Controlling stress is key to good health and a more peaceful, less violent life. It is important to learn good coping strategies for stress. Stress tips vary from meditation to re-evaluation of life styles.
It is difficult to manage anxiety without the proper understanding of what causes it. Please also review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Certification
The article, “Peak Anxiety
? Here Are 10 Ways to Calm Down” by Tara Parker-Pope looks at how we can control anxiety and stress through a variety of steps. She states,
“While there’s nothing you can do to speed election results or a coronavirus vaccine, you do have the power to take care of yourself. Neuroscientists, psychologists and meditation experts offered advice about the big and small things you can do to calm down. Here are 10 things you can try to release anxiety, gain perspective and gird yourself for whatever comes next.”
Please also review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Certification. The program is online and designed for qualified professionals seeking a certification in Stress Management. The program leads to a four year certification.
Stress is a health issue that is overlooked. Many individuals worry about diet, lack of exercise, hereditary illness and contagious disease but never consider stress. Stress is a silent killer that can take a healthy person with healthy life styles and over time kill him or her.
Stress is one of the biggest killers of people in the modern world. It can suddenly cause death or gradually cause illness in the body. This is true in any living creature and not understanding the nature of stress on the body and taking appropriate stress management strategies can lead to an early grave.
Stress can kill overtime. Please also review our Stress Management Consulting Program
The body reacts to stressors in life. Each person reacts to different stressors uniquely. What may be stressful for one person is not for another. When the body’s stress reaction takes place, various systems within the body prepare the body for the fight or flight experiences.
Walter Cannon, a physiologist, was the first to coin fight or flight. Early man responded to stressors or threats by either fighting the threat or fleeing from it. The body produces various hormones after the brain interprets the threat. The hypothalamus and pituitary gland send messages for the adrenal cortex to produce glucocorticoids and mineralocorticoids. These in turn produce cortisol and aldosterone.
Cortisol is the primary hormone that fuels the fight or flight reaction. This is an extremely important process for survival, especially for early man. Increased levels of sugar to burn, allow the body to deal with the stressor.
Aldosterone prepares the body for action. It increases blood pressure, hence permitting the body to transport food and oxygen to other parts of the body. In addition, the adrenal medulla, secretes adrenalin to give the body more energy and strength in any stress or crisis response. Combined, these hormonal changes in the body give it the energy, strength and ability to respond to stressful conditions.
Due to this, the temporary reactions raise blood pressure and increases heart rate. Various other parts of the body also react, including the autonomic nervous system, the gastrointestinal system, the muscular system and even the skin. While temporarily this is needed to respond to stress, over a long duration, these conditions can cause heart attacks, strokes, stomach ulcers and other forms of illness.
Due to modern man’s less primal living situation, one cannot resort to fight or flight responses but must instead internalize issues. One cannot flee a job assignment, yell at a boss, not take an exam, or scream at a customer. Instead, one is forced to deal with the stress and endure the physical reactions within the body.
This over time becomes deadly. Whether the degree or duration, stress kills because of the changes it forces upon the body when proper outlets are not permitted. Long work hours, deadlines, toxic relationships at work and home, poor diet, smoking, and type A personalities more prone to anxiety, anger and impatience all deal with an abundance of stress. This excess stress without proper outlets and management leads to early death.
It is imperative to limit the body’s reaction to stress with stress management techniques which teach one to cope. Stress is part of life but it can be managed. Stress can be environmental or from within and how we react, but how we handle the stressors and learn to navigate them can reduce the wear and tear on our mind and body.
Hans Sele, the Father of Modern Stress Management, conducted a variety of experiments on rats, inducing different rats with different levels of stress and stressful situations. He noted that the rats with the most stress over time developed various conditions to their bodies. These conditions affected almost all bodily systems, from heart issues to ulcers and anything in between. He became aware that stress over time kills.
He pointed out three phases all animals face. First, the alarm reaction. During this phase, the body reacts to stress and exposes the reactionary characteristics of the body to the stressor. Within this phase, the body reacts to stress and if the stress is to strong, the person dies.
The second phase is the reactionary phase in which the body endures and adapts to the stressor. Alarm appearance had diminished and the resistance to the stressor rises.
The final phase according to Seyle, is the stage of exhaustion, where the body’s adaptation energy becomes exhausted, and the alarm phase appearances return, but this time, become permanent and the body dies due to duration of the stress.
Hence Seyle pointed out that if the body does not adapt or remove the stress irritant, one can either die from stress immediately or over duration. This led to the idea that stress kills according to degree or duration. This is why it is important during the second stage, to overcome the issue and move on or if the issue is not life threatening, to learn important coping strategies to deal with the stress itself.
This is difficult with hard and long work hours, definitive deadlines and toxic interpersonal relationships. Divorce, loss, death, unemployment, illness, and other issues can pile upon an already stressful life style and compound the body’s ability to overcome the stressor. Duration sets in and the body’s stress responses in themselves become deadly.
Long hours, deadlines and taxing mental work can lead to unhealthy levels of stress over time
One can take some control though in how the body responds to stress. Meditation, bio-feedback, hypnosis, channeled breathing, prayer, positive outlooks, humor, exercise, diet, and life evaluations can all play key roles in limiting stress. Ultimately it is up to you if you wish to limit the damage stress can do on your body.
Stress Management coping strategies are key to a healthy life. Certified Stress Management Consultants can help others learn how to better cope and deal with stress. Stress Management is becoming more mainstream in a variety of areas beyond just personal health but is also becoming a big service offered in business, politics, emergency response, policing, and other industries that see a high level of stress.
Stress reduction will limit poor health and help someone find a better balance in life. Please also review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Program
If you would like to learn more about Stress Management or would like to become a certified Stress Management Consultant, then please review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Program and see if it matches your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study and leads to a four-year certification. In the meantime, limit your stress and live a healthier life.
Stress kills. This not a clique or a baseless statement, but a real statement based on fact and science. Stress causes disease and death in many people every year. Stress can be real, physical, environmental and immediate, or social and psychological.
Psychologist Walter Cannon first studied the stress response of human beings. He termed the popular phrase, flight or fight. The flight or fight response is humanity’s most evolutionary basic response to stressors. When something immediate and threatening approaches, our ancestors fled or stayed and fought. In that process, the stressors were analyzed in the brain and the necessary adjustments were made to the various bodily systems to prepare the body for stress. These systems included the endocrine, cardiovascular, automatic nervous and muscular systems of the body to respond to the stressor or threat. Through these complex systems, various reactions in the body take place that prepare the body for fight or flight
One is not tied to stressors but can react and cope against stress in positive ways
Among these many reactions originating from the brain and then transferring to the various glands that emit hormones include faster heart rate, higher blood pressure, muscle contraction, increased metabolic rate, less fatigue, more energy, and more oxygen. These changes are a result of hormones in the body. Cortisol is a primary hormone that increases blood sugar for energy. In addition, aldosterone is a hormone that increases blood pressure.
These essential changes are pivotal in flight or fight responses. However, over time, these increased hormones and the chemical changes they produce in the body are not healthy. Seyle, the Father of Stress Management, studied the effects of stress on rats and discovered that a multitude of physical ailments befell the rats when over stressed. This is the same truth for human beings. Human beings can injure their bodies through prolonged and intense stress. Heart damage and higher blood pressure, leading to stroke or heart attack are real killers due to stress response. Other ailments can develop over time, such as stomach issues, ulcers and digestive disorders.
Stress does kill. It can kill immediately or over time. It is hence important to understand stress and reduce stress. Stressors all play different roles to an individual. One may be stressful for one person may be a blessing or nothing at all to someone else. How we view stressors and react to stressors play a key role in activating our flight and fight responses. We need to limit these responses to only life altering situations so as to spare our body the changes it deals with during a stress incident.
Unlike our ancestors who could flee or fight stress, modern humanity must deal with stress internally or externally. One cannot flee a job or fight the customer but must deal with the everyday stresses. This leads to chronic stress that modern humanity is not evolved to deal with. So ultimately, it comes down to how one views life, reframes stressors and reacts.
Stress is all about the stressor and the stress response. If someone is stressed in the a traffic jam, he can scream, yell and honk the horn, or take the time to listen to music or reflect on the day. If someone is watching a sporting event, they can become intensely stressed or enjoy the game for the love of the game itself. Ultimately, how one reacts to a stressor depends on the uniqueness of the individual. Life is not about avoiding stress, for no stress is not living and not healthy in and of itself. Instead, life is about sorting out stressors and dealing with the most important ones. One needs to learn to cope with stress by reducing the degree and duration of the stressor event. In doing so, one can limit the natural effects of stress on the body and its natural reactions to stress.
Stress if not controlled can have negative effects on the body due to the body’s own inherent fight or flight responses. Please also review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Program
Ultimately it is one’s health that is on the line. By understanding how the body internally responds to stress, one can see the bodily reactions, which in themselves are healthy in the moment but unhealthy in extreme degree and long duration. Learning to sort out un-needed stress, reframing situations and utilizing stress management concepts such as meditation, one can then reduce the physical reactions within the body to stress.
If you would like to learn more about AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Certification, then please review AIHCP’s Stress Management Program and see if it matches your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study and designed to help qualified professionals meet the standards of AIHCP for the four year certification.
In the meantime, limit stress and learn to cope better with stress for one’s own physical well being.
Stress causes numerous health issues in life and knowing how to manage it is key. One simple way to manage stress and reduce its impact is through smiling and humor. Studies have shown that humor and laughing are big stress reducers. Learning how to reframe stress and control it through humor can help one get through the day and limit the negative effects of stress on the body.
When stress approaches, are we able to reframe it and find humor in it? Please also review our Stress Management Consulting Certification
The article, “How to Use Humor to Manage Stress” by Dr Clay Drinko takes a closer look at the value of humor in dealing with stress. He states,
“Humor starts to come into play when we start reframing our stressors. You probably can’t reject everything that causes you stress. You are an adult and there are certain things you have to do. That’s when you can try to reframe them.”
Humor is a great medicine and by learning how to react to stressors and reframe them, we can then be able to react differently in a more healthy fashion.
Creating a new paradigm in life is difficult. We are trapped and stuck in the routine mud of life. Many people are held back by beliefs and values that may no longer fit their life style. Others may be unhappy and incapable of change. Stress will continue to eat at the soul of individuals who are unable to change. Grief, depression, stress, anxiety and unfulfilled ideals will force a person to a early grave. It is imperative, if unhappy and overly stressed, to find one’s values for a better life and incorporate positive changes.
Stress can sidetrack life goals. If stress is dictating your life, it is time to re-evaluate your values and work towards a new life paradigm. Please also review AICHP’s Stress Management Consulting Program
Any first step to change is a commitment to that change. It involves writing down one’s values and beliefs and creating a true mission statement of one’s life and where they wish to go in life. Sometimes to better understand oneself, one can meditate upon what others would say about oneself. A co-worker and what they think of your work ethic, your strengths and weaknesses, as well as family and friends. What do you think your image is outside your own sometimes biased self? What is your diet, your exercise habits, your strengths, weaknesses and overall values?
Understanding this is critical in applying the needed changes to one’s life and reducing stress. One needs to work on this change, find obstacles and stressors to it and implement better coping strategies and plans to become what your goal may be. One should choose one thing at a time in this process. Choose one weakness or vice, or stressor and work on it.
J. B. Cunningham in his “The Stress Management Sourcebook” looks at ways to free oneself from the mud of life and overcome stress. He lists 8 primary principles to create a new paradigm and find better meaning in life and reduce stress.
The first principle is “changing the dragon within you”. Cunningham alludes to first developing a positive spin on things. A positive disposition that replaces negative values. This new way of outlook is critical the creation of a new paradigm. It returns to the old adage of making lemon aide when life gives one lemons.
The second principle is controlling your organization. Whether the job is menial or meaningful, find deeper meaning within an organization. While this is more difficult with some jobs and may require new career moves, it still can be utilized temporarily. Look to learn new things, promote goals within oneself and reach those goals. This can be applied to a job, or merely everyday life at home. Home, school or work can apply.
Third, Cunningham addresses the importance of establishing winning relationships. Relationships and how we deal with other people are key elements in what our life is will be like. It is critical to avoid negative relationships and reduce the toxicity they produce in one’s life. It is important to find better support systems as well as be able to communicate and share life’s successes and failures.
Life can overtake one and make it feel one has no control. One needs to take control of one’s stressors and create a new paradigm
The fourth principle is enriching one’s job, career, or schooling. Learning and gaining experience is a valuable thing no matter the situation.
The fifth principle is controlling one’s life’s trials and tribulations. One can fall and not get up or learn from past failures. Avoiding failures and not learning from them can keep one in a pit of despair and loss. One must be able to cope better with stress and deal with the issues at hand.
Principle six deals with our diet. Diet is a key factor in stress and health. Better diets and eating habits can prevent stress and help the body become more immune to disease and illness. Fats, salts, and sugars can destroy the body over time. Combined with stress, they can tear the body down. It is critical to find time to create a better diet and a better healthy paradigm to reduce stress and be more healthy.
Principle seven deals with another part of healthy life style and that is exercise. Exercise can reduce stress. However, it is important to not create routines that one cannot keep. It is also important not to create regiments that are unhealthy on the body. Some individuals cannot endure heavy exercise while others can. So the proper exercise for the particular person is critical for their own health and stress reduction. Like diets, exercise can quickly fade when one attempts to do too much.
The final principle is interior health and deals with spirituality and meditation. Meditation and prayer is important to overcoming stress. It allows the mind to reset and opens one up to higher truths beyond the stress filled temporal ones. Meditation not only clears the mind but also pushes one towards higher values that help make the everyday life have meaning. One can also apply other alternative techniques such as self hypnosis or other spiritual methods to better understand oneself. This is all critical in stress management.
Ultimately, reducing stress and creating a new paradigm involves one taking an active and direct part in changing one’s life. It allows one to play an important part in one’s future. The reduction of stress is dependent upon one’s willingness to overcome the fear of change and the anxiety that goes with it.
One can take control of one’s life and find new meaning if they are face change. Please also review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Program and see if it meets your academic and professional needs.
If you would like to learn more about Stress Management or would like to become certified as a Stress Management Consultant, then please review the program and see if it matches your academic and professional goals. The Stress Management Consulting Program is independent study and online. After completing the core courses, qualified professionals can apply for the four year certification.
When stress strikes, we respond with fight or flight mentalities. We hence physically emit certain physical characteristics with the emotion associated with it. If one can breathe properly, they can reduce stress. They correlate the breathing patterns associated with less stressful emotions. This in turn can fool the mind into a more relaxed state.
How we breathe and refocus during stress plays a large role in how our body responds to stress. Please also review our Stress Management Consulting Program
The article, “Research: Why Breathing Is So Effective at Reducing Stress” by Emma Seppälä , Christina Bradley and Michael R. Goldstein look at how studies show that better breathing can help reduce stress. They state,
“Research shows that different emotions are associated with different forms of breathing, and so changing how we breathe can change how we feel. For example, when you feel joy, your breathing will be regular, deep and slow. If you feel anxious or angry, your breathing will be irregular, short, fast, and shallow. When you follow breathing patterns associated with different emotions, you’ll actually begin to feel those corresponding emotions.”
Please also review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Program to learn more about how one can reduce stress and utilize breathing as an effective strategy in reducing stress.
Worker burnout is a big issue in today’s work field. It can range from dissatisfaction of a job due to mundane chores to the opposite of overload and over specialized tasks. It can occur due to poor personal relations with other employees and managers. It can occur due to poor job descriptions and task goals. Finally it can be due to lack of overall content with the job due to lack of advancement or security.
Worker burnout is due to chronic stress. Han Seyle, the father of stress study, emphasized that stressors can negatively affect the organism. In doing, so the organism responds with a fight or flight response. In agrarian communities, this was a far simpler response. In prehistoric times, one could face a larger predator such a saber tooth tiger, or flee. In modern day, minor stresses, although less fatal acutely can become fatal on a chronic level because employees cannot fight or flight. An employee facing a difficult customer, or a demanding manager, or an over loaded office desk, cannot externalize the frustration or flee the scene. Instead, stress is internalized and becomes toxic without an outlet.
Worker Burnout is a reality in the modern day work paradigm. Please also review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Program
During the stress encounter, Seyle pointed out that organisms react in three phases. The first phase, is alarm. This phase prepares the body for fight or flight. The heart pumps more blood, blood pressure increases, the body excretes adrenaline, and organs release sugar to burn. Temporarily, this prepares the body for action. It gives the body more focus, more energy and an ability to react. However, when this alarm is constantly on, it can cause health issues, especially when there is no way to externally release the stress.
The second phase is resistance. In this stage, the person is not able to fight or flight, and is forced to deal with the stressor. Anger and frustration can emerge in these cases.
The third phase is exhaustion. In this phase, the raw emotion is gone and the person succumbs to the stress. The person may in this phase exhibit burnout. Burnout syndrome is caused by prolonged chronic stress. Burnout though has two elements. Some become constantly angry and easily frustrated while others become detached and depressed. Burnout is ultimately a sign that one has no control over the stressors that ate tormenting them. One becomes powerless.
In preventing burnout, it is essential that one identifies issues that could lead it to it. One acronym that helps individuals become more positive about stress is OPEN. Open looks to rethink the way we look at stressors and stress.
O represents opportunities. One should look at their position and look at the opportunities associated with it instead of the negatives.
P represents positives. One should look at the positive elements of one’s work or place in life
E represents environment. One should look at the environmental issues at work and see how they can be better faced and create better productivity. Stressors can help us show what is wrong with something and create better responses.
N represents negative. One should identify the negatives of a job or position and see how they can become less impactful. How can one face the negatives and reduce stress? This is the key element of looking at the negatives.
In addition, stress reduction goes beyond the individual’s attempts to reduce but also at the organizational level. Better organizations can lessen the chance of burnout among employees. Over taxing jobs or under stimulating jobs, while opposite extremes, can produce stress and create burnout. In assessing this, organizations need to see where more balance can be produced for employees. Employees with more balance see less burnout.
The Job Diagnosis Index looks at a few critical points in a job that lessens burnout. Does the position hold skill variety? Does it possess task identity as well as task significance? Does it offer some autonomy to the employee? And does it offer feedback from the others as well managers regarding the position and how things are done? When positions lack a variety different tasks and became over mechanized, the employee may burnout from boredom, or feeling of lack of significance. When an employee feels zero autonomy they feel enslaved and free from expression or innovation. And finally, when an employee is not given feed back or allowed to express concerns, then the position can truly become stagnant.
Positions without task variance, task identity, significance, employee autonomy and employee and manager feedback are more likely to lead to burnout
Positions with clear cut mandates, significance, variances in tasks, autonomy with less strict oversight, and communication between management and feedback from staff, experience less burnout. Team work, team orientated goals, autonomy and communication are key in reducing burnout. Keeping the position challenging but not over tasked and preparing the training necessary can make the employee become one of the team instead of a step in the process.
Hence employers should offer task variety, provide task identity and offer some autonomy with feedback and discussion. Beyond these basics, job enrichment can also be amplified through increased responsibilities, opportunities for advancement and job security. With an umbrella of communication and structural support, a better job position can be created that reduces stress and pushes one to do better in more healthy environment.
Some positions, such as nurses, waitresses, customer service centers, social workers, and police offers find a more difficult time in dealing with these issues. They face a chronic criticism and deal with many situations that can tie their hands in how they respond to certain things. With better structural support as well as stress management skills, they can also better face the issues they deal with regarding the public.
Some individuals may be better equipped to handle stressors. They may be able to find outlets and also have the resources for support. Others may fall victim to burnout. Unfortunately in recent history, one can identify the stress for police officers as they come across difficult crowds due to policing policies that need reformed. The ability to handle the stress becomes internalized and chronic stress can lead to a break down.
Learning to create a better work environment is key to preventing burnout. Please also review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Program
Stress Management is critical in the modern world. With industrialization, one must deal with stress without being able to fight or flee it. Individuals are over worked or under challenged due to these new labor paradigms. In addition, jobs that deal with the public especially during the recent turmoil are pressing first responders. Stress Management remains an important skill set. Stress Manager Consultants can offer guidance to business, organizations and police stations. Stress Management Consultants can help employees and employers better deal with stressors and help create more conducive environments that limit chronic stress and prevent future burnout.
Please review AIHCP’s Stress Management Program and see if it matches your academic and professional goals.
Sources: “The Stress Management Sourcebook” by J. Barton Cunningham, PhD
Stress can manifest from many things. It can manifest from situations but also from relationships. Relationships can range from work to home to personal to romantic. Whenever people exist, the chance for conflict can exist. Conflict in itself is not bad but can become stressful when not properly resolved. Individuals need to learn about each other to reduce potential stress and infighting from differences and conflict.
Different personalities in any relationship can create conflict. It is important to see the value of conflict in better resolutions and not allow stress and disagreement to cause damage to relationships
Personality A and Personality B in themselves can cause issues but if we look deeper, we can find more indepth differences between people that result in conflict. People are different at large scales and when these differences in values or expressions manifest at work or in a relationship, they can produce conflict. In properly understanding other people and seeking to find solutions and compromises through questions, one can better resolve conflicts and produce beneficial results from them.
Karl Jung looked at differences in people as a source of stress from four conflicting personality traits.
The first was between extroverts and introverts. Extroverts naturally are more outgoing. They seek to meet new people, surround themselves with others socially and partake in activities. They are quicker to move and respond. Introverts on the contrary are less outgoing. They find discomfort being around multiple people and seek to avoid festivities. Introverts find more joy alone. They move more slowly. With 75 percent of the population extrovert, there is less chance to come into contact with introverts but it does occur. At work, extroverts and introverts can find conflict in how their personalities seek to resolve issues. Extroverts can reduce stress with introverts by encouraging them, while introverts can slow extroverts down through questioning.
Thinking or feeling? Which one do you utilize more in problem resolution?
The second preference is intuitive people and sensing people. Sensing people approach problems more analytically and search for facts before making decisions, while intuitive people relay on gut feelings. Sensing people systematically approach a situation while intuitive people may jump from place to place. The conflict is very understandable. 75 percent of the population is sensing, while 25 percent is intuitive. Both personalities need to see the merit of each other to solve the problem as a whole.
Different personalities react differently to conflict. It is important to know what personality traits you possess
The third preference is judging and perceiving. Judging people are very objective while perceiving individuals are very subjective. Judging individuals will have a set plan while perceiving are more flexible and adaptable. Judging personalities wish to complete tasks and move on, while perceived personalities do not like to be rushed. This flexible and inflexible conflict can lead to stress unless both parties seek common ground and understanding.
The fourth preference is thinking and feeling. Many individuals make decisions based logical decision making instead of making decisions based on feelings. Emotions are critical in processing a decision for a feeler, while logic is more important for a thinker. Most men are thinkers and most women are feelers. Thinkers tackle situations with the term, “I think we should…” while feelers approach problems with the term “I feel we should…” While thinkers are cut off from feeling which is important, many feelers are stressed when making decisions due to immense emotion.
When looking for conflict resolution with less stress and great productivity, it is important that one identifies differences in people. If one can understand their own personality traits and that of whom they are working with, then conflict has a greater chance to be resolved. When one does not identify, then conflict has a greater chance of leading to stress and more problems.
Many individuals enter into conflict with more emotion than logic and set values. Sometimes the values or perceived sense of rules are even greater than the issue itself. It is important to understand each other and not allow extreme emotional responses to overtake.
It is far more than merely identifying differences of personality but also creating a integrative plan to find resolution. This involves four facets.
First, a healthy relationship must be established. This relationship must set ground rules and establish guidelines.
Second, there needs to be a clear statement of how each party feels.
Third, common goals must be established
Finally, a determination of range of alternatives and compromises must be established between the two parties.
Conflict can go either way but by establishing these guidelines, resolution has a far greater chance of success. Sometimes, however, no matter how hard we try, conflict cannot be resolved. Difficult and uncompromising people exist. When identifying difficult people, it is important to have a support group that you can trust and never stop working within your values. When one realizes they are dealing with the difficult personality, it is best to avoid confrontation and when forced to work with such an individual to pose more questions to them than declarative statements.
Conflict resolution requires common ground and mutual understanding of each other.
Ultimately, balance is key in everything. If one discovers they are too extrovert, they may wish to work on incorporating some introvert values, or if one is to rigid and judging, they may wish to balance that with more flexibility from time to time. Balance within oneself creates harmony but when working with others who value differently, we should sometimes try to see them as the balance we may need to make a better decision.
If you would like to learn more about Stress Management or would like to become a certified Stress Management Consultant then please review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Certification Program and see if it matches your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study for qualified professionals seeking to learn more in this important field of Stress Management.
To learn more about managing stress and reducing conflict, please review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Certification
Please also view our Anger Management Consulting Program. This program also contains vital information for stress reduction and conflict resolution between differing personalities.
The workplace itself is a great source of stress. The workplace has the ability to turn Type B personalities into Type A personalities. Workplaces that are more competitive, stressful, intensely quota oriented, and with poor management, can lead to high level of stress and stress related deaths.
Workplace stress is a big killer among many Americans.
Some workplaces are far more peaceful but work itself must have some level of stress. It is essential to have goals and meet certain standards, but without moderation, stress and anxiety can emerge. It is important to be balanced but unfortunately, it is difficult to find the perfect career that is balanced. In some cases, they can be found, but ultimately, many deal with some types of stress in the workplace. Whether its the workload, dissatisfaction, management, or inter personal relations, stress can quickly overload into family and personal life.
Type A workplace environments are best listed with these qualities. First, tasks are either extremely overloading or not enough. Second, goals are unclear or even unrealistic to achieve. Third, one’s career can be blocked towards future advancement or self fulfillment. Finally, the hierarchy or management may seem unresponsive in meeting the needs of employees. (1) A Type B workplace on other hand has clear priorities and no worker ambiguity. Goals are clear and one’s career can develop and advance. Finally, management is responsive to needs of employees.
Work overload is one of the biggest issues of stress. It has the potential to kill yet individuals with this type of “battle fatigue” slug forward without noticing the mental and physical tear. These individuals work longer than 40 hours a week, bring work home with them, and find little time for relaxation.
Work overload is a key issue in many type A careers. Please also review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Program
Goals are also a source of stress. Sometimes in workplaces, goals are so far fetched or unclear that they are impossible to meet. The goals may be unable to be met due to lack of proper training, or due to lack of time. It is important to reduce stress that management defines objectives in a clear way and enables their team to meet those objectives with proper training or appropriate time.
Careers without meaning can also become a source of stress. While everyone at some point has worked a meaningless job from time to time, no greater stress can be found when one works a meaningless job for a long period of time with no end in sight. A person’s career or lack of career can become a huge source of anxiety and stress. As one hits middle age, one looks to see where they are going and where they have been. When one does not meet his or her expectations, then stress can set it.
One needs to identify dead end jobs or careers and see how change can be implemented. Is the dead-end due to to the organization itself? Is it due to one’s lack of involvement within the organization? Essentially, what is the source of one’s lack of advancement. Is it the employee or the company? Furthermore, one can look outside of the company to meet needs through hobbies, as well as volunteer programs or education.
Unrealistic goals without the proper amount of time or training can be a great source of stress for employees. Please also review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Certification
How management responds to the needs of their employees is also key. Some management teams and organizations are bureaucratic and apply rules and regulations over common sense and oral discussion. These types of organizations become more impersonal. This creates a divide between the company and employee.
When employees cannot control part of their job or have a reasonable understanding of what to expect, it can negatively affect morale and work performances. Unresponsive, impersonal and ambiguous management can cause unneeded stress on a workforce and affect output.
Stress Management Consultants are utilized to address these organizational issues for many firms and companies. Companies in the 21st century are finally realizing that stress not only kills employees and costs them millions of dollars annually on disability, but that it also affects morale and output. Output can be increased by creating a more Style B company plan. It is essential that employees are treated with dignity and respect. Not all employees are good people but if companies reduce stress, the reward of output from most employees will outweigh any negatives.
Companies can work within their Human Resource Department and implement various stress management policies to help reduce discontent and increase mental well being. This in turn can increase output and save cost. Companies can hire experts in stress management or have their own HR department become certified in stress management techniques that can be utilized in the workplace and also applied to company goals and standards.
Companies need to help employees succeed with better stress management in mind. Stress kills output and companies should seek to limit stress as much as possible for their employees
If you would like to learn more about stress management or would like to become certified through AIHCP in Stress Management Consulting, then please review the program and see if it matches your academic and professional goals.
The Stress Management Sourcebook by J Barton Cunningham (PhD)
Stress greatly depends on one’s personality. Personality plays a key role in how we interpret stressors and how we react to stresses. Certain characteristics and personalities are more conducive to stress and its ill effects.
Personality A is a type of personality that is more proactive, hyperaggressive, easily frustrated, impatient and assertive. One can vary within it. One can be on the higher end or the lower end of it. The important reality is that one identifies it as a higher stress prone personality and how one responds to these more natural impulses.
Personality A in work or home life is very consumed and competitive in life. The personality wants to accomplish as much as possible with limited time. It has a difficult time enjoying accomplishments, but judges them and looks for more. It finds little time to relax the mind. It finds competition with others and expects more out of others. Due to this, is is also prone to quicker frustration, as well as less patience in its everyday dealings.
Personality A is very hyper goal orientated but with balance it can help one be very productive. Please also review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Certification
Stemming from this also is a perfectionism that goes beyond doing a good job but looks for impossible levels that cannot be reached. Due to this, many with Type A Personality are all in and when something goes wrong, they can binge to the opposite extreme. It also pushes one to overtly dependent on self with little trust upon others. Internal and external balance for achievement is in flux.
Believe it or not, this may look confident from the outside, but in fact, most Personality A also have low self-esteem. They need external approval and measure success by completed goals and achievements instead of one’s self.
Many individuals are Type A personality or share in the competitive and sometimes aggressive spirit. They have impatience and easy frustration and may exhibit lower self esteem deep down, but many are able to identify these impulses and alter them. They can use the impulses, much like OCD, or even ADHD, and utilize them for the good they create but not allow it to dominate them. Of course, the more severe the trait, the harder it is to be more relaxed, easier going, but balance is always the key.
Spirituality, a moral compass, and a objective conviction can also ground a personality driven by A. It can lessen the necessity of materialism and help one focus on the family and the soul.
Noone fits completely in one type of group. One may possess certain characteristics and not others within a personality trait but if one possesses enough traits and feels enough of the trait’s impulses, then one should be aware of it and know what it entails. In knowing this, one can better cope with one’s natural inclinations and live a more balanced and spiritual life.
Managing stress and having good health is essential to managing a Type Personality A. One can utilize the good drives that come from it but also manage the excess that can be found it. Balance is key.
If you would like to learn more about Stress Management Consulting, then please review AIHCP’s Stress Management Consulting Certification and see if it meets your academic and professional goals.
