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  • Stress Reduction: Relaxation Training and Diet

    In the last byte, we looked at physical exercise as a means for preventive stress. In today’s byte, we look at relaxation training and diet as means to help in preventive stress management.

    Relaxation has been found to be a natural counter response to stress for many stressful situations. Hebert Benson was one of the first to identify this relation. Benson found that the Judeo-Christian people find their relaxation technique to handle stress through their time-honored tradition of prayer. The people in the eastern hemisphere handle this through meditation. The theological/religious component is only another layer that surrounds the fundamental relaxation mechanism.

    While all the techniques discussed thus far on how the individual could help prevent stress are all have a direct impact, diet plays an indirect role in stress and stress management. Diet with high sugar content is found to stimulate stress; food with high cholesterol could adversely affect the blood chemistry etc. A good dietary practice helps contribute to overall health and makes the person less vulnerable to distress. There are 2 forms of diet that could help reduce stress:

    1. Reversal diet
    2. Preventive diet

  • Stress Reduction: Physical Exercise

    In the last byte, we looked at leisure time activities as a source of stress reduction. In the currently byte, we look at physical exercise as a means to reduce stress.

    Stress reduction through physical activities has been found to be extremely effective as a secondary stress prevention activity. Physical Exercises have been part of almost every one’s life during their initial schooling days, but if we carefully think of it – we realize that this really was implemented as part of education through classes, the extension of exercise into later life was just a choice that student! The increasing yoga, physical fitness clubs, etc are all ways which people resort to in attempt to reduce stress. In Military Organizations, this is done through physical fitness standards that the focus would need to live up to.

    Even a simple flexibility training help people reduce stress. This training focuses on the muscular contraction associated with the stress response. Stress response also affects the muscles – the flexor muscles which prepares a person to react/respond to the stress situation – a fight or flee response that we had mentioned that comes along with a person. The muscle stress is released through stretch during the flexibility training and helps relax the muscle. This helps maintain joint mobility, increase strength and plays an important role in reducing injury.

  • Stress Reduction: Leisure Time Activities

    In the last byte, we looked at time management and how it reduces stress. In today’s byte, we look at leisure time activities and the role they play in reducing stress.

    It is generally found that people chase high achievement in their life – they therefore strive unremitted. Taking a break or a vacation is something that people believe that their work ethics or cultural barrier wouldn’t permit! Leisure is thought of as a luxury among working people. The leisure time activities provide employees a refreshing time – it helps rest and recovers from strenuous activities either at home or at work place.

    The leisure time activities need not be sleeping or relaxing at home, it could be cleaning the house or even gardening. The essential aspect of these activities is their ability to reduce the stress and increase the benefits of pleasure for the individual attempting to do it. The key to effectively use leisure time is making it enjoyable.  One could think of using the time to be spontaneous, natural, and joyous, connect with people with whom they live in their neighborhood etc.

    If breaks are not managed well, they could lead to job burnouts, and this could result in fadeout for the employee. It is important that vacations and leisure breaks are taken periodically and should be a recurring activity.

  • Stress Reduction – Time Management

    In the last byte, we looked at how positive thinking could help reduce stress levels compared with a person negative thinking. In today’s byte, we look time management and see how an individual’s time management helps reduces stress.

    One of the most common sources of stress is improper time management. This is not just the case in a work setting but also for individual at school! Some symptoms of inefficient time management include a constant rush, missing deadlines, a feeling of being down by large work load, insufficient rest time and indecision too in many cases!

    By being able to manage time at a macro level using an effective technique – GP3 could prove extremely effective. Let’s see what the GP3 stands for:
    G – Goals: Set goals that are challenging yet attainable
    P – Prioritizing: Prioritize the set goals in terms of their relative importance/urgency
    P – Planning: Plan to attain these goals through setting the specific tasks, activities, scheduling, or even delegation
    P – Praising: Encourage yourself on achieving the specific goals.

    This method is found to extremely effective in managing time well, and thus reduces stress. There is a detailed article that has been written on time management at the link here.

  • Positive Thinking – Reducing Stress

    In the last byte, we began discussion about individual based means to reducing stress. In today’s byte, we look at how positive thinking plays a role in reducing stress.

    How does an individual explain the good and bad events that happen in their lives – some think about it in a positive or at least a non-negative style? A positive, optimistic exploratory style is a habit of thinking that is learned over time – there could definitely be some people who are inherently positive in their thinking means. Pessimism is an exploratory style that could lead to depression, physical health problems, and low levels of achievements. The people with a positive thinking and an optimistic outlook are found to be more physically healthy and reach out more achievement.

    If we look at how people with positive mind set think, you would observe that they don’t consider bad events and difficult times in their lives as temporary, limited and caused by things other than themselves. They live through all this through all these difficult times with hope. They also take credit of the better things that happen in their lives – they also extrapolate these events to be more pervasive and general – not specific to a one time experience.

    Could optimism be learnt? – Though not as a natural form, the nonnegative thinking approach could be learned – This is called Learned Optimism. It begins with identifying pessimistic thoughts and then distracting themselves from these thoughts or disputing them with evidence and alternative thoughts. This non-negative thinking is part of a five dimensions of Positive Organizational Behavior (POB) – the other 4 dimensions are:

    1. Confidence/self-efficacy
    2. Hope
    3. Subjective well-being/happiness
    4. Emotional Intelligence.

  • Preventive Stress Management 7

    In the last byte, we looked at social support system. In today’s byte we begin the discussion on individual preventive strategies.

    Individuals too can focus on a lot of interventions to help prevent distress and enhance a sense of well-being. We would again for the sake of convenience classify the preventions into primary, secondary or tertiary nature. We would begin discussion about each in a brief detail from the next byte, but the following diagram summarizes the benefits.



  • Preventive Stress Management 6

    In the last byte, we looked at goal setting and role negotiations as important organizational preventive stress mechanisms. In today’s byte, we look at social support systems as one means to have preventive stress management in organizations.

    Social support systems are crucial for an individual. Team building is one such means to get the supportive social relationship in the workplace; however this limits many a time to the organizational context alone. As individuals, it is essential to receive the socio-emotional support from personal relationships beyond the work place and this is important for psychological well being of an individual.

    The following diagram is adapted from the reference book to help map out the various social support systems an individual possesses.

    Understanding this, could help improve the work environment in a number of ways. Interpersonal communication is definitely a key to unlocking the social support that one looks towards a preventive stress management mechanism.

    The plethora of relationships highlighted in the network provide emotional caring, information, feedback, modeling and other support that help the individual effectively structure his/her work to be less stressful.

  • Preventive Stress Management 5

    In the last byte, we looked at job redesign as a means of preventive stress management. In today’s byte, we look at goal setting and role negotiation.

    Preventive Stress Management in organizations is also attempted through goal-setting activities. These activities increase task motivation, while reducing the degree of role conflict and ambiguity to which people face. We have already discussed goal setting in an earlier byte and wouldn’t dwell in detail on that. Simply put, goal setting focuses a person’s attention and helps direct the energy for productive purposes.

    Role Negotiation is an interesting organizational development technique since it allows the employees to modify their work roles. It would be interesting to discuss this process in a bit more detail here.

    Role Negotiation begins by defining a specific role – “focal role” within the organizational context. The person in the focal role then identifies the expectations understood for that role and there are organizational members who specify their expectations from the focal role. The Negotiation is between the incumbents’ expectation and the key members’ expectations. This clears off the points of confusion and conflict also provides opportunities for clarifications and resolutions. The end product expected is a clear, well-defined focal role with which the person and organizational members are comfortable.

  • Preventive Stress Management 4

    In the last byte, we began discussion on the organizational stress prevention approaches adopted. In today’s byte, we look at job redesign but begin with a model of job-strain adapted from the original developed by B Gardell in “Efficiency and Health Hazards in Mechanized Works” from our reference book. Following is the model.

    The model presented above indicates that a combination of high job demands and restricted job decision latitude or worker control leads to a situation of high strain. Invariably job redesign should attempt to enhance worker control. This reduces distress and strain without necessarily reducing productivity in many scenarios.

    Reduction in job stress by increasing worker control in job redesign is one means of achieving preventive stress, there are other means as well; say job decision latitude being increased. This could be done through greater decision authority in sequencing of work activities, the timing of work schedules, selection and sequencing of work tools, or even selection of the work team.

    It is important to note, that job redesign should also work at reducing uncertainty and increasing predictability in the work one performs.

  • Preventive Stress Management 3

    In the last byte, we went on to complete our discussion through a diagrammatic mapping of organizational context with the preventive medicine context and attempted understanding Preventive stress Management. In today’s byte we begin the discussion on organizational methods of preventive stress management.

    Some organizations have a low-stress and healthy environment while others have a high stress environment with influence on the health of employees. Research has indicated that the perception of organizational fairness and justice helps reduce stress in organizations.

    A comprehensive approach to ensure preventive stress management should address all three levels: primary, secondary and tertiary. Most organizational prevention at the primary level is in the form of job redesign, goal setting, role negotiation, and career management. The secondary level includes team building and social support at work. Handling the third level requires a special means and some companies have put up dedicated programs like – violence prevention programs, etc to address these.

    Over the next few bytes, we shall discuss about Job Redesign, Goal Setting, Role Negotiation and Social Support systems as part of understanding the primary level preventive stress management techniques.