Stress

Stress is a term that refers to sum of physical mental emotional strains or tensions on a person or feelings of stress which result from interactions between people and their environment that are perceived as straining or exceeding their adaptive capacities and threatening their well being, in addition stress has a wide psychological and physical effect as cardiovascular, musculoskeletal systems, headache, gastrointestinal problems, sleep disturbance and depression (Ghaleb, Thuria 2018).

 

Stress can be broadly defined as the negative reactions people have to aspects of their environment. According to Mojoyinola (2008), Stress is derived from the word “Stringi”, which means “to be drawn tight”. Stress is however, interpreted by each person differently. Since it is a feeling, that involves the emotions, it is not something entirely definable or describable. Despite efforts over the last half-century to define the term, no satisfactory definition of stress exists. Defining stress is much like defining happiness. Craig Hospital in 2013 saw stress as an inescapable fact of life. However, one recognizes the unpleasant, usually anxiety – related state, when one thinks of the term ‘stress’ as applying to us. Two aspects should be kept in mind. The first is that it is a ‘state’ – and therefore it is ideally not permanent. Secondly, when one is stressed, one is less likely to behave in the rational way compared to when one is calm.

 

Essentially, stress is the emotional and physical response people experiences when they perceive an imbalance between demands placed on them and their resources at a time to cope with the challenge. What this means is that one experiences stress whenever one is faced with an event or situation that one perceives as challenging to their ability to cope (Brunero. et al, 2006). Stress is not the events that surfaces our way itself but how we interpret them to be. So stress results from interpreting those events as dangerous, difficult, painful, or “unfair”, and/or feeling that one does not have the resources to cope with them.

 

There are differences in underlying causes/sources and triggers for everyone. However, some workplace factors are more likely to lead to stress, such as badly designed shift work, poor communications, bullying and harassment. Workload, lack of managerial support and threats, lack of incentives and job security, violence and bullying has been reported to be the major sources of work related stress (Paul, 2013). Specifically, interpersonal conflicts such as those with patients, supervisors and colleagues, and medical doctors account for a large part of the stress among medical workers (Hirokawa, Taniguchi, Tsuchiya, & Kawakami, 2012).

 

Sharpley et al. (2016) stated that there is also evidence that banking is experiencing role ambiguity. Reported that lack of regular feedback about how well bankers were doing was the highest source of stress. The lack of regular feedback received by banking was reported earlier (Dua, 2014) Feedback is important to enable the bankers to evaluate their performance on the job and how they are progressing in their effort toward task accomplishment. Since positive feedback may serve as reinforcement to the self-efficacy belief that leads to higher performance and less stress, bankers who do not receive regular feedback may experience considerable uncertainty about their role performance.

 

Arnold and Feldman (2010) define stress as “the reactions of individuals to new or threatening factors in their work environment”. Since our work environments often contain new situations, this definition suggests that stress is inevitable. This definition also highlights the fact that reactions to stressful situations are individualized and can result in emotional, perceptual, behavioural and physiological changes.

 

McGrath (2016) proposed a definition based on the conditions necessary for stress. So there is a potential for stress when an environmental situation is perceived as presenting a demand that threatens to exceed the person’s capabilities and resources for meeting it, under conditions where he expects a substantial differential in the rewards and costs from meeting the demand versus not meeting it. McGrath’s definition implies that the degree of stress is correlated with a person’s perceived inability to deal with an environmental demand. This would lead to the conclusion that a person’s level of stress depends on their self perceived abilities and self confidence. Stress is correlated with a person’s fear of failure.

According to Bowing Harvey (2001), stress occurs with the interaction between an individual and the environment, which produces emotional strain affecting a person's physical and mental condition. Stress is caused by stressors, which are events that create a state of disequilibrium within an individual. These authors also stated that the cost of too much stress on individuals, organizations, and society is high. Many employees may suffer from anxiety disorders or stress-related illnesses. In terms of days lost on the job, it is estimated that each affected employee loses about 16 working days a year because of stress, anxiety or depression.

 

Ritchie and Martin (1999) states that stress was described in terms of external, usually physical, forces acting on an individual. Later it was suggested that the individual's perception and response to stimuli or events were a very important factor in determining how that individual might react, and whether an event will be considered stressful. These authors further contended that most researchers acknowledged that both external and internal factors affect stress. They viewed stress as a response to external or internal processes, which reach levels that strain physical and psychological capacities beyond their limit.