Stress and Anxiety in the Workplace
At some point in their lives virtually everyone will experience stressful events or situations that overwhelm their natural coping mechanisms. Stress can be a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily and mental tension (Baron, 1999). It is the body's response to the mounting pressures that compel the mind to operate. Stress generally results from exposure that one will encounter possibly everyday. The most common form of stress is that related to work (Wellness Checkpoint, 1998). Each person has an equilibrium and it is often interrupted by an event or situation that may result in poor performance. Though some people see the pressure as a motivator, more and more are recognizing it as an inescapable drain on their energy. Believe it or not, stress not only affects your performance on the job, but it can also affect your well-being. Health is something that gets emphasized more and more each day. We all want to be healthy and we all want to do whatever we can to get that way and stay that way. You may think that being healthy is all about physical appearance, like your weight, but it also relates to the mental aspect as well. A person's mentality often determines their efficiency and effectiveness.
Many have conducted research in order to come up with ways that will decrease the amount of stress and anxiety. Though each person reacts to stress in a different way, everyone has to deal with its negative effects. It's important to be able to recognize what stress and anxiety really is. Once that is established, it is much easier to treat it. Researching different behavior types is one way that doctors can determine what might trigger it and how those types of people cope with it ("Connect to Wellness," 1996). It is important to respond to stress, if not, it can lead to physical problems like high blood pressure, which in time may lead to heart disease or a stroke. Many things can arise due to stress and will only get worse if nothing is done to help reduce it. Since it causes many to miss consecutive days of work, it is now looked on to be more as an illness (Baron, 1999). Most illnesses can be treated with a prescribed medicine or antibiotic. However, stress and anxiety is not something that you can see a doctor for and expect it to go away by popping a couple pills. Of course it may be decreased with anti-depressants, if that is the case. [That is more of a chemical imbalance though, not what I'm researching]. But if we're looking at stress from a "normal" person's perspective, it is usually a result of a person's environment, physical activity, personal habits, and even the people that surround them. The purpose of this study is to identify with the signs that result from such change. These are what drive our minds to "go crazy." The study enables individuals with similar behaviors and tolerances to compare and contrast their reactions to stress and anxiety while working. Certain behaviors may indicate what lies in the future for some. Those who tend to over react in situations due to stress are more inclined to develop harmful behaviors, such as, alcoholism, obesity, drug addictions, and cigarette smoking (Ellis, 1999). You know this is an important issue when the U.S. Public Health Service has made reducing stress by the year 2000 one of its major health promotion goals (U.S Public Health Service, 1999). Employers, insurers, and public health authorities share a concern that more needs to be done to deal with the issue. One problem they face is measuring the extent to which stress is rising in any organization before it gets to the point of being chronic or pathological. This can be done by using the Organizational Stress Audit (OSA). The OSA is
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1683
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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