Stress and Coping Strategies

Stress is believed to be a state of the mind as well as the body, created by certain biochemical reactions in the human body as well as psychological responses to situations, and is reflected by a sense of anxiety, tension and depression and is caused by such demands by the environmental forces or internal forces that cannot be met by the resources available to the person. The greater the gap between the demands and the resources, the greater is the degree of stress. Some of the individual strategies for coping with stress include: readjustment of life goals, support from family and friends, planning certain events of life in advance and keeping the body in good physiological shape by proper diet, exercise, yoga, meditation and biofeedback. Some of the organizational strategies for coping with stress include organized health maintenance facilities as a part of the organizational life, matching of employees qualifications with job requirements, job enrichment and job work redesigns, equitable performance appraisal and reward systems, participation in organizational decision making and building team spirit in the sense that there should be no interpersonal conflict within the group. All these strategies or a combination thereof should be applied to make the work environment less stressful to a level which is positive and challenging.