Managing Stress

Stress is usually considered a negative factor in people's lives. My mom always taught me that stress was a sin since sin was anything that was not healthy in a person's life. Therefore, I tend to get ahead on my work and never wait till the last minute to complete assignments or make plans. However, some forms of stress are unavoidable, such as the stress that comes from change. Some people are able to deal with stress better than others. It oftentimes takes practice. The more change that one experiences in one's life, the more one is able to figure out techniques to adapt quickly. Such experience also teaches people that whatever happens, life goes on and they will be able to deal with it.

The book discusses how stress can also be a positive factor, which I had never considered before.. Stress is the body's way of dealing with pressure and pushes people to pin point the worst cause of their stress and start seeking solutions for it. It helps them improve because change only comes when something forces it to occur.

"Organisational change can be a stressor, sometimes to an overwhelming extent, but it can also offer creative opportunities for dealing with the stress that accompanies it (McDermott 2002).

Workplace stress and personal stress are not mutually exclusive phenomena. Each has direct and indirect effects on the other, and, while ways to address stress in each environment differ, they can also overlap" (Hurley).

By recognizing this, people can start to deal with their stress through meditation, organizing their problems and choosing to address them. Just breathing deeply for a few moments has been found to have a calming effect on a person since more oxygen is taken into the body. This helps to clear a person's mind and make them mentally ready to take on whatever is next.

Source:
Hurley, Mary. "Managing stress in the workplace. (Cover story)." Nursing Management - UK 14.3 (2007): 16-18. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 24 Apr. 2010.