Professional stress: causes and symptoms of emotional burnout at work

Stressful situations at work happen to everyone from time to time. It is difficult to survive one-time and short-term shocks, but it is possible. But when going to work turns into a daily nightmare, the realization of the need to change something comes. Telling everything to hell and writing a letter of resignation right now is an impulsive, obvious, but wrong decision. The magazine “Together with You” has collected the most effective tips on how to deal with stress at work, depending on its cause and your desires.

photo from the site https://vseostresse.ru

Meet stress!

Stress is of English origin, meaning load, tension, oppression.
The condition was first described by Hans Selye in 1936, explaining that this is a normal human response to negative emotions, external influences, and vanity. Scientists divide stress into a positive type - eustress and a negative type - distress. During an uncomfortable situation, the body releases adrenaline, which forces you to look for a solution to the problem. In minimal doses, stress is good for the soul, equal to the benefits of exercise for the body. It helps support the ability to think, make decisions, and survive.

A large amount of overexertion causes loss of strength, weakness, deteriorates health, causes around-the-clock anxiety, and drives a person into a corner.

Considering that people are constantly under the influence of stressful survival conditions, doctors, psychologists, and physiologists have carefully studied this condition. They argue that the feeling of a stressful situation is associated with the vascular, hormonal, and nervous systems.

Stress in professional activities is also called industrial stress. It is expressed in the employee’s tense state, which appears against the background of emotionally negative factors associated with the performance of work tasks. This type of stress is recorded in a separate column in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10).

Professional stress can be caused by physical or psychological factors, which include an autocratic director, competition, an overabundance of information, low salaries, and others. It happens that a person does not separate existing problems from far-fetched ones and overwhelms himself, independently causing a tense state of mind.

Unloading the brain: a technique for organizing thoughts

Most often, anxiety is associated with a huge number of tasks that must be completed in a short time, or with confusion in matters. Sometimes the panic is so strong that it is difficult to concentrate and plan work properly. In this case, the brain unloading technique will help. You will need a notepad and pen.

• Start indiscriminately writing down everything that is spinning in your head - reasons for worry; things to do; anxious thoughts; promises you can't keep. Write down literally every little thing you can remember. Stop only when there are no more thoughts in your head.
• Now read everything you have written and mark each problem as either within or outside your control.
• Write down all problems whose solution depends on you on a separate sheet. Next to each, write down the actions that need to be performed. If any questions can be entrusted to someone else, indicate this immediately.
• Re-read the list of problems that you cannot cope with. Accept that the decision is not in your control and realize that there is no point in worrying.

Give yourself an attitude in the style of a wise statement. It’s stupid to worry about those problems that can be solved; you just need to take them and solve them. And there is no point in worrying about those problems whose solution does not depend on you. This will help restructure your thinking in a constructive way.

Types of occupational stress

Stress that occurs in the workplace is divided into 3 groups:

1. Information stress occurs when there is a continuous flow of information, when a person must make an important decision in an extremely short time. The situation is complicated by the high level of responsibility, lack of necessary information and the feeling that the person is not coping with the task.
2. Communication problems are caused by problems in business communication, inability to formulate arguments, refuse, defend against attacks or manipulation, and ignorance of cunning techniques.
3. Emotional disruptions appear during situations that cause feelings of humiliation, resentment, guilt, failure, uncertainty, and threat. Conflicts with management people, staff, and business partners have a negative impact. This type of stress is especially difficult for an employee to bear, since his values, self-esteem, and principles are destroyed. This has a negative impact on work and life areas.

What areas of specialists are at particular risk?

It has been proven that the service sector, management activities, work in hazardous or dangerous places are among the jobs that have the highest stress levels.

According to research by psychologists at the University of Manchester, the following professions are most often exposed to work stress:

• miners – 8.3 points out of 10;
• police officers – 7.7 points;
• airplane pilots – 7.5 points.

Librarians have the lowest risk of developing work stress – 2 points. These professions are highlighted among 150 popular specialties.

With the advent of computer technology, work has become more stressful, which is why employers focus on having stress resistance.

Gender characteristics of professional stress

Several psychological studies have proven gender differences in the manifestations of occupational stress. Although girls have increased resistance to stress in any area of ​​life, they experience every failure in life more deeply. The female sex is more sensitive to any comments about work, partially taking them personally. It is more difficult for women to draw an internal line between criticism for motivation and a good attitude in general: they may perceive a minor amendment as a deterioration in mutual understanding with the manager.

Where is the root of the problem?

The causes of stress at work are divided into personal and organizational factors, and also include factors of the atmosphere in the team and working conditions.

Personal characteristics include:

• low level of resistance and fight against external adverse factors, imbalance;
• choleric temperament;
• low level of adaptation to the smallest changes;
• low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence;
• perfectionism;
• personal problems that a person “carries” to work and others.

Collective problems include:

• interpersonal conflicts;
• rudeness of managers;
• competition and others.

Organizational stressors include:

• uneven or unfair distribution of responsibilities, overload, large volume of tasks;
• after-hours overtime;
• insufficient workload, with meaningless “sitting” hours;
• lack of motivation;
• inability to plan time and others.

Description of unsatisfactory working conditions causing stress:

• cold, heat, draft;
• insufficient lighting;
• small uncomfortable room;
• inconvenience of the workplace;
• accompanying distracting noise.

Managers live in a state of constant tension, which is why they often become the cause of negativity in the team.

Stress at work, how to cope?

The stress points certainly vary between industries and different jobs, but many of them overlap and are the same for all workers in all occupations.

These may include:

Reduction/dismissal

Difficulties in the country's economy or the problems of an individual company that is going through a crisis lead to staff reductions. Many workers, whether hourly or salaried, feel panic and fear of losing their jobs, especially as they see the economy imploding and more and more people around them finding themselves on the street without jobs or livelihoods.

Increased load

If someone leaves, then some of the responsibilities of those fired are transferred to others. It is exhausting both physically and mentally. Salaried workers are finding that they are spending more time at work without increased pay, and they have to come to terms with this and somehow deal with the consequences of overload in the workplace.

Excessive demands

A manager who is heavily focused on performance indicators and reporting may not realize that these constant measurements and the race for KPIs create a strong psychological burden on employees.

Increased working hours

Salaried and hourly workers who are required to work long hours suffer a variety of mental and physical health problems depending on the type of work they perform. They are more prone to heart disease, diabetes and weight gain. Physically unhealthy people are less able to cope with and cope with stressors; and these two circumstances continuously aggravate each other, with depression caused by health problems, and health problems fueled by depression.

Conflicts with colleagues

Think about it - you spend more time with strangers than with your friends and family. If you don't get along with the people you work with, it naturally causes anxiety, low productivity, and lack of energy, among other serious problems.

Why is constant stress at work so harmful?

Stress accumulates and its impact on workers is inevitable. This leads to the onset of physical illness.

As already mentioned, troubles make us unhealthy, it is difficult to deal with them, it is difficult to cope alone. Stress does have physical consequences, and many work woes result in large numbers of people getting sick. For employers, this means work stoppages or increased health insurance costs for employees.

Depression

Without good coping strategies, all this will lead to depression. And this is already more difficult to deal with. You can't cope without doctors.

Violence

25% of people have felt at least once a strong urge to yell at a co-worker, while 14% have felt the urge to hit them. This puts employees in a truly dangerous position in the workplace.

Decrease in labor productivity

If a person is experiencing psychological stress, he is unlikely to try to achieve maximum productivity, thanks if the employee does anything at all.

Personal problems

When a profession causes fatigue and burnout, these consequences do not end at the threshold of the enterprise, they enter into a person’s personal life and home. This is a vicious circle: after all, the family problems that arise from this are brought to work. It is a cruel cycle that leads people to stop doing anything at all.

Problems with employee retention in the workplace

19% of people quit their jobs due to stress they experienced at work. If the situation becomes too tense, you will lose employees. Ironically, the best employees will be the first to leave, because they were the ones who had the greatest responsibility and the heaviest workload.

If you're an employer, here's what you can do for your employees before it's too late.

If you're a stressed employee, share these tips with management whenever possible to help yourself and your colleagues.

How does emotional burnout develop?

Emotional burnout-stress in professional activity develops according to the following scenario:

1. The first stage is an increase in tension . A person changes his usual behavior, which affects all areas of life.
2. The second stage is stress . Loss of strength, low performance, loss of motivation, self-control, lack of awareness of actions.
3. The third stage is a reduction in internal tension . It’s as if the person awakens, habitual behavior and thinking returns, and corrects the mistakes made.

The stages of stress manifest themselves differently for each worker, depending on the individual characteristics of the person. The scenario depends on the following factors:

• frequency of exposure - some are exposed to stress once a year for a month, others - once a week, but for a day;
• form of manifestation – aggressive behavior towards others or behavior without changes;
• the direction of aggression - some people blame others for their troubles, and the second part blame themselves, invisible to prying eyes, “eating” themselves from the inside.

It should be noted that the stress mechanism works automatically, against human desire.

Stress among law enforcement officers

Law enforcement officers are among the group of people who are exposed to stressful conditions that cause nervous breakdowns and sometimes mental disorders. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent the development of professional stress among security forces, since the safety of the population and the atmosphere in society depend on this.

Psychoprophylactic measures and corrective methods of relieving stress among police officers involve training in basic methods of stress relief that correct the absorption of the negative impact of environmental factors.

Symptom groups

There are 3 groups of symptoms of work stress - somatic, emotional, behavioral.

Somatic symptoms include:

• feeling of a lump in the throat;
• unstable heartbeat;
• compression of the chest, acute pain in this area;
• indigestion and gastrointestinal dysfunction, abdominal pain;
• frequent urination, diarrhea;
• muscle tension, especially in the back and neck;
• headaches, migraine;
• skin rashes;
• slight tingling in the tips of the fingers and toes;
• vision problems, double objects.

Emotional symptoms:

• frequent mood swings;
• lack of concentration;
• chronic fatigue;
• irritability;
• every second anxiety;
• aggression towards people;
• solitude in “your” world.

Behavioral symptoms include:

• constant complaints;
• indecision;
• inattention;
• decreased performance and performance;
• evasion of responsibility, dishonesty;
• absences from work;
• problems sleeping or waking up;
• overeating/lack of appetite;
• long-term recovery after illness or injury;
• abuse of alcohol, smoking, tranquilizers, sleeping pills.

How to increase stress resistance

You can avoid and survive stress that occurs in the workplace by following these rules:

1. Watch yourself . What sensations come at the first stage of tension? Do you endure discomfort for a long time or start at a half-turn? What happens when you lose self-control? Answers to questions will help you know yourself, learn self-control, and develop protection against stress.
2. Find effective methods that can press the “brake”, stopping yourself . Leave the room, shut up, go to the window.
3. If tension occurs, it needs to be relieved by directing the energy to a pleasant activity. Water the flowers, drink coffee, wash your hands, chat with a nice employee from another office.
4. Understand which work processes are interesting and enjoyable . Make time for enjoyable activities every day.
5. During times of stress, concentrating on breathing helps, disconnecting from what is happening . Monitor your breathing until it becomes calm.

You control, but not you!

Self-control and self-regulation technologies will help you protect yourself and survive stress at work. You need to learn to respond to difficulties correctly so that they do not harm your health and mental state.

Initially, it is worth studying yourself, understanding when the reaction to stress begins, then choosing effective methods to help neutralize negative emotions.

There are various anti-stress methods, including taking pharmacological drugs, but you should choose an individual way to overcome stress in the work environment.

You can overcome difficulties using the following methods:

1. Switch your attention , for example, move to the window, count the women passing by. The main thing is not to accumulate tension by returning your thoughts to an unpleasant situation. Get a favorite photo of your children or another image that reminds you of happiness.
2. Social participation . Includes communicating with nice people, helping a colleague.
3. Use deep breathing or visualization techniques , imagining yourself at sea. You can play out a difficult situation in your thoughts to your advantage by adding a drop of humor. For example, the director screams and suddenly emits gas, apologizes, and leaves.
4. Avoid unnecessary stress . Saying “no” to someone who shifts their responsibilities avoids a confrontation with your boss.
5. Have a positive attitude . It is important to convey to yourself that there are no hopeless situations, everything passes and God gives people only those difficulties that they can handle. There are many motivators and aphorisms that help you perk up, smile and believe in the best.
6. Change the situation . If you respond to rudeness, try remaining silent or vice versa. Decide to talk with the director about raising salaries, etc.
7. Adapting to stress and accepting what cannot be changed . Learn to see the good moments in every event, gaining benefit and experience from it. The boss has loaded you with a large amount of work, which means that you are a reliable employee who can handle it. You need to feel sorry for the scandalous colleague, because her aggressive behavior speaks of personal psychological problems. The hardest thing is to abstract yourself from the negative.
8. Physical exercise relieves stress . Even if you can’t do a warm-up, you can move your fingers, move your neck, and do eye exercises.
9. The best way to overcome stress is to rest . The body needs regular short breaks, during which you can go to the toilet, dream, relax in a chair, leave the office and call a loved one. During non-working hours, try to move more, lead an active lifestyle, and do things that give you pleasure.

How to deal with stress at work:

Emergency anti-stress help - 3 exercises

You won’t be able to completely avoid anxiety, even if you organize your work day correctly and are enthusiastic about your responsibilities. When emotions overwhelm you, you should relax. This can be done in several ways:

1. Breathing exercises. To lower your blood pressure and slow your heart rate, breathe deeply. Inhale slowly for 4 seconds and exhale for 8 seconds. 3-4 repetitions are enough to calm down and reduce stress levels.
2. A quick massage to the back of the neck. With both hands you need to intensively massage the area below the base of the skull for 5-7 minutes. Biologically active points are located here. Exposure to them will help you relax and relieve headaches. Breathe slowly and deeply.
3. Meditation "Nothing" Find a secluded place where you will not be disturbed for 20-30 minutes. Sit back and start repeating to yourself that you don’t need to do anything right now. Breathe deeply, with your stomach. Mentally examine your body and direct air currents to those areas where you feel tension. Imagine that you are inhaling air with them. Gradually, the tension will subside, and the muscles contracted by spasm will relax.

Sometimes it is not possible to retire for a short meditation. Then just drink a glass of cool water in small sips, go out into the fresh air, or quickly and firmly clench and unclench your fists several times. Even such simple actions will reduce tension and help you cope with emotions.

You are “cowardly”, and the central nervous system suffers

Failure of the central nervous system entails a depressed state, depression.
Frequent stress kills a person’s ability to resist it, resulting in prolonged depression, which is difficult to get rid of without the help of specialists. A person with a malfunction in the central nervous system withdraws into himself, withdraws, lives in constant apathy and powerlessness, may have inappropriate behavior, and decide to commit suicide. At the same time, health problems appear, in particular with the heart and stomach. Sometimes stress causes the appearance of malignant tumors.

Stress in the work of a lawyer

According to statistics from modern psychology, about seventy percent of legal professionals believe that they are most often exposed to stressful situations. Legal work is working with people who have their own individual characteristics and different characters.

In the work of a lawyer, it is very important to be restrained and attentive, because the fate of a person often depends on his internal state. Therefore, it is necessary to learn to control yourself and your psycho-emotional state.

Emotional stability is task number one

Preventing professional destruction is easier and better than treating stress. So, you can avoid stress at work if you follow these tips and rules:

• change your attitude towards work and colleagues - build trusting relationships with management and colleagues, celebrate holidays together, respond to requests for help;
• sign up for trainings that help increase stress resistance and learn to act in unforeseen situations;
• break for gymnastics, tea drinking;
• organize working time without overestimating your own capabilities;
• increase self-esteem, believe in success;
• find your own motivator;
• do not take work home;
• rest, get enough sleep;
• learn to refuse those who take advantage of kindness.

If your job hasn't been enjoyable for many years, perhaps it's time to change? You shouldn’t chase money all your life; you won’t earn it all.

Money and occupational stress

Both material and moral well-being depend on the level of payment. Debts, enslaving loans and sudden dismissal - all this can cause severe emotional stress. Psychology considers professional stress to be explainable when an employee is not satisfied with his social status or his boss’s attitude towards him. Only decent wages can compensate for depression and dissatisfaction with life, therefore, in specializations that do not provide stable payments, but earnings in the form of a percentage of the employer’s income, there is always a high “turnover” of personnel.