Occupational Stress and your lightbulb

I’m taking a Stress Management class through the college. I figured if I need a class then that’s the one. The interesting thing is that I’m having problems coming up with stuff for the stress journals. Life is good right now. Every so often there is an “OH GOSH!” moment but I’ve learned, overall, how to deal with them.

The latest lesson was on Occupational Stress. Ah, lovely beast how we love thee!

Role Problems as a Cause for Occupational Stress

• Role Overload: Job demands are so great that the worker feels in inability to cope
• Role Insufficiency: Workers lack the training to do it
• Role Ambiguity: Aspects of the job and workplace are unclear. Workers should know the criteria for career advancement and what is expected of them
• Role Conflict: Two supervisors each expect something different. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

My Lightbulb is Getting Dim! (How burnout develops)

• Stage one (the honeymoon): Worker is satisfied and remains enthusiastic. As this stage continues, the tasks become unenjoyable and the worker loses energy.
• Stage two (fuel shortage): Fatigue sets in. Difficulty sleeping is a symptom.
• Stage three (chronic symptoms): Overwork leads to physical effects that include constant exhaustion and susceptibility to disease and psychological effects that include acute anger and feelings of depression.
• Stage four (crisis): Actual illness can develop that results in the worker not being able to attend the job.
• Stage five (hitting the wall): Severe enough to cause illness that is life threatening. Worker now has so many problems at work that his or her career is actually threatened.

They have a nice quiz in there about how to tell if you have brownout/burnout. But what’s most important is the list of what to do about it! I love when they not only show you how to recognize the symptoms but to help deal with it. Gives me a warm fuzzy.

Get a New Lightbulb!

• “What do I work for?” - Make a list of what your motivations are. Money? The people? The time away from the house?
• “I really want to do that.” - What activities do you like? What do you like most? Least? When was the last time you did that?
• “Create a support group.” - Gather the masses. Vent. Bond. Bring cookies.
• “Start a physical self-care program.” Get thee to a gym! Fuel your body with the good stuff. They list “elimination of destructive habits such as smoking.” I like that. “destructive habits.” We have many of those, don’t we?
• “Do something silly every day.” - Guess it’s time to be the clown at the party! Or at least come out of one’s shell enough to open oneself up to making a fool of oneself. Oh noes!

Need More Input!

• Job Stress Network: The purpose of this site is to bring together, for public dissemination, information about and related to Job Strain and Work Stress.
• OSH: Work Stress: What’s work stress with examples and how to deal with it.