Understanding Stress

This diagram shows how the effects of stress or pressure can be positive or negative.

Stress is beneficial when we feel challenged and stimulated, but negative if we feel overloaded or under stimulated. At opposite ends of the spectrum we can suffer from ‘burn out’ or ‘rust out’. It is part of good management to keep the amount and nature of people’s workload at or near the optimum point.

Stress can be positive or negative. Some pressure can be a very good thing. The tasks and challenges we face every day can keep us motivated, give us a sense of achievement, and provide job satisfaction, but inappropriate levels of pressure - too much or too little - can lead to negative stress.

The following definitions may help you to get a clearer understanding of negative stress.

Negative stress is a result of:

A mismatch between the demands made on us and our real or perceived ability to cope.

In other words, what someone thinks about the demands on them is as important as the demands themselves. A task may be delegated which is believed to be within someone’s capability and it may turn out to be so. However, if they fear that they will fail in the task, it may prove extremely stressful.

Over and under stimulation which leads to actual or potential ill-health.

Here we have ‘rust out’ and ‘burn out’ (see diagram understanding stress).

High demand plus high constraint plus low support.

If someone has few choices about how and when work is done, very little say in decision making, and is fenced in with a lot of rules and procedures, this amounts to high constraint. Junior members of staff, who may feel they have little control over the demands made on them, are often more vulnerable to stress than those in positions of greater power and authority.