tackle exam stress and anxiety is not just about learning strategies to use during an exam. It is also about the way you look after yourself during the lead-up to exam time and in fact, all year round.
  • Stress is neither negative nor positive. It is our body’s normal response to challenge, threat or excitement. The stress response is only a problem if it occurs too often, exists for too long a time before dissipating, or occurs with a force that is too strong. The consequences of stress depend on your interpretation of the physical symptoms. Whether you experience these feelings as a help or a barrier determines whether you label your stress as positive or negative, motivating or paralysing.