How Job Stress Affects Your Mental Health?

Do you suffer from headaches and sleepless nights? This can be caused by work stress. Although stress in the workplace is inevitable, one should know what danger it can bring to your mental health. Let’s consider this in detail and determine how to lower a stress level.

Definition of Job Stress

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the United States, job stress can be defined as the harmful physical and emotional responses that appear when the demands of the work do not correspond to the needs, abilities, or resources of the employee. A high indicator of stress level can, in its turn, lead to a worsening of health and in some cases injury.

A large number of employees say that they experience stress connected with their work. This can put their performance and health in danger. According to a recent survey conducted by Northwestern National Life, it was shown that approximately 40% of employees reported that their work was pretty stressful. In another survey carried out by Yale University, approximately 29% of employees reported they were feeling severe stress because of work.

The level of stress in the workplace can vary depending on professions and group of population. This means that some employees are at a higher risk of stress in comparison to other workers. According to studies, it was revealed that younger employees, women, and people who work in lower-skilled jobs are exposed to the most risk of stress that is connected with work and its accompanying complications.

Temporary employees who work full-time, have probably the lowest job control and high requirements for work. As a result, they can be exposed to the most risk of overwork.

Types of Stressors on Employee Workplace

Nowadays, there are many stress factors that can make employees worry. Just imagine, you should send a fax urgently but you are far away from your office. There is no doubt that you will panic and, as a result, be stressed.

In this case, you can avoid stress by having a Fax App on your device. In order to sort out how to fax a document from iPhone does not take much time. Just take your iPhone and make a quick shot via the built-in scanner. That’s all, a ready fax can be delivered to the receiver within seconds.

As a rule, we can classify workplace stressors as physical and psychosocial. Noise, bad lighting, and the wrong layout of the office or workplace can be referred to as physical stressors. Moreover, ergonomic factors can be included in physical stressors, for example, bad working postures.

Although physical stressors are stress factors and can have a great impact on employees’ health, psychosocial stressors can be considered more predominant stress factors. High requirements to work, inflexible working hours, bad job control, bad design and structure of work, bullying, and lack of job security are included in psychosocial stressors.

Impacts of Job Stress

Stress in the employee workplace affects not only the worker by himself/herself, but it likewise possesses adverse effects on the overall performance of the organization. The consequences of strain that are connected with work are evident for physical and mental health, behavior, etc. of employees.

These consequences emerge in a continuum, everything begins with distress in response to stressors. Distress, in its turn, can lead to increased blood pressure and anxiety. This can increase the risk of coronary heart disease and lead to the occurrence of anxiety disorders, and substance abuse.

We can all predict what impact stress will have on cardiovascular disease. According to studies, it was shown that work stress is a serious factor of risk for occurring preludes to cardiovascular disease. Some of them are obesity, high blood pressure, and more. Moreover, adverse cardiovascular events can happen, for example, heart attack and stroke.

Speaking about effects on mental health, workplace stress can increase the level of anxiety, burnout, and depression of employees. Also, disorders connected with substance use are inevitable. The reason is that those employees who undergo stress at work will act unhealthy with more probability. For example, these workers can start smoking cigarettes, abuse alcohol and drugs, and eat wrong.

Coping Mechanisms

Although stress in the workplace is hard to prevent, if you identify the potential sources of stress, it will assist you to address them. Primary interventions include removing or reducing potential stressors. Secondary interventions are corrective in nature and are concentrated on changing the ways employees accept and react to stressors. Tertiary interventions refer to forms of control at the level of disease. They should be initiated for employees who are already undergoing stress. Treatment, rehabilitation programs, etc. are included in tertiary interventions.

Conclusion

Stress in the workplace is often underestimated. However, if one takes an iPhone or any type of device, familiarize with this article, it will become understandable how serious job strain and stress can be. If you believe you have signs of workplace stress, do not hesitate to read what impact it can have on your mental and physical health. Fortunately, it is possible to reduce stress if you notice it quickly and take all the precautions.