Articles

Procrastination is both a cause of stressful situations and a symptom of #stress: If you keep putting things off you are likely to get stressed, as you get more and behind on your duties. If you are feeling bad because you are stressed, you might do something more fun than your tasks, and thereby procrastinate, in order not to have to deal with the situation. For a long time procrastination has been seen as a Time Management issue.

Bill is a manager of a department of 50 people in a SME. For the last few months a project involving most of his department has been quite busy, forcing many employees to work overtime a few days a week. Bill knows that many of the employees in the department have therefore started their workdays earlier than normal, taken care of their kids in the early evening and then worked a few more hours after having put the kids to bed.

I am currently digging into the topic of employee and team resilience for a client. (More on this topic will follow.) Resilience is a trait that will benefit you as it helps you manage an ever changing and often uncertain, complex, and ambiguous work environment. Research has shown that how resilient an employee is, is heavily dependent on his or her personality, positive personality traits are important, as well as the work environment and culture of the company they work for.

Recently I published a short article titled “5 short things everyone should know about Burnout” and got two questions in return that I am answering in one article each. Last week I answered the question “Do we tend to blame stress on the workplace regardless of what is going on in our private lives?”. If you haven’t read that article yet I highly recommend that you do so, as it is closely connected to this one.

Recently I published a short article titled “5 short things everyone should know about Burnout” and got two questions in return that I am going to answer in one article each. Question One: Do we tend to blame stress on the workplace regardless of what is going on in our private lives? I am sorry to have to say that I have no well-founded answer to this question. This is a question where I haven’t been able to find any research to support a claim in either direction.

On more than one occasion during my work life I have been under pressure and in a stressful situation. Being a self-sufficient and independent person, I never want to burden my colleagues with my shortcomings, as I would see it, regardless of the reason for the pressure. So, I put my head down and somehow miraculously plough my way through it. The ploughing tends to require me starting work at the crack of dawn, eating lunch and dinner at my desk and working well past midnight, if not through the night.

In article 1-4 we have explored what it means to be stressed, how to recognise stress in yourself and others as well as at some health risks that comes with work-related stress. Now we will look at what can be done by you and your organisation. If you or a co-worker is already suffering from symptoms of stress related illnesses such as forgetfulness, difficulty planning, light-headedness or tummy issues, there is need for so called tertiary interventions.

In article 1-3 we have explored what it means to be stressed and how to recognise stress in yourself and others. Now we will look at a general overview of what health risks that comes with work-place stress. When you are stressed the risk of you developing unhealthy behaviours is increased. Common such behaviours are heavy alcohol consumption, no exercise, eating a lot of unhealthy food, and taking up or increasing the use of tobacco or drugs.

In my last article I talked about how you can recognise stress in your self. But perhaps it is not you who are stressed, but a co-worker? Would you recognise if your co-workers are stressed? As you are not as likely to know how your co-worker is feeling a good start is to look at their behaviour: They might be complaining of headaches, muscle tensions and/or pains, indigestion, dizziness fatigue and problems sleeping.