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Stress
How to avoid it and handle it
at work and in everyday life
Stress
and health at work
Stress
Dr. Román Rodríguez Barrigüete
Stress at work affects a high percentage
of workers in the industrialised world and
implies a high personal, psychological, and
financial cost. It is impossible to eliminate
stress altogether and, as we will see later
on, this may not be the best solution since
stress plays a role in our adaptation, forcing
us to generate physical and emotional res-
ponses in dangerous and stressful situa-
tions at work, activating our imagination,
intelligence, and work capacity so that we
are able to face difficult challenges and new
situations.
Regardless of the level of stress, which, if
it reaches a certain level, could be excessi-
ve and harmful for our health, the way we
handle and manage it is essential in order
for us to experience it as something positive
or negative. “Bad” stress paralyses us and
makes us anxious and triggers the “esca-
pe mode” (since this causes stress, I avoid
it). Positive stress, however, energises us
and brings out our creativeness when faced
with a challenge or a project.
Consequences of stress
The physiological mission of stress throug-
hout human evolution is to force us to ge-
nerate physical and emotional responses
when faced with dangerous situations.
When the level of stress is excessive, howe-
ver, the impact on our health could be quite
serious. We can respond to stress in the
following ways:
•
Cardiovascular response:
This has
been the most studied type of respon-
se. It is important to bear in mind that
coronary pathologies remain one of
the major causes of death in industrial
societies.
There is strong empirical evidence of
the relationship between job stress and
high blood pressure and other cardio-
vascular pathologies. Nevertheless, the
relationship between coronary stress
and coronary risks could be affected,
to a lesser extent, by psychological and
behavioural mechanisms.
The cardiovascular indicator most wi-
dely applied in studies, essential for
understanding the relationship bet-
ween occupational stress and cardio-
vascular diseases, is blood pressure.
Variations in our blood pressure during
working and non-working days were
analysed, making a distinction bet-
ween variations experienced at work,
after work, and at night. The results
of these studies indicate that blood
pressure increases during stressful
periods or whenever we experience
negative emotions during the day, with
the greatest number of manifestations
existing among emotionally unstable
individuals.
•
Neuroendocrinological response to
occupational stress:
at the endocri-
nological level, cortisol, an indicator