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What is Stress - stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize

The behavioral effects of an over-stressed lifestyle are easy to explain. When under pressure, some people are more likely to drink heavily or smoke, as a way of getting immediate chemical relief from stress.

Others may have so much work to do that they do not exercise or eat properly. They may cut down on sleep, or may worry so much that they sleep badly. They may get so carried away with work and meeting daily pressures that they do not take time to see the doctor or dentist when they need to. All of these are likely to harm health.

The direct physiological effects of excessive stress are more complex. In some areas they are well understood, while in other areas, they are still subject to debate and further research.

Stress is also associated with mental health problems and, in particular, anxiety and depression. Here the relationship is fairly clear: the negative thinking that is associated with stress also contributes to these.

The direct effects of stress in other areas of health are still under debate. In some areas (for example in the formation of stomach ulcers) diseases traditionally associated with stress are now attributed to other causes.

Regular exercise can reduce your physiological reaction to stress. It also strengthens your heart and increases the blood supply to it, directly affecting your vulnerability to heart disease.

Although this site focuses mainly on stress and work performance, many of the tools and techniques within it will help you manage stresses that would otherwise adversely affect your health. However, if you suspect that you are prone to stress-related illness, or if you are in any doubt about the state of your health, you should consult appropriate medical advice immediately. Keep in mind that stress management is only part of any solution to stress-related illness.

Take stress seriously!

With this in mind, we can now look at how you can manage all of the stresses that your career will bring.

From our definition, you can see that there are three major approaches that we can use to manage stress:

Action-oriented: In which we seek to confront the problem causing the stress, changing the environment or the situation;
Emotionally-oriented: In which we do not have the power to change the situation, but we can manage stress by changing our interpretation of the situation and the way we feel about it; and
Acceptance-oriented: Where something has happened over which we have no power and no emotional control, and where our focus is on surviving the stress.
Action-oriented approaches - best where you have some control

To be able to take an action-oriented approach, we must have some power in the situation. If we do, then action-oriented approaches are some of the most satisfying and rewarding ways of managing stress. These are techniques that we can use to manage and overcome stressful situations, changing them to our advantage.

The early sections on the navigation bar to the left focus on action-oriented coping. These sections introduce skills that help you to manage your job actively, work well with your boss and co-workers, and change your surroundings to eliminate environmental stress. The Action-oriented sections of this site are:

• Cope with the Stress of Work Overload
• Survive the Stress of Problem Jobs
• Deal With Problem People
• Manage Environmental Stress
• Manage Performance Stress
• Avoid Burnout
• Emotionally-oriented approaches - subtle but effective

If you do not have the power to change a situation, then you may be able to reduce stress by changing the way you look at it, using an emotionally-oriented approach.

Emotionally-oriented approaches are often less attractive than action-oriented approaches in that the stresses can recur time and again; however, they are useful and effective in their place. The section on Reducing Stress With Rational Thinking explains some useful techniques for getting another perspective on difficult situations.

Acceptance-oriented approaches - when there's no valid alternative...

Sometimes, we have so little power in a situation that all we can do to survive it. This is the case, for example, when loved-ones die.

In these situations, often the first stage of coping with the stress is to accept one’s lack of power. The section on Defenses Against Stress looks at building the buffers against stress that help you through these difficult periods. Arguably, the section on Useful Relaxation Techniques also falls into this category.

These different approaches to stress management address our definition of stress in different ways: the action-oriented techniques help us to manage the demands upon us and increase the resources we can mobilize; the emotionally oriented techniques help us to adjust our perceptions of the situation; and the acceptance-oriented techniques help us survive the situations that we genuinely cannot change.