Test Your Stress Management Skills

Stress management is a set of techniques and psychotherapies aimed at controlling chronic stress to improve everyday functioning. Stress produces physical and mental symptoms that vary according to each individual's situational factors. The process of stress management is crucial to a happy and successful life in modern society. Stress levels are readily measurable using physiological tests similar to those used in polygraphs. There are several models of stress management, each with distinctive explanations of mechanisms for controlling stress. Stress management techniques vary according to the philosophical paradigm. Stress prevention and resilience-building have been developed, drawing mainly on the theory and practice of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Several techniques exist for measuring stress levels, including psychological testing and measuring cortisol levels. Stress management has physiological and immune benefits. Positive outcomes are observed using a combination of non-drug interventions. Acute stress is the most common form of stress, while chronic stress lasts for longer time spans and has a wearing effect on people that can become a serious health risk if it continues over an extended period. Stress management in the workplace is important to keep up job performance and maintain relationships with co-workers and employers. In order to manage stress in the workplace, employers can provide stress managing programs such as therapy, communication programs, and a more flexible work schedule. Stress management programs have been implemented in many businesses today for employees who are having trouble adapting to stress at the workplace or at home.Stress Management Strategies: Workplace and College

Workplace:

• Businesses try to reduce employee stress levels through individual intervention, social support, changing behavioral patterns, workload changes, improving communications, and changing physical qualities of the workplace.
• Employee assistance programs are offered by businesses that include in-house counseling programs on managing stress. Evaluative research has been conducted on EAPs that teach individuals stress control and inoculation techniques such as relaxation, biofeedback, and cognitive restructuring.
• Intervention is broken down into three steps: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary deals with eliminating the stressors altogether. Secondary deals with detecting stress and figuring out ways to cope with it and improving stress management skills. Finally, tertiary deals with recovery and rehabbing the stress altogether.
• Aviation is a high-stress industry, and stress measurement tools specific to the aviation industry are needed to improve aviators' coping and stress management skills.
• To more precisely measure stress, aviators' many responsibilities are broken down into "workloads." Stress measurement tools can help aviators identify which stressors are most problematic for them and help them improve on managing workloads, planning tasks, and coping with stress more effectively.
• The most commonly used stress measurement systems are primarily rating scale-based. Different systems may be utilized in different operational specialties.

College:

• Nearly 80% of college students report frequently dealing with daily stress. Sources of stress that influence college students' stress levels include family and friends, long-held beliefs, new opportunities for various behavior, and rigorous academic demands.
• Students rely on many strategies including problem-focused and emotion-focused coping to manage stress.
• Developing time management skills, avoiding procrastination, and goal-setting are associated with stress reduction.
• Strategies like finding humor and journaling—especially gratitude journaling—are effective. Without effective coping skills, students tend to engage in unsafe behaviors as a means of trying to reduce the stress they feel.
• Ineffective coping strategies popular among college students include drinking excessively, drug use, excessive caffeine consumption, withdrawal from social activities, self-harm, and eating disorders.
• Researchers have not found significant gender differences in regard to how men and women use problem-focused coping strategies. However, there is gender variation in regard to emotion-focused coping. Women tend to use emotion-focused coping strategies more often than men on average.