
- •Overcoming Your Workplace Stress
- •Overcoming Your Workplace Stress
- •Martin r. Bamber
- •About the author
- •Preface
- •Acknowledgements
- •The ‘fight or flight’ response
- •Harmful stress
- •The consequences of harmful stress on the individual
- •The consequences of harmful stress for the organization
- •Conceptualizing stress
- •The ‘camera analogy’
- •The emergency response
- •Changes in thinking
- •Changes in motivation
- •Changes in emotion
- •Changes in behaviour
- •The development of stress syndromes
- •Dispelling some myths about stress
- •Answers for the stress quiz (Table 1.1) Statement 1
- •Statement 2
- •Statement 3
- •Statement 4
- •Statement 5
- •Statement 6
- •Statement 7
- •Statement 8
- •Statement 9
- •Statement 10
- •Statement 11
- •Statement 12
- •Statement 13
- •Statement 14
- •Statement 15
- •Statement 16
- •How well did you do in the quiz?
- •How stressed are you?
- •A stress checklist
- •Scoring and interpreting the checklist (Table 1.2)
- •Summary
- •Chapter 2
- •Identifying the causes of your occupational stress
- •Introduction
- •An overview of the causes of occupational stress
- •Individual factors
- •Genetic/inherited factors
- •Acquired/learned factors
- •Personality/trait factors
- •Factors in the work environment
- •Job demands
- •Physical working conditions
- •Control
- •Supports
- •Relationships
- •Pay and career prospects
- •The home–work interface
- •The employer’s ‘duty of care’ to provide a healthy working environment Case study: Schmidt
- •The impact of employment legislation
- •Demands
- •Control
- •Support
- •Relationships
- •Further developments in management standards
- •Identifying the main causes of stress in your own working environment
- •Interpreting the results of your questionnaire (Table 2.1)
- •Interpreting individual items
- •Interpretation of subscales
- •Summary and main learning points from Part I
- •About Part II of this book
- •Primary level interventions
- •Secondary level interventions
- •Tertiary level interventions
- •Doing a job analysis
- •Case study: Tony
- •The benefits of doing a job analysis
- •Interventions aimed at reducing the demands of your job Reducing the volume of work
- •Enlarging your job
- •Enriching your job
- •Improving your physical working environment
- •Interventions aimed at increasing the control you have over your job
- •Interventions aimed at increasing the supports you have at work
- •Interventions aimed at improving working relationships
- •Gather evidence
- •Find allies to support you
- •Stand up to the bully
- •Present the bully with the evidence
- •Be prepared for the backlash
- •Take things further if necessary
- •Interventions aimed at clarifying your role at work
- •Interventions aimed at improving the way that change is managed in your workplace
- •Interventions aimed at improving the home–work interface
- •Some tips for negotiating with your employer
- •What to do if your line manager is not receptive to your plight
- •What to do if you do not get the problem resolved within your workplace organization
- •Chapter 4 Living a healthy lifestyle
- •Introduction
- •Living a healthy lifestyle
- •Regular exercise
- •Some tips for doing more exercise
- •A healthy diet
- •Some tips for eating more healthily
- •Monitoring food intake
- •Medication and other drugs
- •Alcohol
- •Some tips for reducing your alcohol intake
- •Caffeine
- •Nicotine
- •Some tips for stopping smoking
- •Sleep and rest
- •Some tips to help you sleep better
- •Summary
- •An exercise
- •Developing your own ‘Healthy Lifestyle Plan’
- •Chapter 5 Developing effective time management skills
- •Introduction
- •Case study: John
- •Case study: Peter
- •What can we learn from the case studies of John and Peter?
- •Developing effective time management skills Plan ahead
- •Be clear about what your goals are
- •Manage your diary effectively
- •Create some ‘prime time’ for yourself
- •Prepare for meetings
- •Choose the best time to tackle difficult tasks
- •Overcome procrastination
- •Case study: Jenny
- •What can we learn from the case study of Jenny?
- •Learn to delegate
- •Stay focused
- •Prioritize tasks
- •Be organized
- •Developing an action plan to manage your time more effectively
- •Chapter 6 Developing assertiveness skills What is assertiveness?
- •Why are some people unassertive?
- •What are the consequences of being unassertive?
- •Case study: Caroline
- •Case study: Rosie
- •How can you become more assertive?
- •Education
- •Aggressive behaviour
- •Submissive behaviour
- •Manipulative behaviour
- •Assertive behaviour
- •Knowing your rights
- •A ‘Bill of Rights’
- •What can we learn from the case study of Caroline?
- •Developing assertive attitudes
- •Developing assertive behaviours
- •Other useful assertiveness techniques to help you
- •Use the ‘broken record’ technique
- •Use fogging
- •Be concise
- •Be specific
- •Clarify
- •Use ‘I’ statements
- •Active listening
- •Aim for a workable compromise
- •Negative assertion
- •Empathic confrontation
- •Self-disclosure
- •How assertive are you?
- •Table 6.1 scores and interpretation Scoring of individual items
- •Interpreting the total scores for the questionnaire
- •Developing an action plan to become more assertive
- •Chapter 7 Developing effective interpersonal skills
- •Introduction
- •What are interpersonal communication skills?
- •Why are some people interpersonally less skilled than others?
- •What are the consequences of being interpersonally unskilled?
- •Developing your own interpersonal skills
- •Body posture and gestures
- •Facial expressions
- •Eye contact
- •Voice projection
- •Personal space
- •Personal appearance and presentation
- •Verbal skills
- •Paraphrasing
- •Reflecting feelings
- •Summarizing
- •Minimal encouragers
- •Asking open questions
- •Immediacy
- •Concreteness
- •The use of small talk
- •Higher level interpersonal skills
- •Developing cognitive skills
- •How interpersonally skilled are you?
- •Developing an action plan aimed at becoming more interpersonally skilled
- •Chapter 8 Developing relaxation skills
- •Introduction
- •Informal relaxation techniques
- •Semi-formal relaxation techniques
- •Massage
- •Releasing your shoulder tension
- •Soothing your scalp
- •Relaxing your eyes
- •Formal relaxation techniques
- •Deep breathing exercises
- •A deep breathing exercise
- •Progressive muscular relaxation
- •A progressive muscular relaxation exercise
- •A brief relaxation exercise for the neck and shoulders
- •Mental relaxation techniques
- •Meditation
- •Mindfulness
- •Mental refocusing
- •Visual imagery
- •Summary and main learning points
- •Chapter 9 Changing the way you relate to your work
- •Introduction
- •Understanding the links between thoughts, feelings, behaviours and bodily reactions
- •The cat vignette exercise
- •Identifying unhelpful patterns of thinking
- •Labelling dysfunctional thinking styles
- •Catastrophic thinking
- •Jumping to conclusions and mind reading
- •Overgeneralization
- •Magnification
- •Minimization
- •Personalization
- •Black and white thinking
- •‘Should’ and ‘must’ statements
- •Challenging dysfunctional patterns of thinking
- •Examining the evidence
- •Exploring the alternatives
- •Identifying advantages and disadvantages
- •The friend technique
- •Checking it out
- •Estimating probabilities
- •Reattributing meaning
- •Conducting behavioural experiments
- •Case study: Sarah
- •Challenging work dysfunctions
- •Challenging patterns of over-commitment Modifying perfectionism
- •Modifying workaholism
- •Challenging patterns of under-commitment Modifying underachievement
- •Modifying procrastination
- •Summary
- •Chapter 10 Overcoming stress syndromes
- •Introduction
- •Treating anxiety syndromes
- •Performance anxiety
- •Case study: Philip
- •Treating Philip’s performance anxiety
- •What can we learn from the case study of Philip?
- •Panic attacks
- •Case study: Andrew
- •Treating Andrew’s panic attacks
- •Phobic avoidance
- •Treating phobic avoidance
- •Case study: Maxine
- •Treating the depression syndrome
- •Challenging depressive thinking
- •Challenging unhelpful behaviours
- •Activity scheduling
- •Conducting behavioural experiments
- •A note on the burnout syndrome
- •Treating burnout syndrome
- •Treating the hostility syndrome
- •Summary
- •The eight stages of a self-help plan
- •Make a problem list
- •Prioritize your problems
- •Set your goals
- •Establish the criteria of success
- •Plan your interventions
- •Develop a self-help treatment plan
- •Monitor and review your progress
- •Prevent relapse
- •Case study: Helen
- •Making a problem list and prioritizing the problems
- •Setting the goals and establishing the criteria of success
- •Comfort eating and weight gain
- •Avoidance
- •Procrastination
- •Unassertiveness
- •Anxiety
- •Poor self-image
- •Planning the interventions
- •Interventions for comfort eating and weight gain
- •Interventions for avoidance
- •Interventions for procrastination
- •Interventions for unassertiveness
- •Interventions for anxiety
- •Interventions for poor self-image
- •Developing a self-help treatment plan
- •Monitoring and reviewing progress
- •Summary
- •Chapter 12 Summary and conclusions
- •Appendix Useful books and contacts
Some tips to help you sleep better
1 Doing some physical exercise during the day will help you sleep better.
2 Start winding down at least an hour before you go to bed. Put your work away and do something relaxing, which will slow you down both mentally and physically. This might be reading a book or listening to some relaxing music.
3 Do not eat too much for two hours before going to bed. As soon as you eat your body starts to work on digesting the food and this can make it difficult to get off to sleep. A very light snack is all right before bed but do not eat during the night if you wake up.
4 Do not drink too much during the evening since this will make you want to get up during the night to go to toilet. Also, go to the toilet just before you get into bed. This will make it less likely that you will want to get up in the night.
5 Do not use alcohol to help you sleep. While it may help you get off to sleep, it creates an ‘arousal spring’ as the effects of the alcohol wear off during the night, leading to you waking up. It can make you want to go to the toilet during the night. It can affect the quality of sleep that you have by reducing the amount of REM and deep sleep that you have.
6 Limit your intake of caffeine. It is a stimulant and is likely to keep you awake. Try to cut out drinks containing caffeine from the early evening onwards. Have a warm milky drink which does not have caffeine instead.
7 Do not smoke for at least a few hours before you go to bed. Nicotine, like caffeine, is a stimulant and will keep you awake.
8 Try not to use medication to help you sleep unless it is absolutely necessary. It is not a long-term solution, can change the quality of sleep that you experience and can lead to you becoming dependent on the drugs prescribed. Also, if you are on medication for other conditions, check that the sleep problems that you are experiencing are not a side effect of the medication.
9 Do not work in the same place that you sleep. Keep them separate. You will then learn to associate the bedroom with relaxation and rest, rather than work.
10 Try to develop a bedtime routine. This will help train your body to know when it is time for sleep. This may include washing or having a relaxing bath, cleaning your teeth, getting your pyjamas on, setting the alarm clock, checking the place is locked up and switching off all the lights. All of these things will inform your body it is time for sleep. Go to bed at a regular time but do not go to bed until you feel sleepy.
11 Make sure that your bedroom is well aired. Fresh air will help you sleep better.
12 Make sure the bedroom is not too hot or too cold. A temperature of about 18 degrees Celsius (64 °F) is the ideal.
13 Check that your mattress is comfortable, well sprung and not too old, hard or soft. If necessary replace it.
14 Make sure that your sheets and pillows are clean and comfortable.
15 Essential oils such as lavender or rosemary on your pillow may help you relax and get off to sleep.
16 Ensure that your bedroom is dark. If necessary get curtain liners or wear an eye mask.
17 Make sure that there is not too much noise. If necessary ask those creating the noise to turn it down. Alternatively, use ear plugs or a radio or iPod with earphones to mask other noise until you get to sleep.
18 If you are worrying about things, set aside some worry time well before you go to bed. If necessary, get a pen and paper and write a ‘to do’ list and then put it aside until the morning. Remind yourself that there is nothing you can do about it now and give yourself permission to relax.
19 Try not to go to bed on an unresolved argument. Try to make it up before you go to the bedroom if possible.
20 If you are unable to get to sleep, do not just lie there. Get up after 20 minutes or so and go out of the bedroom and do something relaxing until you start to feel sleepy. Return to the bedroom only when you feel sleepy.
21 Never ‘clock watch’. It will only make you feel worse. Turn the clock round so you cannot see the time.
22 Comfort yourself in bed. Use a hot water bottle, cushion or bed socks.
23 Do not lie in. Get up at your normal time in the morning even if you are feeling very tired. It is better to struggle through the day tired and then catch up with your sleep the next night. This will ensure that your sleep cycle does not become disrupted.
24 Do not catnap during the day or evening as this will have a negative impact on your sleep pattern at night.
25 Try not to worry about not getting enough sleep. Tell yourself that ‘at least I am resting’. Remind yourself that you may be one of those people who does not need so much sleep and that you may be trying to have more than you need.
26 If necessary, use relaxation, breathing and imagery exercises to help you get in the right state for sleep. These are covered in Chapter 8.