What Is Work Stress?
Work stress is having demands at work that you cannot keep up with which cause you to feel stressed, anxious, and even physically unwell. A total of 12.8 million working days were lost because of work-related stress, anxiety, and depression. Work stress can contribute to depression and anxiety symptoms in some employees.
Symptoms of work stress can include emotional effects such as:
- Feeling like you cannot cope with your workload and deadlines
- Finding it difficult to concentrate and struggling to finish tasks on time
- Losing motivation and confidence
- Indecisiveness
- Dreading work, especially over the weekend
- Mood swings
- Feeling generally overwhelmed
- Experiencing less joy and happiness in your personal life
To be able to identify work stress, it’s very important that you are able to identify the changes in your own behavior and these may include rushing your work or not completing work to your usual standard. Suffering from performance issues due to the lack of concentration and you may also even decide to miss your lunch to keep up with the pressure at work.
Common Workplace Issues
Some common workplace issues might include coping with conflict between colleagues, unfair power imbalances within management structures. You may also find that the job description was not accurate which leads to unrealistic expectations and demands placed upon your role which may be highlighted in performance reviews causing work stress. Lack of training may also be an issue for some people and may cause individuals to have increased stressors at work because they have not been adequately trained. We may also multitask at work and feel like we are juggling many jobs at once which may ultimately mean our performance is affected.
Another workplace issue may include not feeling enough employee recognition which can be detrimental to one’s health. An employee may not feel reassured that their work is making an impact or is what the company needs, it may lead to the employee feeling like they are not meeting their goals and ultimately they may feel isolated at work. We all need to feel appreciated and especially at work!
Healing From Mental Health Problems
Healing from mental health issues does take time but it is possible! The work stress you may be experiencing right now is tough and exhausting but it can get better with appropriate boundary setting and reestablishing your identified goals and job responsibilities. Some simple ideas from coping with mental health problems due to work stress may include:
- Starting your day off in the best way possible and leaving enough time to get to work and fulfill all of your duties before work
- Effective time management skills at work and prioritizing your projects accordingly
- Go for a walk at lunchtime!
- Listen to some music during the commute and if you are working from home take regular short breaks
Are There Physical Symptoms I Should Be Aware of??
Work stress can lead to physical symptoms because of the stress manifesting within your body including:
- Feeling tired and lacking in energy
- Weight changes
- Feeling nauseous
- Changes in your appetite
Dealing with Work Stressors Through Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy can help you cope with work stress. It can help you manage your workload in a more effective manner and proactively cope with stress using techniques and tools. You will be given the chance to explore your work stressors in psychotherapy in a safe place with a licensed mental health professional.
Therapy can help you by identifying what thoughts you are having which ultimately lead to maladaptive coping mechanisms at work, you may find this includes eating too much or too little, sleeping too mu:)ch or too little, or even substance abuse. Therapy can be useful especially when having to communicate with confrontational or challenging people at work helping you to get your work completed and to feel less stressed and burnt out from sources of stress and it will help you monitor your stress level. Many people struggling with work-related stress also have perfectionist tendencies which means they constantly strive to push themselves to do better only leading to exhaustion and more days off work. Psychotherapy can help you realize what goals are realistic and what may be unrealistic, you will learn how to apply boundaries and better cope at work.