Navigating Individual Crisis and Stress: Women's Workplace Challenges in Iceland’s Gender-Equal Landscape

The concept of individual crisis, in psychological terms, refers to a critical turning point or destabilizing event that significantly disrupts an individual’s usual way of coping, often demanding a re-evaluation of their resources and resilience. This disruption can lead to heightened stress levels, as the individual confronts uncertainty, lack of control, and a perceived inability to meet new demands. When such crises are prolonged or intense, they place excessive strain on mental and physical resources, often manifesting as chronic stress. This prolonged state of elevated stress increases vulnerability to burnout, characterized by emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment. Burnout arises when the individual feels persistently overwhelmed by the crisis without adequate support or recovery opportunities. Both crisis and burnout are intrinsically linked through the mechanisms of stress response, where the former serves as a trigger, and the latter as a potential outcome of sustained exposure to crisis-induced stress. Understanding this relationship among women, living and working, in the gender equal landscape of Iceland, can aid in developing and exploring interventions that support resilience and recovery, emphasizing the need for individual crisis management strategies that alleviate stress and prevent burnout, thereby preserving both psychological well-being and performance in personal and professional domains.