Chapter 3: Stress Management PDF

chapter 3 Stress management Introduction All jobs involve a degree of pressure and the risk of stress to a certain extent, but working with people can leave us particularly prone to stress. This chapter explores three key aspects of stress management: Stresso...

chapter 3 Stress management Introduction All jobs involve a degree of pressure and the risk of stress to a certain extent, but working with people can leave us particularly prone to stress. This chapter explores three key aspects of stress management: Stressors. The common sources of pressure that can lead to our experiencing stress. Coping methods. The ways in which we try to deal with our pressures. Support. The ways in which we can be helped to cope. Having looked at these three sets of issues, we will then be in a position to consider the skills and strategies we need for keeping our pressures under control and making sure stress does not cause us any harm. Pressure and stress To begin with, it is important that we are clear what we mean by stress. Arroba and James (1992) define stress as a person’s response to an inappropriate level of pressure. There are two particularly important words in this definition – ‘response’ and ‘inappropriate’: 1 The word ‘response’ emphasizes that stress arises as a result of how we react to pressures – and this alerts us to the fact that some stress management skills are about controlling our reactions, as well as controlling our pressures. I shall return to this point later. 2 The word ‘inappropriate’ emphasizes that stress is not just a matter of too much pressure, but can also arise as a result of too little pressure – that is, when we are bored or understimulated. From these interrelationships (see Figure 3.1), we can see the difference between pressure, which can be positive (a source of stimulation and motivation) or negative (a source of worry and tension), depending on the 21  Pe rs on a l e ffe ct ive n e s s Too much Stress pressure An appropriate No stress level of pressure Not enough Stress pressure Figure 3.1   Levels of pressure circumstances, and stress, which is always negative and harmful. So, we can see that: o Stress is not the same as pressure – pressures are inevitable, but stress can be avoided. o Stress is more likely to occur when there is too much or too little pressure. o Stress depends not just on the level of pressure we experience, but also on how we respond to those pressures. It is important that we are clear about this distinction so, if you are not quite sure about the difference between the two, it is worth rereading the explanation above before going on to the next section. The effects of stress Stress can do a lot of harm in a number of ways, including the following: o Stress-related illnesses. Stress is believed to be a major contributor to heart disease, ulcerative colitis and so on. o Vulnerability to disease. Stress lowers our resistance to illness in general. o Low motivation. We become less enthusiastic and experience low morale. o Reduced job satisfaction. We can tend to focus on the negatives and lose sight of the positives. o Tension and irritability. This can lead to disagreements and conflict. o Proneness to error. We are likely to make more mistakes and, in working with people, this can be very costly. This is not an exhaustive list, but it is enough to make it clear that time and effort spent preventing or combating stress can be seen as a worthwhile investment. 22  S t re s s m a n a g e me n t Practice focus 3.1 A team of five staff were coping reasonably well with their workload and not experiencing major problems. However, one day, Peter, one of the staff, was threatened with violence in carrying out his duties. The incident was not taken seriously by his managers and they tried to laugh it off as ‘one of those things’. Peter, however, felt vulnerable, unsupported and undervalued. A few days later, a medical certificate was submitted to confirm that he was to be on sick leave for two weeks as a result of ‘nervous exhaustion’. During that time, the remaining staff had an average additional 25 per cent workload in order to keep the service running. This placed them under a great deal of strain, but they managed to cope. However, at the end of the fortnight, a further certificate was received from Peter, this time for four weeks. The staff team began to feel despondent and wondered whether Peter would ever return. Consequently, Pam, who had been experiencing marital difficulties recently, reached the point where she could not cope any further. She too went on sick leave, thereby leaving three staff to cope with the work of five – a total workload increase of 40 per cent. The three remaining staff now felt under immense pressure and began to doubt whether they would ever see light at the end of the tunnel. The whole situation had become very fraught and dangerously close to breaking down altogether. Understanding your own potential for stress Because stress depends on your response to pressure, stress is a very personal matter and will vary from person to person. It is therefore important that you understand how pressure and stress have an impact on your life. Exercise 3 at the end of this chapter is designed to help you develop a picture of your own circumstances with regard to stress management. Having a picture of what pressures you are subject to, what coping resources and support you have, is an important part of stress management. Without this picture, you are working in the dark. However, it is not enough on its own – understanding stress is one part of stress management, but it is not the whole story. We also need to develop our stress management skills and strategies, and it is to these that we now turn. Skills and strategies As was emphasized above, the experience of stress is very variable and linked to personal circumstances. However, this is not to say that there are no overall patterns or general guidance that can be given. On the contrary, there are a number of general principles and guidelines that can be identified, as the examples given here demonstrate: 23  Pe rs on a l e ffe ct ive n e s s 1 Know yourself. This may sound like a cliché, but it is none the less important to have a good level of self-awareness so that you know your own strengths and weaknesses – the strengths you can draw upon when you need to, and the weaknesses that may leave you vulnerable. As we noted in Chapter 1, self-awareness is an essential part of good practice in working with people. It is also an essential part of good stress management. Without a certain level of self-awareness, stress management could prove to be far more demanding than it needs to. 2 Set objectives. It is usually helpful to set objectives, to have clear targets to aim for. This helps to avoid uncomfortable feelings of drift and aimlessness. It also helps to motivate us and help us gain job satisfaction when objectives are achieved. As the saying goes, ‘If we don’t know where we are going, any road will take us there.’ Setting targets and being clear about what we need to do to achieve them will therefore help us to know which road we are going down. It will help to fend off the feeling of being lost and confused which is so often part of the experience of stress. The question of setting objectives is a very important one and it is a topic to which we shall return in Chapters 21 and 22. 3 Change your attitude. Changing our attitude towards something can change the way it affects us. For example, if you set yourself the target of being the greatest people worker the world has ever known, you may find this puts you under an unhealthy amount of pressure! What may be necessary, then, to prevent you from suffering an undue amount of stress is for you to change your attitude. You may have to settle for aiming for something a bit more modest. Aiming for excellence, for example, may prove to be a source of motivation and stimulation (positive pressure), whilst aiming to be the best may actually go beyond this and put you in stress territory. Stress is your response to an inappropriate level of pressure, so changing your response to life circumstances can be an important and effective way of managing pressures. This is a technique known as ‘cognitive restructuring’. 4 Be assertive. Chapter 5 addresses issues of assertiveness, and so I shall not pre-empt what is to be said there. However, it is worth emphasizing that being assertive (finding the comfortable balance between being submissive and being aggressive) is a significant part of stress management. This is because assertiveness helps to stop other people getting what they want at your expense, and also helps to avoid conflict, or at least minimize its harmful effects. This should become clearer when we reach Chapter 5. 5 Keep control. This is not simply a message about ‘Do not panic!’ – although that is appropriate advice! When we are under pressure, it can be quite easy for us to lose control, to lose our grip on what we are doing. For example, an important study of child abuse once showed that child protection workers often made mistakes as a result of the pressures they were experiencing – they allowed their judgement to become clouded, 24  S t re s s m a n a g e me n t and costly errors resulted (DoH, 1991). My experience as a trainer and consultant has similarly brought many such examples to my attention in a wide range of circumstances, not just child protection. Staying calm and keeping on top of the situations you deal with is therefore wise advice. This does not mean that you have to take control and become an authoritarian dictator – it means not losing your grip on what is going on around you, not allowing yourself to become a passive victim of circumstance. There are many things over which we have little or no control, and we have to accept that (see the discussion of the CIA framework in Thompson, 2019a and/or 2020a). However, some people can be very defeatist and underestimate how much control we do have (consider the example of time management given in Chapter 2). 6 Set boundaries. Life can be confusing at the best of times but, when we are under pressure, it can become extremely confused and confusing. And this is why it is important to develop the skills involved in setting boundaries. This involves, in particular, recognizing boundaries of responsibility – you have to be clear what is your responsibility and what is not. This is for two reasons: (i) if you are responsible for something but do not realize that you are, you could find yourself in serious difficulty if things go wrong; (ii) if you take upon yourself the weight of things for which you are not responsible (for example, other people’s duties), you are giving yourself an additional unnecessary burden – one which could cause you considerable harm. An important stress management skill, therefore, is the ability to recognize the boundaries of responsibility (Thompson, 2019a). 7 Time management. As we noted in Chapter 2, effective time management is an essential part of a successful approach to working with people. It involves managing not only our time but also our energy – through motivation and commitment. This principle applies also to stress management – maintaining energy and motivation so that resources for coping with pressure are not overwhelmed by those very pressures. Making a good job of managing your time is also a significant contribution to keeping control (see point 5 above) and thereby helping to keep stress at bay. Wasting time and allowing energy levels to flag are therefore poor preparation for dealing with the rigours of people work. 8 Use support. Some people try to cope stoically with their pressures without any help from anyone else. They see asking for help or support as a sign of weakness, and therefore something to be avoided. This is a dangerous strategy, in so far as it sets us apart from a network of support which, at times, can make all the difference between coping and not coping. To avoid this danger, it is therefore necessary to reject this ‘be tough’ attitude of not needing support (Cranwell-Ward and Abbey, 2005). A major step in this direction is to recognize that asking for support is a sign of strength, not weakness – a sign that we are adopting a sensible and realistic approach to stress management. 25  Pe rs on a l e ffe ct ive n e s s Practice focus 3.2 Sandra had realized that her new job would be a demanding one, but she had not appreciated just how difficult it was going to turn out. She felt very overloaded and unsupported. At first, she decided to be stoical about it and to get by as best she could. She tried to put her own needs to one side and ‘get on with the job’ without raising any concerns about how she felt. However, one day she made a mistake that could have had very serious consequences. From this she was able to see the dangers of trying to brush workload issues under the carpet. She began to talk to people about how difficult she had been finding her work. She was then totally amazed at the supportive response she received to this. Her colleagues expressed considerable willingness to help and support her. One colleague made a very telling comment that helped Sandra realize her mistake in not asking for support earlier: ‘We’d got the impression that you were the sort of person who wanted to keep herself to herself and didn’t want to be part of a team.’ 9 Avoid unhelpful coping methods. Some coping methods are helpful, positive and constructive. However, others can be destructive and harmful – more trouble than they are worth. For example, if we attempt to cope by heavy drinking, responding with violence, or trying to deny there is a problem, the net result is likely to be even greater pressure or even worse problems – the medicine can be worse than the illness. There is therefore much to be gained by avoiding such destructive responses and developing more positive ones. In particular, it can pay dividends to focus on active coping (tackling the pressures or problems we face), and not to rely too heavily on passive coping (trying to escape from our pressures or problems). 10 Be kind to yourself. One of the common characteristics of stress is that people can tend to be very hard on themselves. They can set themselves unrealistic targets (see point 3 above), undervalue their achievements and generally make life difficult for themselves. It is often the case that the more we encounter stress, the greater is our tendency to do this. Consequently, a basic part of stress management is to be kind to yourself, to keep your strengths and weaknesses in perspective, and not adopt an unduly harsh or negative attitude towards yourself. An important step towards this is to acknowledge that this tendency exists and, when it begins to take hold, take steps to talk to someone we trust to help get things in perspective. 26  S t re s s m a n a g e me n t Conclusion These, then, are some of the basic building blocks of stress management. Following the guidelines here will not guarantee success, but should take you in the right direction towards maximizing your ability to deal with pressure and minimize the risk of stress causing you harm. It is to be hoped that the ideas and suggestions here will encourage you to carry on learning and developing your stress management skills. Stress is potentially a very destructive problem, as it can: o lead to ill-health; o reduce effectiveness; o undermine, or even destroy, relationships; and o create a pressurized atmosphere for colleagues, and so on. It goes without saying, then, that stress management is a set of skills to be taken very seriously. To end this chapter on a positive note, we should recognize that many of the other skills discussed in this book can also make a positive contribution towards stress management. These include time management, assertiveness, beating the bully, being creative, effective communication, influencing, being systematic, and ending. The skills base being developed, then, can be seen as one in which different elements become mutually supportive, and add a further dimension to the learning and development that are taking place. Exercise 3 Stress, coping and support For this exercise, you will need to take a sheet of paper and divide it into three columns, with the following three headings: Stressors; Coping Methods; Sources of Support. Under each of the headings list as many examples as you can. That is, under ‘Stressors’, list as many potential sources of stress for you as you can. Under ‘Coping Methods’, list the different ways in which you try to cope with your pressures. Under ‘Support’, write down the sources of support you can draw on.    This exercise can help you gain an overview of the stress issues that you face, and can therefore help you plan how you deal with them. For example, it may help you realize that you need to develop your support networks, or it may give you confidence in realizing that you are well supported. It is not a test, so feel free to consult colleagues or friends to help you if you run out of ideas. 27  Pe rs on a l e ffe ct ive n e s s Questions Build your knowledge, practise your skills What do you see as your main strengths in relation to the skills discussed in this chapter? What can you do to build on these strengths? What do you see as your main areas for development in relation to the skills discussed in this chapter? What can you do to bring about improvement in these areas? Who can help you build on your strengths and build up your areas for development? How will you know that you are improving? What will success look like? 28