Chronic stress, as much as we dislike it, is our modern day birthright.
In a book by Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor at Stanford School of Business, he explains the primary workplace exposures that precipitate stress and negatively impact health. These include long working hours, home and office conflicts, having low control over one’s work responsibilities and their immediate job environment, as well as dealing with high pressure and demanding deadlines.
Among these, Pfeffer points out that the guiltiest culprit is long working hours. In our modern world, it has become a primary driver for stress. Pfeffer says that longer work hours have become a status symbol in our day – a marker of how indispensable and important someone is. Somehow, working long hours has been equated to a successful career.
Consequently, If you’re a girl boss, or a superwoman hustling in your 9-5 job, none of this should be new to you because you may already be more stressed than you know. Stress causes a plethora of health issues that often go unseen and continual. For this reason, it is important to look out for the warning signs of stress and combat it mindfully before it takes a lasting toll on your health – or even your life.
Now, if the effects of stress are so striking, it’s a puzzle why not as much people are walking away from their toxic jobs. Pfeffer suggests that many of these stressed individuals are too psychologically battered and too physically overwhelmed with stress to muster the energy to pack up their desk and leave.
Stress often comes from a place inside of us that believes we are left with no choices and no control. However, we’re forgetting just how much power we have over our circumstances because we have relinquished that power to our employers, or our investors.
Changing the way we respond to stress is the key to reducing it, but getting down to the root of your stressful responses is the key to kicking it out of your life for good.
Read more on how stress is a silent killer in the workplace in this article by Forbes.
How have you been responding to stress in the workplace lately? Let us know in the comments below!
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This is a fantastic article. As I work in an office and at home after work to almost ensure they keep me, the effects over the long term are harsh. Add those mentioned to weight gain, driving home exhausted and tired from keeping yourself upbeat so you are socially accepted too, and it’s a difficult situation to survive. Learn to take care of yourself outside of work, you have to muster the energy, which is not easy.
Hi, thanks for dropping by and sharing. Stress really is a struggle we know all to well.