The Concept of Stress

The Concept of Stress

INTRODUCTION

Generally, stress is phenomenon which cannot be avoided in any organization or institution since everybody experience stress, so how you manage this stress can be the key to your wellbeing. A survey conducted by metal health in America found that people frequently deal with chronic stress by watching television, skipping exercise, and neglecting to eat healthy food.

Many staff today run from organization to another thinking that they will no longer encounter stress but they refused to know that stress is a natural factor which cannot be avoided entirely but can only be controlled. Therefore, instead of facing the reality of managing the stress they are embracing the formalities of seeking for job in another organization.

It should be stated clear here that because of individual differences the impact of stress should not be totally ignored to the negative effects because what a staff considers to be stress to another staff he / she sees it as a motivator.

CONCEPT OF STRESS

Stress is not necessarily bad, it can typically be discussed in a negative and positive way. It is an opportunity when offered, gives potential gain.

According to Ribbins (2007), stress is a dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with an opportunity, constraint, or demand related to what he or she desires and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important.

According to Patrick and Raymond (1996), sees stress as a person’s adaptive response to a demand on the person.

Furthermore, managing stress requires a general idea of its sources and the way it affects people, the demand may be psychological, physical or both.

According to Paago (1997), define stress as an interaction between a person and its environment which present or demand threaten to exceed the persons capabilities and resources for meeting it.

According to Cary Cooper of the university of Manchester institute of science and technology (UMIST) he defines stress as a pressure which is too great for us. Stress is very much a personal issue, each one of us has his own level of tolerance of pressure at any given time, our own capacity for coping, or not coping with it. We succumb to it at different stages in our lives, we experience it uniquely, and our symptoms can be varied as our choice of friends. Stress can be experienced from things that are happening in our personal lives in isolation from or in conjunction with the pressure from works. Sometimes we amaze ourselves by the way we seem to cope with juggling twenty-nine balls in the air at one moment, and the next we are floored by what seems objectively, to be the smallest request from a partner or a boss. Job stress and its related conditions, job burnout, contributes to poor physical and mental health, employees stress is a sources of discomfort and a major concern to managers and stakeholders.

According to the attitudes in American workplace Gallup Poll, workers stress $300 billion annually due to lost productivity, increased worker’s compensation claims and health care costs. Also, an estimation of 45% of unwanted job turnover is stress related. Another survey indicated that 50% of employees miss one to two days of work per year due to stress, and 46% admitted that they do not come to work one to four days per year. A study with firefighters suggested that being emotionally exhausted leads to lowered motivation.

Two studies conducted in a variety of organizations showed that burnout in the form of emotional exhaustion leads to lowered job performance, less organizational citizenship behavior and an intention to quit.