Debilitating Effects of Office Stress

In today's difficult economy when jobs are harder to come by, quitting your job over office stress is probably not the best option available to you. With more and more companies completing layoffs and cutbacks, there are fewer people to do the same or more work. Not to mention that companies may not be offering the same level of benefits that they were five years ago. When office stress happens, you need to be able to manage it in a manner that saves your sanity AND your job!

It is no surprise that workers report office stress as the number one cause of problems at work.  Office stress is caused by a variety of factors, but the majority of these factors can be controlled to some extent by either the employee, the employer, or both.  

• Bad worldwide economy leading to more cutbacks and layoffs
  
• Layoffs are stressful for the people remaining at a company as they have to deal with changing job descriptions and likely a higher workload for the same amount of pay
  
• Cubicle living leaves no room for privacy and no space to move around while you are working
  
• Increasing demands leaving you to feel overloaded with no control over whether or not you can actually do the amount of work assigned within your work hours
  
• Not feeling like management supports you
  
• Lack of control of how you do your work
  
• Stress over being asked to do tasks that you aren't trained in and don't receive support for
  
• Not being able to work flex time to take care of family needs and emergencies that can't be dealt with outside of the traditional 8-5 office hours
  
• Threat of violence or harassment in the office
  

Being overstressed at work often leads to a break down in communication with your supervisor – especially if you view him or her as the cause of most of your office stress. While it is true that there are both good and bad types of stress, the office stress described above is definitely not good. Employees under these types of stress will be less enthusiastic about their work which leads to a decline in performance. This isn't typically good for you or for the company as most people genuinely want to put in a good days work but the amount of office stress prevents then from being able to do that.

Stress itself can lead to a whole host of physical and mental ailments. The body's immediate stress response that everyone experiences includes increasing blood pressure, increased heart rate and breathing rate, decreasing ability to process proteins, decreased immune system responses, increasing cholesterol and fatty acids in the blood stream, increasing production of blood sugar for energy, increasing stomach acids, and quicker blood clotting. For a short term threat, these are a good thing – they are the physical manifestation of the fight-or-flight tendency and prepare the body to do whatever is necessary for survival. Office stress, on the other had, is not a short term situation, and when your body's systems are constantly in this fight or flight stance, it will lead to long term consequences.

Physical Signs:

• frequent headaches
  
• suddenly finding yourself grinding your teeth or clenching your jaws, also known as bruxism
  
• not being able to sleep
  
• being ill frequently
  
• high blood pressure
  
• racing or pounding heart beat
  
• feeling short of breath
  
• constant muscle pain
  
• indigestion or developing ulcers
  
• experiencing constipation or diarrhea
  
• increased sweating
  
• fatigue that won't go away with rest
  

Mental/Emotional Signs:

• feeling anxious
  
• increased irritability, defensiveness, or anger
  
• mood swings
  
• not caring anymore about your work
  
• feeling trapped, helpless, or hopeless
  
• experiencing panic attacks
  
• dreading going to work
  
• hypersensitivity
  

Behavior Signs:

• increased use of drugs, alcohol, or tobacco
  
• withdrawal from friends and family
  
• neglecting your usual responsibilities
  
• poor job performance
  
• being quick to start arguments
  

These signs do not all happen once and don't happen for everyone. But they do get progressively worse, requiring more aggressive changes or treatments depending on then length and amount of stress experienced. There is an excellent chart located here for the different phases of office stress and the actions that will be needed to correct the situation at each phase. Prevention and early treatment always have the best outcomes.

Experiencing office stress is not a weakness in character, its a fact of the way business is done today in many companies. Some of the best ways that you can cope are to learn to be more assertive and communicate your limits with your supervisor – especially if you have too much work for the time you have or the work is not something you have been trained for. If your supervisor is not willing to discuss an alternative plan with you when you bring up legitimate concerns in an assertive (NOT aggressive) manner, this is a much more difficult situation to deal with. You may have to resort to his or her supervisor or your HR department, and if that still doesn't work then changing positions or companies may be your best option. Office stress is one of the largest contributers to lost time at work, and companies that aren't willing to face it head on and have a business plan in place to deal with it will continue to be the worst places to work for.