stress management at workplace essay

Stress Management at the Workplace

Introduction, article one, article two.

Managing stress at the working place is one of the underlying humanistic facets that contributes to both interpersonal and intrapersonal conflict. Constant stress at work significantly reduces labor productivity, physical and emotional health of employees (Robbins & Judge, 2016). That is why Robbins and Judge emphasize that it is necessary to keep production stress under control, and offer various ways to do this.

Foy, T., Dwyer, R. J., Nafarrete, R., Hammoud, M. S., & Rockett, P. (2019). Managing job performance, social support and work-life conflict to reduce workplace stress. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 113 (2), 2-25.

The authors of this article claim that the set of reasons that provoke stress in modern employees of the company is quite wide. Thus, it can be stated that every modern individual has stressful situations in the workplace to varying degrees, from minor to serious, which as a result lead to a number of further manifestations. In this regard, the importance of developing and regularly carrying out measures to eliminate stress among employees, its prevention in the organization is growing, which is also emphasized by Robbins & Judge (2016).

Next, scientists propose methods for eliminating organizational stress, which are diverse in modern companies and depend on the causes of stress. Among them, it is worth highlighting: the work of a full-time or external corporate psychologist, increasing the corporate spirit in the team in order to reduce the level of conflict and with the help of corporate events (Foy et al., 2019). Moreover, the authors propose the creation of comfortable working conditions, promotion of sports and an active, healthy lifestyle, proper nutrition in the company as stress management. Like Robbins & Judge, the authors of the article believe that constant feedback from the manager, regular monitoring by oral or written (including anonymous) questioning of employees about their anxiety and stress, and the causes that provoke them, can also significantly help in reducing stress levels.

Thus, from reading this article, we can conclude that professional stress is a problem not only for an employee who is under the influence of stress factors, but also for the entire organization as a whole. It becomes clear that employees who are under stress are unable to fully devote themselves to work. As a result, there is a decrease in labor productivity, the quality of work performed, or services provided, and an increase in staff turnover in the company (Foy et al., 2019). Both Foy et al. (2019) and Robbins & Judge (2016) agree that, first of all, managers, HR specialists and organizational psychologists should think about the impact of stress on the organization’s personnel and its consequences. In addition, it is easier to prevent stress in the workplace than to correct the consequences that already led to the critical situation.

Moss, J. (2019). Burnout is about your workplace, not your people. Harvard Business Review, 5 (7), 2-6.

This article examines the aspects of stress management at the workplace from the point of view of the position of the manager and considers collective stress. It differs from the local one in that it does not act on one particular person, but on social groups. The causes of such stresses can be a sharp deterioration in the economic and political situation, large-scale organizational changes in the campaign, or a negative background in the media.

The manager should take into account that in a situation of stress, employees may experience a different set of reactions. Workers may suffer from a decrease in cognitive functions (memory and attention) and working capacity to an increase in the level of chaotic activity. They may have a manifestation of aggression as one of the strategies for coping with a stressful situation, a feeling of helplessness may arise, anxiety increases. The same disturbing symptoms and negative emotional state of stress at the working place are highlighted by Robbins & Judge (2016). All these negative manifestations of stress reduce labor productivity, increase the risks of conflicts, complicate work planning processes, and the psychological climate may become unfavorable. The most general recommendation to the manager in these conditions, which is given by both the author of the article and Robbins & Judge (2016), is to convey to employees the idea of calm and consistent solutions to emerging problems.

In a situation of general organizational stress, the manager should demonstrate increased attention to the problems that arise in employees, quickly respond to the difficulties that have arisen. In these conditions, the author recommends to abandon the methods of punishing management, to use more often non-material incentives in the form of gratitude, appreciation of the importance of work results and social recognition (Moss, 2019). This is done because employees need to feel the presence of the manager. The feeling that the manager is in the same workflow with the employees has a calming effect on them. The most successful in this situation is a leadership strategy based on a clear structuring of the work of employees, the organization of a productive discussion of work planning, and soft control of the implementation of tasks.

Mental labor has become so widespread in some countries that today sociologists are talking about the era of cognitive capitalism. With mental work, the employee themselves and their personal qualities become the instrument of production. At the same time, the dependence on their intellectual abilities and emotional component is extremely high. In the era of cognitive capitalism and the knowledge economy, even a little stress can quickly undermine the work and efficiency of employees. Therefore, with well-structured work processes and a psychologically healthy atmosphere, both the staff and the organization benefit.

Serious stress does not come overnight, it accumulates gradually. Workplace stress is a diverse phenomenon, expressed in mental and somatic reactions to stressful situations in a person’s work. If the leader studies the emotional symptoms at various stages of stress described in the articles, it will become much easier to identify alarm signals. A holistic approach is needed to stress at work, since stress is a natural and most often healthy response to difficulties that arise. Therefore, it is extremely important to recognize that this is a ubiquitous phenomenon and every employee can face it.

In the studied literature, there was also the term mental burnout, which is usually understood as a syndrome that occurs as a result of prolonged professional stress. A comparison of the features of the formation and course of the burnout syndrome in different research groups showed that this phenomenon is most common and most pronounced among representatives of the professions of the man – man system. In persons of communicative professions, disability is associated with stress in almost half of cases.

The studied articles show that all factors can be influenced by the behavior and management style of a leader. The manager has enough opportunities and responsibilities to maintain emotional stability and productivity, thereby preventing stress. Therefore, companies that include the development of well-being employees and workplace stress management in the agenda of the company’s key tasks increase their competitiveness. Their employees and management team always generate breakthrough ideas, work better and more efficiently.

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2016). Essentials of organizational behavior (13 th ed.). Columbus, OH: Pearson.

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Workplace Stress Management: 11 Best Strategies & Worksheets

An American Psychological Association survey found that 31% of staff felt stressed out during their workday (cited in Tetrick & Winslow, 2015).

Help is available. Workplace stress management and wellness programs can help reduce the degree and impact of stress and restore an employee’s depleted psychological resources (Tetrick & Winslow, 2015).

This article explores what we mean by workplace stress management and introduces mechanisms and activities that can provide relief and help staff cope.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises (PDF) for free . These science-based exercises will equip you and those you work with with tools to manage stress better and find a healthier balance in your life.

This Article Contains:

What is workplace stress management, how to prevent stress at work: 3 strategies, 2 helpful coping mechanisms for employees, stress relief at work: 3 worksheets to reduce stress, 3 activities & worksheets to cope with stress, how to craft prevention programs & workshops, assessing stress: 4 questionnaires & scales, best stress-relief tools from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message.

The relationship between the workplace and our psychological, cognitive, and physiological responses to stress is complex, impacted by “a broad set of occupational and work demands as well as environmental stressors” (Quick & Henderson, 2016, p. 2).

And yet, our stress response at work can typically be attributed to one of the following four workplace demands (Quick & Henderson, 2016):

• Task demands Job insecurity, workload, occupation, etc.
• Role demands Role conflict and ambiguity
• Physical demands Workplace, lighting, and temperature
• Interpersonal demands Staff density, leadership style, and personality conflicts

Workplace stress management (WSM) has been significantly influenced by the theory of preventive stress management, introduced in 1979, which proposes that it is not the stimuli that decide the degree of stress experienced by the individual, but the individual’s response to those stressors (Hargrove, Quick, Nelson, & Quick, 2011).

Over the years, many theoretical frameworks and organizational wellness programs that fall under the umbrella term of WSM have been proposed to understand occupational stress and employee wellbeing. WSM aims to understand specific stressors and take positive steps to reduce their effects (Tetrick & Winslow, 2015).

WSM interventions are typically divided into three types:

• Primary Proactive and involved in preventing stress and promoting employee wellbeing (including wellness programs, conflict management, etc.)
• Secondary Proactive and reactive, to help remove risk factors (including coping skills, employee fitness programs, job redesign)
• Tertiary Reactive, for employees who need help (including counseling, employee assistance programs, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy)

Stress interventions include (modified from Tetrick & Winslow, 2015):

• Cognitive-behavioral interventions Primary and secondary interventions. Changing cognitions and reinforcing active coping skills .
• Relaxation techniques Secondary and tertiary interventions. Physical and mental relaxation techniques to help cope with the consequences of stress.
• Multimodal programs Secondary interventions. Acquiring passive and active coping skills. They consist of a combination of approaches, including relaxation and cognitive-behavioral skills.
• Organization-focused interventions Mostly primary interventions, but some considered secondary. Organizational development and job redesign.
• Individual-level interventions Secondary or tertiary interventions, including relaxation, meditation, and cognitive-behavioral skills training.
• Organizational-level interventions Primary and secondary interventions, including changing working conditions and employee participation.
• Systems approach Primary and secondary, combining individual and organizational interventions.

Such interventions are often used in combination to prevent, reduce, and cope with stress.

While many of the following strategies appear simple, they require focus and commitment. Others foster a new mindset and change how we relate to work and occupational stress.

1. Controlling your stress

Our brains are constantly flooded with increasing demands and information, causing us stress and reducing our ability to focus and solve problems.

There are many steps we can take to avoid or reduce stress, including promoting positive emotions, taking physical care of our brain, and becoming more organized (modified from Hallowell, 2014).

• Ensure you get adequate sleep (don’t eat late at night and reduce caffeine and alcohol intake).
• Enjoy a balanced diet and stay hydrated.
• Exercise throughout the week and get time away from your desk, preferably in nature.
• Schedule regular catch-ups with people you value.
• Break large tasks into smaller ones.
• Maintain a tidy work environment.
• Schedule some ‘think time’ in your busy schedule.
• Allocate time for lunch and take it away from your desk.
• Recognize when you do your best work. Plan your most demanding tasks for those times.
• Walk around more, stand, or listen to music, depending on what works best for you.
• Set reminders for a ‘hard stop’ at the end of the workday.

2. When you feel overwhelmed

• Slow yourself down. When stressed, we often move into panic mode.
• Take time to perform a calming exercise.
• Move around. Walk outside or head to the break room/kitchen.
• Ask for help. Seek out people you trust.

3. Managing your energy

Demanding jobs, long hours, and increasing workloads can leave us feeling emotional, disengaged, stressed, and exhausted (Schwartz & McCarthy, 2014).

Creating a series of habits , practices, and rituals can promote your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy (modified from Schwartz & McCarthy, 2014).

Physical energy

• Recognize times in the day when you feel tired or unable to concentrate. Step away from the desk, meet colleagues, or perform something interesting.
• Aim to focus for 90 to 120 minutes at a time, taking regular breaks.
• Eat smaller, lighter meals during the day to maintain energy.

Emotional energy

• Practice abdominal breathing to manage negative emotions , such as irritability, anxiety, and impatience.
• Express gratitude and appreciation for others while adopting self-compassion for yourself.
• Use a reverse lens to see a situation from the other person’s point of view. Use a long lens to consider how we might look at the issue in six months. Use a wide lens to consider the bigger picture.

Mental energy

• Switch off email and move phones away to perform high-concentration tasks.
• Schedule specific times in the day to answer and respond to emails.
• At the end of each day, make a list of key actions for tomorrow.

Spiritual energy

• Identify when you perform at your best. What strengths do you enjoy using, and how can you use them more often?
• On your commute home, or the last 20 minutes of your day when working remotely, relax. This may mean sitting mindfully or listening to music before returning to home life.
• Recognize your core values. Reflect on whether you are using and showing them to others around you. Find opportunities to be your authentic self.

We all have finite limits before reducing energy levels and increasing stress interrupt what we can achieve. Investing in healthy work habits can maintain productivity and performance throughout the day.

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These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you or your clients with tools to manage stress better and find a healthier balance in their life.

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How we experience and handle stress changes its cognitive, emotional, and behavioral impact (Crum & Crum, 2018). The following two coping mechanisms offer practical approaches for managing stress in the workplace and can be implemented with little training.

Mindfulness

Research has confirmed the success of mindfulness at reducing perceived stress and emotional exhaustion, and improving sleep quality and job satisfaction (Tetrick & Winslow, 2015).

While we may sometimes think of mindfulness as passive and accepting, it is often the first step toward growth and change. While incredibly valuable for handling life stresses, it is also powerful enough to enrich positive and happy times in our lives (Shapiro, 2020).

Mindfulness expert Shauna Shapiro (2020) considers three points essential to mindfulness:

• Intention – why we pay attention
• Attention – attending to the present
• Attitude – how we pay attention (compassion, kindness, etc.)

A review of the literature confirms that mindfulness is a powerful and cost-free approach to coping with stress (Shapiro, 2020).

Reframing stress

While we are familiar with the negative impacts of stress, we sometimes forget that achieving a stress-free life is unlikely and, perhaps, impossible (Crum & Crum, 2018).

We must recognize that some degree of stress is crucial to our personal and professional growth. Stress reminds us that something is important to us, that we care.

People who adopt a “stress is enhancing” mindset rather than a “stress is debilitating” mindset perform better and experience fewer negative health consequences (Crum & Crum, 2018).

But how do we see stress differently?

We can rethink stress using the following three steps (Crum & Crum, 2018; Crum, Salovey, & Achor, 2013):

• See it Rather than deny stress, you must recognize and name the stress you are facing.

“I am stressed about my job interview.” “I am stressed about finals.”

Acknowledging stress can help you move brain activity from being automatic and reactive to conscious and deliberate.

• Own it Recognize that what you are stressing about must be important to you. “Owning this realization unleashes positive motivation” (Crum & Crum, 2018, p. 73).
• Use it Stress is not designed to kill us, but to boost our mind and body, and prepare for the challenge ahead. By reframing your stress response as something positive, such as eustress , you can use your heightened energy and awareness to improve your performance.

Even with long-term, chronic stress at work, you can recognize opportunities for learning, growth, or the motivation to change yourself or your situation. While it may not always be possible, if you can find a way to embrace stress, it can become a “powerful tool for helping you overcome the inevitable challenges that can – and will – arise” (Crum & Crum, 2018, p. 75).

Identifying Your Stress Resources

Your resources (internal and external) provide a potentially limitless amount of support that will sustain you during challenging times and stressful situations (Niemiec, 2019).

The Identifying Your Stress Resources worksheet helps you recognize your resources and identify how they can support your strengths.

Stress Decision Framework

Decision-making takes time. The effect of weighing up pros and cons uses up precious resources and risks adding to an already stressful workload.

The Stress Decision Framework worksheet helps you put decision-making in context, aiming for a good enough , not perfect , decision (Armstrong, 2019).

Vicious Versus Virtuous Stress Thinking

Stress is a choice, yet it is often perpetuated by negative (vicious) cycles of thinking (Armstrong, 2019).

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Using a cognitive-behavioral approach, it is possible to reframe unhelpful beliefs and thinking, and adopt a virtuous cycle of thinking.

The Vicious Versus Virtuous Stress Thinking worksheet helps you compare unhelpful and helpful thinking regarding an event (Armstrong, 2019).

The cost of workplace stress – and how to reduce it – Rob Cooke

Coping with stress can often be about gaining control of what is – or, more importantly, what we perceive to be – within our control. The following activities and exercises can help.

One-Hour Stress Plan

When we feel overwhelmed, we get stressed, which can damage our focus and cloud our thinking. “Working within a limited time frame is important because the race against time keeps you focused” (Bregman, 2014, p. 157).

Use the One-Hour Stress Plan worksheet when stressed to plan and work through what you can in 60 minutes. At the end of the hour, you will have progressed and can repeat the exercise as many times as you like (modified from Bregman, 2014).

Stress as a Stimulus for Change

Sometimes stress is a good indication that something in your life needs to change.

The Stress as a Stimulus for Change worksheet can capture what you wish to change in your life and begin the transformation process .

Workplace Mindfulness

Mindfulness can be a powerful way to adopt a state of loving-kindness about yourself and others, and has significant benefits to how you handle stress (Shapiro, 2020; Tetrick & Winslow, 2015).

The Workplace Mindfulness worksheet can help decrease stress and improve workplace satisfaction through a series of simple questions asked when relaxed and present.

Instead, a multimodal approach should be considered when crafting prevention programs and workshops (Tetrick & Winslow, 2015).

Most likely, it will be necessary to put in place learning and education that are both proactive and reactive.

Proactive interventions

Focus on preventing stress (removing risk factors) and promoting positive actions for all employees.

Interventions are likely to include:

• Conflict management
• Employee wellness
• Job redesign and the organization of work
• Coping skills
• Employee fitness programs (for employees with known risk factors)

Reactive interventions

Focus on helping employees who need assistance.

• Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
• Rehabilitation after illness or returning to work
• Employee assistance programs

A multimodal approach combines multiple intervention styles and techniques, and can be rolled out across the organization while focusing on the individual (Tetrick & Winslow, 2015).

The following questionnaires measure a respondent’s current degree of stress and assess their risk of experiencing future stress.

Perceived Stress Scale

The Perceived Stress Scale is one of the most widely used measures of the perception of stress (Cohen, 1994; Cohen & Williamson, 1988).

The 10 questions are answered with a rating between 0 (never) and 4 (very often).

For example:

In the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?

In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and “stressed”?

Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (LEDS) and Stress and Adversity Inventory (STRAIN)

LEDS is a structured interview used to assess stressor exposure over a lifetime. It has since been turned into an online version known as STRAIN (Crosswell & Lockwood, 2020).

“Both measures provide a comprehensive assessment of stressor exposures across the lifespan” (Crosswell & Lockwood, 2020, p. 2) and can be valuable for research and therapy.

Stress Mastery Questionnaire (SMQ)

The American Institute of Stress offers the SMQ as an online self-assessment of stress risk.

The results, plus a 66-page Stress Mastery Guide and Workbook , provide a personalized stress risk profile that can help you lead a less stressed, more enjoyable life.

You’ll find a range of powerful stress-related interventions and assessment tools available throughout our site. Check out the following for some of our favorites:

• Radical Acceptance of a Distressing Situation This worksheet presents a sequence of eleven questions to help clients reflect on a current or past distressing situation and work toward radically accepting the reality of that event.
• Changing Physical Habits This worksheet helps clients reflect on their vulnerabilities and routines surrounding aspects of their physical health and consider steps to develop healthier habits.
• Coping With Stress This two-part exercise invites clients to list experienced physiological and emotional symptoms of stress and brainstorm strategies to reduce, cope with, or eliminate these sources of stress.
• Coping: Stressors and Resources This worksheet helps clients identify past, present, and future stressors and link them with coping resources they can use to overcome them.
• Squeeze and Release This group activity helps participants discover the energizing potential of positive stress, known as eustress , which can help improve motivation, performance, and emotional wellbeing.
• 13 Stress-Relief Books About the Science of Managing Anxiety This article provides an excellent selection of stress-relief books .
• 17 Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others manage stress without spending hours on research and session prep, check out this collection of 17 validated stress-management tools for practitioners . Use them to help others identify signs of burnout and create more balance in their lives.

Our physical and mental wellbeing, work environment, and the demands of our job all impact our degree of stress. They also influence our performance and productivity in the workplace.

Reducing stressors and managing their impact by adopting effective coping mechanisms help us regain a sense of control (Quick & Henderson, 2016).

According to Angela Armstrong (2019), stress is a choice. Appropriate workplace stress management (personal and organizational) helps us identify ways to control what we can and learn how to see things differently when we cannot.

With the right mindset, seeing stress as enhancing, we can increase our motivation and see challenges as opportunities for growth rather than debilitating obstacles (Crum et al., 2013).

There are powerful tools to help. In recent years, mindfulness in particular has become increasingly popular for stress reduction, helping individuals to confront situations “in an accepting, nonjudgmental manner” (Tetrick & Winslow, 2015, p. 8).

Why not review some strategies, techniques, and tools in this article and identify what can help you, your employees, or your clients manage the impact of stress or turn it into something positive and life enhancing?

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises (PDF) for free .

• Armstrong, A. (2019). Resilience club: Daily success habits of long-term high performers . Rethink Press.
• Bregman, P. (2014). A practical plan when you feel overwhelmed. In HBR guide to managing stress at work (pp. 27–50). Harvard Business Review Press.
• Cohen, S. (1994). Perceived Stress Scale . Mind Garden. Retrieved September 1, 2021, from https://www.mindgarden.com/documents/PerceivedStressScale.pdf
• Cohen, S., & Williamson, G. (1988). Perceived stress in a probability sample of the United States . In S. Spacapan & S Oskamp (Eds.), The social psychology of health . Sage.
• Crosswell, A. D., & Lockwood, K. G. (2020). Best practices for stress measurement: How to measure psychological stress in health research. Health Psychology Open , 7 (2).
• Crum, A., & Crum, T. (2018). Stress can be a good thing if you know how to use it. In HBR’s 10 must reads: On mental toughness (pp. 71–75). Harvard Business Review Press.
• Crum, A. J., Salovey, P., & Achor, S. (2013). Rethinking stress: The role of mindsets in determining the stress response. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 104 (4), 716–733.
• Hallowell, E. M. (2014). Overloaded circuits. In HBR guide to managing stress at work (pp. 27–50). Harvard Business Review Press.
• Hargrove, M. B., Quick, J. C., Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. D. (2011). The theory of preventive stress management: A 33-year review and evaluation. Stress and Health: Journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress , 27 (3), 182–193.
• Niemiec, R. (2019). Strength-based workbook for stress relief: A character strengths approach to finding calm in the chaos of daily life . New Harbinger.
• Quick, J., & Henderson, D. (2016). Occupational stress: Preventing suffering, enhancing wellbeing. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , 13 (5), 459.
• Schwartz, T., & McCarthy, C. (2014). Manage your energy not your time.  Harvard Business Review Press.
• Shapiro, S. L. (2020). Rewire your mind: Discover the science + practice of mindfulness . Aster.
• Tetrick, L. E., & Winslow, C. J. (2015). Workplace stress management interventions and health promotion. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior , 2 (1), 583–603.

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Article feedback

What our readers think.

I’m looking for an active stress avoidance / proactive approach to a stress-free work experience. This article appears to focus on alleviating the effects of stress rather than designing a work experience that removes it, and/or deals with those in positions of power in the workplace who rely on others for results and enforce this through control techniques, resulting in high employee stress, since the techniques are seldom nice, polite, sustainable or implemented with the employee’s long term well being in mind. I need workplace strategies that negate those manipulations and exploitations put in place by the hierarchy to simply get more work from employees, no matter what. Engagement surveys, annual reviews, and many workplace methodologies are in fact trojan horses. Please advise, many thanks Alvin Zest

Thanks for your comment; I completely understand where you’re coming from. Many of the dominant approaches to addressing strain, stress, and high work demands in organizations are largely reactive and center on ‘undoing’ the harm (i.e., stress) done to employees after it’s already done, rather than being proactive and creating conditions that prevent the harm in the first place. However, more research is coming out that’s looking at these proactive strategies.

Research is a long way from identifying a complete solution, but I would encourage you to look into the research and efforts by a researcher named Sharon Parker and her colleagues at the Center for Transformative Work Design. Some of the videos on this page might begin pointing you in the right direction and highlight the path research has taken so far.

I hope this helps.

– Nicole | Community Manager

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An Overview of Stress Management

Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.

Stress Management

Stress management is the range of techniques, strategies, and therapies designed to help people control their stress. This can include lowering acute stress, but it is often aimed at lowering chronic stress to improve health, happiness, and overall well-being. Stress management strategies may include:

• Deep breathing
• Eating a healthy diet
• Getting enough sleep
• Guided visualization
• Hobbies and leisure activities
• Mindfulness
• Positive thinking
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Psychotherapy
• Social support

We all experience stress in our lives. Because many health problems are caused or influenced by stress, it's essential to understand how stress affects your body and learn effective stress management techniques to make stress work for you rather than against you.

What Is Stress?

Stress is your body’s response to changes in your life. Because life involves constant change—ranging from everyday, routine changes like commuting from home to work to adapting to major life changes like marriage, divorce, or death of a loved one—there is no avoiding stress.  

Your goal shouldn't be to eliminate all stress but to eliminate unnecessary stress and effectively manage the rest. There are some common causes of stress that many people experience, but each person is different.

Stress can come from many sources, which are known as " stressors ." Because our experience of what is considered "stressful" is created by our unique perceptions of what we encounter in life (based on our own mix of personality traits, available resources, and habitual thought patterns), a situation may be perceived as "stressful" by one person and merely "challenging" by someone else.

Simply put, one person's stress trigger may not register as stressful to someone else. That said, certain situations tend to cause more stress in most people and can increase the risk of burnout .

For example, when we find ourselves in situations where there are high demands on us but we little control and few choices, we are likely to experience stress. We might also feel stress when we don't feel equipped; where we may be harshly judged by others; and where consequences for failure are steep or unpredictable.

Many people are stressed by their jobs , relationships , financial issues , and health problems, as well as more mundane things like clutter or busy schedules . Learning skills to cope with these stressors can help reduce your experience of stress.  

Press Play for Advice On Dealing With Money Issues

Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast shares what to do when financial stress is impacting your mental health. Click below to listen now.

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Just as stress is perceived differently by each of us, stress affects us all in ways that are unique to us. One person may experience headaches, while another may find stomach upset is a common reaction, and a third may experience any of a number of other symptoms.

While we all react to stress in our own ways, there is a long list of commonly experienced effects of stress that range from mild to life-threatening. Stress can affect immunity, which can impact virtually all areas of health. Stress can affect mood in many ways as well. Creating a stress management plan is often one part of a plan for overall wellness.

If you find yourself experiencing physical symptoms you think may be related to stress, talk to your doctor to be sure you are doing what you can to safeguard your health. Symptoms that may be exacerbated by stress are not "all in your head" and need to be taken seriously.

Stress can be effectively managed in many different ways. The best stress management plans usually include a mix of stress relievers that address stress physically and psychologically and help to develop resilience and coping skills.

7 Highly Effective Stress Relievers

Use quick stress relievers.

Some stress relief techniques can work in just a few minutes to calm the body's stress response. These techniques offer a "quick fix" that helps you feel calmer at the moment, and this can help in several ways.

When your stress response is not triggered, you may approach problems more thoughtfully and proactively. You may be less likely to lash out at others out of frustration, which can keep your relationships healthier. Nipping your stress response in the bud can also keep you from experiencing chronic stress.

Quick stress relievers like breathing exercises, for example, may not build your resilience to future stress or minimize the stressors that you face. But they can help calm the body's physiology once the stress response is triggered.  

Develop Stress-Relieving Habits

Some techniques are less convenient to use when you are in the middle of a stressful situation. But if you practice them regularly, they can help you manage stress in general by being less reactive to it and more able to reverse your stress response quickly and easily.

Long-term healthy habits, like exercise or regular meditation , can help to promote resilience toward stressors if you make them a regular part of your life.   Communication skills and other lifestyle skills can be helpful in managing stressors and changing how we feel from "overwhelmed" to "challenged" or even "stimulated."

Eliminate Stressors When You Can

You may not be able to completely eliminate stress from your life or even the biggest stressors, but there are areas where you can minimize it and get it to a manageable level.

Any stress that you can cut out can minimize your overall stress load. For example, ending even one toxic relationship can help you more effectively deal with other stress you experience because you may feel less overwhelmed.  

Discovering a wide variety of stress management techniques, and then choosing a mix that fits your needs, can be a key strategy for effective stress relief.

Stress FAQs

There are a number of common questions that you might ask about stress and stress management.

Is All Stress Harmful to Health?

There are several different types of stress , and not all are harmful. Eustress , for example, is a positive form of stress. But chronic stress has been linked to many serious health issues and is the type of negative stress most often mentioned in the news.   While we want to manage or eliminate negative stress, we also want to keep positive forms of stress in our lives to help us remain vital and alive.

However, if we experience too much stress in our lives, even "good" stress can contribute to excessive stress levels, which can lead to feeling overwhelmed or having your stress response triggered for too long. This is why it is still important to learn to relax your body and mind periodically and cut down on unnecessary stress whenever possible.

How Can I Tell When I’m Too Stressed?

Stress affects us all in different ways, not all of which are negative. In fact, the stress of an exciting life can actually serve as a good motivator and keep things interesting. When stress levels get too intense, however, there are some stress symptoms that many people experience.

For example, headaches, irritability, and "fuzzy thinking" can all be symptoms that you’re under too much stress.   While not everybody who’s under stress will experience these specific symptoms, many will.

If you find that you don't realize how stressed you are until you are overwhelmed, it's important to learn to notice your body's subtle cues and your own behavior, almost like an outside observer might. To notice how your body is reacting to stress, you can try this body scan meditation (it helps relax at the same time).

What Can I Do When I Feel Overwhelmed?

We all feel overwhelmed from time to time; that’s normal. While it’s virtually impossible to eliminate times when events conspire and the body’s stress response is triggered, there are ways that you can quickly reverse your body’s reaction to stress, buffering the damage to your health and keeping your thinking clear, so you can more effectively deal with what’s going on in the moment.

Is There a Way to Be Less Affected by Stress?

By practicing regular stress management techniques, you can eliminate some of the stress you feel and make yourself more resilient in the face of stress in the future. There are several things you can try, ranging from a morning walk to an evening journaling practice to just making more time for friends. The trick is to find something that fits with your lifestyle and personality, so it’s easier to stick with.

National Institute of Mental Health. 5 Things You Should Know About Stress .

Ma X, Yue ZQ, Gong ZQ, et al. The effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect and stress in healthy adults .  Front Psychol . 2017;8:874. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine. Mind and Body Approaches for Stress: What the Science Says . 2020.

Bota PG, Miropolskiy E, Nguyen V. Stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist: How to end the drama and get on with life .  Ment Illn . 2017;9(1):6985. doi:10.4081/mi.2017.6985

Lehrer PM, Woolfolk RL, Sime WE. Principles and Practice of Stress Management . 3rd edition. New York: The Guilford Press; 2007.

By Elizabeth Scott, PhD Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

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How to Relax in Stressful Situations: A Smart Stress Reduction System

Yekta said can.

1 Computer Engineering Department, Bogazici University, 34342 Istanbul, Turkey; [email protected] (N.C.); [email protected] (D.E.); rt.ude.nuob@yosre (C.E.)

Heather Iles-Smith

2 Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust/University of Leeds, Leeds LS1 3EX, UK; [email protected]

Niaz Chalabianloo

Javier fernández-Álvarez.

3 General Psychology and Communication Psychology, Catholic University of Milan, 20123 Milan, Italy; [email protected] (J.F.-Á.); [email protected] (C.R.); [email protected] (G.R.)

Claudia Repetto

Giuseppe riva.

Stress is an inescapable element of the modern age. Instances of untreated stress may lead to a reduction in the individual’s health, well-being and socio-economic situation. Stress management application development for wearable smart devices is a growing market. The use of wearable smart devices and biofeedback for individualized real-life stress reduction interventions has received less attention. By using our unobtrusive automatic stress detection system for use with consumer-grade smart bands, we first detected stress levels. When a high stress level is detected, our system suggests the most appropriate relaxation method by analyzing the physical activity-based contextual information. In more restricted contexts, physical activity is lower and mobile relaxation methods might be more appropriate, whereas in free contexts traditional methods might be useful. We further compared traditional and mobile relaxation methods by using our stress level detection system during an eight day EU project training event involving 15 early stage researchers (mean age 28; gender 9 Male, 6 Female). Participants’ daily stress levels were monitored and a range of traditional and mobile stress management techniques was applied. On day eight, participants were exposed to a ‘stressful’ event by being required to give an oral presentation. Insights about the success of both traditional and mobile relaxation methods by using the physiological signals and collected self-reports were provided.

1. Introduction

Stress constitutes a complex process that is activated by a physical or mental threat to the individuals’ homeostasis, comprising a set of diverse psychological, physiological and behavioral responses [ 1 ]. Although it is usually considered a negative response, stress actually constitutes a key process for ensuring our survival. However, when a stress response is repeatedly triggered in the absence of a challenging stimulus, or if there is constant exposure to challenging situations, stress can become harmful. Evidence suggests that, in either of these two contexts, stress is a persistent factor for the development of psycho-pathological conditions [ 2 , 3 ].

When faced with stressful events, people make autonomic and controlled efforts to reduce the negative impact and maximize the positive impact that every specific situation may provoke. Generally, this process is denominated as emotion regulation, formally defined as the process by which individuals can influence what emotions they have, when they have them and how they experience and express those emotions [ 4 ]. It has been suggested that the term emotion regulation can be understood as a broad tag that comprises the regulation of all responses that are emotionally charged, from basic emotions to complex mood states as well as regulation of everyday life [ 5 ].

Failure to address triggers of stress has been shown to lead to chronic stress, anxiety and depression, and attributed to serious physical health conditions such as cardiovascular disease [ 6 ]. The World Health Organization concluded that psychological stress is one of the most significant health problems in the 21st-century and is a growing problem [ 7 ]. There are various interventions to minimize stress based on individual preferences and requirements. Stress management techniques including ancient practices such as Tai Chi [ 8 ] and yoga [ 9 ] as well as other physical activities [ 10 ] are often cited as being helpful in combating stress. Likewise traditional meditation, mindfulness [ 11 ] and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) [ 12 ] all have established benefits. These techniques are not applicable in office or social environments, or during most daily routines. Therefore, a smart device based stress management application may be of benefit. Recently, smartphone applications such as Calm, Pause, Heartmath and Sway have been developed for indoor environments. However, these applications are not individualized nor do they include biofeedback and studies that validate their effects are limited [ 13 ].

In this study, we used the stress level detection scheme using physiological signals and added a physical activity based context analyzer. When the user experiences a high stress level, the system suggests appropriate stress reduction methods (traditional or mobile). We further compare the effects of traditional and mobile stress alleviation methods on physiological data of 15 international Ph.D. students (participants) during eight days of training. In addition, 1440 h of physiological signals from Empatica E4 smart bands were collected in this training event. Stress management techniques based on the emotion regulation model of James Gross [ 4 ] were applied to reduce participant stress levels. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first one suggesting appropriate stress reduction methods based on contextual information and comparing both traditional and mobile stress management interventions in the real-life environment using a commercial smart-band based automatic stress level detection system that eliminates motion artifacts. Using such a system is essential because these offline stress level detection algorithms could be used in real-time biofeedback apps.

Application of our stress level detection algorithm, in a real world context, could allow individuals to receive feedback regarding high stress levels along with recommendations for relaxation methods. Additional continued monitoring may also enable the individual to better understand the effectiveness of any stress reduction methods. However, for our stress detection algorithm to be applied in daily life, the smart device should be unobtrusive (i.e., should not be comprised of cables, electrodes, boards). Our system works on smart-bands which are perfect examples of this type of unobtrusive wearable device.

This paper describes emotion regulation in the context of stress management and how yoga and mindfulness can be used for regulating emotions ( Section 2 ). Methods of detecting stress and analyzing context based on physical activity are described ( Section 3 ) and data are presented related to our method for stress level detection with the use of smart-bands ( Section 4 ). Experimental results and discussion are also presented ( Section 5 ) and we present the conclusions and future works of the study ( Section 6 ).

The major research contributions of this study are the following:

• Developing a physical activity based context analyzer and relaxation method suggestion system
• Comparison of stress reduction methods (mobile mindfulness, traditional mindfulness and yoga) and their effectiveness in the context of stress management with the use of an unobtrusive smartwatch based stress level detection system
• Application of James Gross’s prominent emotion regulation model in the context of stress management and measuring the physiological component with smart bands.

2. Background

2.1. emotion regulation in the context of stress management.

Stress is a normal part of daily life. However, its effects often vary across individuals and despite similar circumstances, some people do not feel under strain while others may be severely affected. Multiple reasons exist for these differences between individuals, including how people perceive reality and how they respond to the numerous stimuli to which they are exposed. When a person believes that a certain situation surpasses their available coping mechanisms, it is referred to as perceived stress. Thus, perceived stress varies from person to person depending on the value that an individual gives to a situation and their self-recognition of the resources to deal with it.

Numerous psychological scientists have investigated perceived stress. Individuals who display a mismatch between contextual demands and perceived resources constantly (rather than during a specific moment in time) are referred to as experiencing chronic stress. Chronic stress has not only been shown to be very relevant in people’s well-being and quality of life, but also important in the appearance and maintenance of several physical and mental diseases [ 14 ].

As a consequence, mounting research has focused on the mechanisms that people implement in order to alleviate the physical and cognitive burden associated with that perceived stress. Coping styles, stress management techniques, self-regulation, or emotion regulation techniques are different labels that define the way people implement certain behavioral, cognitive, or emotional strategies to maintain allosteric load [ 15 ]. In other words, every living organism needs to vary among plasticity and stability in order to survive. Human beings are not the exception to the rule and the complex system that applies to every single person and the necessity of reaching a constant level of regulation permits the individuals to pursue their goals.

Specifically, emotion regulation has been defined as the study of “the processes by which we influence which emotions we have when we have them, and how we experience and express them” [ 4 ]. A large body of evidence has shown that there are very different consequences depending on the effectiveness people achieve to regulate their emotions. Naturally, both at an implicit or explicit level, people regulate emotions in order to maintain those allosteric levels previously mentioned. Therefore, when there are specific stressors that demand a particular cognitive or physical response, the emotional reactivity may be stronger and the need for a proper regulation more relevant. Indeed, emotion regulation has shown to be a transdiagnostic factor that is present at a wide range of mental disorders. In other words, the way people initiate, implement and monitor their emotional processes, in order to reach more desirable states, has a significant impact on the stress levels. Some emotion regulation (ER) strategies have shown to be correlated with mental health issues. Among these strategies, cognitive reappraisal, problem-solving, or acceptance shall be mentioned as strategies that are negatively correlated with psychopathology, while rumination, experiential avoidance, or suppression are positively correlated with psychopathology [ 16 ]. In this regard, hinging on the different ER strategies deployed, ER can constitute a protective factor to face stress responses that all individuals experience after minor or major stressors [ 17 ]. Additionally, an adaptive regulation of emotions, by managing stress, may also be beneficial for clinical populations, such as people suffering from affective disorders [ 18 , 19 ].

Therefore, from whole psychotherapeutic treatments to single self-applied applications, studies in the literature have focused on how people can better regulate their emotions and manage their stress levels. Among many other techniques, cognitive behavioral therapy, autogenic training, biofeedback, breathing exercises, relaxation techniques, guided imagery, mindfulness, yoga, or Tai-Chi, are some of the stress management interventions that have received attention from researchers [ 20 , 21 ].

2.2. Yoga and Mindfulness: As Tools for Emotion Regulation

2.2.1. yoga.

Yoga is an ancient Eastern practice that developed more than 2000 years ago. Although its original creator and source are uncertain, the earliest written word ‘Yoga Sutra’ describes the philosophy of yoga focussing on growing spirituality, regulating emotions and thoughts. Initially, the focus was on awareness of breathing and breathing exercises ‘pranayama’ to calm the mind and body, ultimately reaching a higher state of consciousness.

As yoga evolved, physical movement in the form of postures was included and integrated with yogic breathing ‘prana’ and elements of relaxation. The underlying purpose is to create physical flexibility, reduce pain and unpleasant stimuli and reduce negative thoughts and emotions to calm the mind and body, thereby improving well-being. In the healthcare literature, the benefits are reported to be far-reaching both for mental and physical health conditions such as anxiety, depression, cardiovascular disease, cancer and respiratory symptoms. It is also reported to reduce muscular-skeletal problems and physical symptoms through increasing the awareness of the physical body.

Yoga has become a global phenomenon and is widely practiced in many different forms. Generally, all types of yoga include some elements of relaxation. Additionally, some forms include mainly pranayama and others are more physical in nature. One such practice is vinyasa flow which involves using the inhale and exhale of the breathing pattern to move through a variety of yoga postures; this leads to the movement becoming meditative. The practice often includes pranayama followed by standing postures linked together with a movement called vinyasa, (similar to a sun salutation) which helps to keep the body moving and increases fitness, flexibility and helps maintain linkage with the breath. The practice also often includes a range of seated postures, an inversion (such as headstand or shoulder stand) and final relaxation ‘savasana’.

2.2.2. Mindfulness

Mindfulness involves being more present at the moment by acknowledging the here and now, often referred to as ‘being present’ rather than focussing on the past or future [ 8 ]. Being present may include being aware of our surroundings and the environment, or of what we are eating and drinking and physical sensations such as the sun or wind on our skin.

Acknowledging the thoughts and body are also aspects of mindfulness. Each day humans experience thousands of thoughts, the majority being of no consequence. In some instances, these thoughts are repetitive and negative in nature which can lead to increased stress and the related unpleasant physical symptoms such as feeling anxious, nausea and tension headaches. Being mindful includes an awareness of our thinking and whether we are caught up with our thoughts rather than being aware of the moment. Additionally, on a daily basis, awareness of the physical body may be minimal; being mindful includes increasing this awareness through becoming more connected with the sensations in the body. This might include experiencing the legs moving when walking, or feeling the ground under the feet or the natural way of the body whilst standing.

Mindfulness has been shown to be of benefit to physical and mental health. It is currently recommended by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence [ 22 ] as adjunctive therapy to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for the prevention of relapse depression.

However, it may be challenging for some individuals to do this with a multitude of distractions around them and, therefore, they may choose to identify a particular time and place when and where they can sit in a comfortable position to start to become aware of their breathing and bodily sensations.

2.2.3. Mobile Mindfulness Inspired By Tai-Chi—Pause

Tai-Chi is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for both its defense training, its health benefits and meditation. There is good evidence of benefits for depression, cardiac and stroke rehabilitation and dementia [ 23 ]. The term Tai-Chi refers to a philosophy of the forces of yin and yang, related to the moves. An iPhone application Pause inspired by Tai-Chi is used for guided mindfulness which draws upon the principles of mindfulness meditation to trigger the body’s rest and digest response, quickly restoring attention [ 24 ].

3. Related Work

Researchers have created the ability to detect stress in laboratory environments with medical-grade devices [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]; smartwatches and smart bands started to be used for stress level detection studies [ 29 , 30 , 31 ]. These devices provide high comfort and rich functionality for the users, but their stress detection accuracies are lower than medical-grade devices due to low signal quality and difficulty obtaining data in intense physical activity. If data are collected for long periods, researchers have shown that their detection performance improves [ 32 ]. During movement periods, the signal can be lost (gap in the data) or artifacts might be generated. Stress level detection accuracies for 2-classes by using these devices are around 70% [ 29 , 30 , 33 , 34 ].

After detecting the stress level of individuals, researchers should recover from the stressed state to the baseline state. To the best of our knowledge, there are very few studies that combine automatic stress detection (using physiological data) with recommended appropriate stress management techniques. Ahani et al. [ 35 ] examined the physiological effect of mindfulness. They used the Biosemi device which acquires electroencephalogram (EEG) and respiration signals. They successfully distinguished control (non-meditative state) and meditation states with machine learning algorithms. Karydis et al. [ 36 ] identified the post-meditation perceptual states by using a wearable EEG measurement device (Muse headband). Mason et al. [ 37 ] examined the effect of yoga on physiological signals. They used PortaPres Digital Plethtsmograph for measuring blood pressure and respiration signals. They also showed the positive effect of yoga by using these signals. A further study validated the positive effect of yoga with physiological signals; researchers monitored breathing and heart rate pulse with a piezoelectric belt and a pulse sensor [ 21 ]. They demonstrated the effectiveness of different yogic breathing patterns to help participants relax. There are also several studies showing the effectiveness of mobile mindfulness apps by using physiological signals [ 20 , 38 , 39 ]. Svetlov et al. [ 20 ] monitored the heart rate variability (HRV), electrodermal activity (EDA), Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) and EEG values. In other studies, EEG and respiration signals were also used for validating the effect of mobile mindfulness apps [ 38 , 39 ]. When the literature is examined, it could be observed that the effect of ancient relaxation methods and mobile mindfulness methods are examined separately in different studies. Ancient methods generally require out of office environments that are not suitable for most of the population, since, in the modern age, people started to spend more time in office-like environments. On the other hand, some smartphone applications such as Pause, HeartMath and Calm do not require extra hardware or equipment and be applicable in office environments. Hence, an ideal solution depends on the context of individuals. A system that monitors stress levels, analyzes the context of individuals and suggests an appropriate relaxation method in the case of high stress will benefit society. Furthermore, mobile methods along with the ancient techniques should be applied in stressful real-life events and their effectiveness should be compared by investigating physiological signals. When the literature is examined, there is not any study comparing the performance of these methods in real-life events (see Table 1 ). Another important finding is that these methods should be compared with unobtrusive wearable devices so that they could be used for a biofeedback system in daily lives. Individuals may be reluctant to use a system with cables, electrodes and boards in their daily life. Therefore, a comparison of different states with such systems could not be used in daily life. There is clearly a need for a suggestion and comparison of ancient and mobile meditation methods by using algorithms that could run on unobtrusive devices. An ideal system should detect high stress levels, suggest relaxation methods and control whether users are doing these exercises right or not with unobtrusive devices. Our algorithm is suitable to be embedded in such daily life applicable systems that use physiological signals such as skin temperature (ST), HRV, EDA and accelerometer (ACC). In this paper, we present the findings of our pilot study that tested the use of our algorithm during general daily activities, stress reduction activities and a stressful event.

Comparison of our work with the studies applying different types of meditation techniques for stress management in the literature.

4. Methodology

4.1. unobtrusive stress detection system with smart bands.

Our stress detection system developed in [ 32 ] allows users to be aware of their stress levels during their daily activities without creating any interruption or restriction. The only requirement to use this system is the need to wear a smart band. Participants in this study wore the Empatica E4 smart band on their non-dominant hand. The smart band provides Blood Volume Pressure, ST, EDA, IBI (Interbeat Interval) and 3D Acceleration. The data are stored in the memory of the device. Then, the artifacts of physiological signals were detected and handled. The features were extracted from the sensory signals and fed to the machine learning algorithm for prediction. In order to use this system, pre-trained machine learning models are required. For training the models, feature vectors and collected class labels were used.

4.1.1. EDA Preprocessing Artifact Detection and Removal Methods

The body sweats when emotional arousal and stress are experienced and, therefore, skin conductance increases [ 40 ]. This makes EDA a promising candidate for stress level detection. Intense physical activity and temperature changes contaminate the SC (Skin Conductance) signal. Therefore, affected segments (artifacts) should be filtered out from the original signal. In order to detect the artifacts in the SC signal, we used an EDA toolkit [ 41 ] which is 95% accurate on the detection of the artifacts. While developing this tool, technicians labeled the artifacts manually. They trained a machine learning model by using the labels. In addition to the SC signal, 3D acceleration and ST signals were also used for artifact detection. We removed the parts that this tool detected as artifacts from our signals. We further added batch processing and segmentation to this tool by using custom software built-in Python 2.7.

4.1.2. EDA Feature Extraction Methods

After the artifact removal phase, features were extracted from the EDA signal. This signal has two components phasic and tonic; features from both components were extracted (see Table 2 ). The cvxEDA tool [ 42 ] was used for the decomposition of the signal into these components. This tool uses convex optimization to estimate the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) activity that is based on Bayesian statistics.

EDA features and their definitions.

Tonic Component Features

The tonic component in the EDA signal represents the long-term slow changes. This component is also known as the skin conductance level. It could be regarded as the indicator of general psychophysiological activation [ 43 ].

Phasic Component Features

The phasic component represents faster (event-related ) differences in the SC signal. The Peaks of phasic SC component as a reaction to a stimulus is also called Skin Conductance Response [ 43 ]. After we decompose the phasic component from the EDA signal, peak related features were extracted.

4.1.3. Heart Activity Preprocessing (Artifact Detection and Removal) and Feature Extraction Methods

Heart activity (or, more specifically, HRV) reacts to changes in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) caused by stress [ 44 ] and it is, therefore, one of the most commonly used physiological signal for stress detection [ 40 ]. However, vigorous movement of subjects and improperly worn devices may contaminate the HRV signal collected from smartwatches and smart bands. In order to address this issue, we developed an artifact handling tool in MATLAB programming language [ 45 ] that has batch processing capability. First, the data were divided into 2 min long segments with 50% overlapping. Two-minute segments were selected because it is reported that the time interval for stress stimulation and recovery processes is around a few minutes [ 46 ]. The artifact detection percentage rule (also employed in Kubios [ 47 ]) was applied after the segmentation phase. In this rule, each data point was compared with the local average around it. When the difference was more than a predetermined threshold percentage, (20% is commonly selected in the literature [ 48 ]), the data point was labeled as an artifact. In our system, we deleted the inter-beat intervals detected as the artifacts and interpolated these points with the cubic spline interpolation technique which was used in the Kubios software [ 47 ]. The time-domain features of HRV are calculated. In order to calculate the frequency domain features, we interpolated the RR intervals to 4 Hz. Then, we applied the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). These time and frequency domain features (see Table 3 ) were selected because these are the most discriminative ones in the literature [ 30 , 49 , 50 ].

HRV features and their definitions [ 32 ].

4.1.4. Accelerometer Feature Extraction Methods

Research has shown that movements of the human body and postures can indeed be employed as a means to detect signs of different emotional states. The dynamics of body movement were investigated by Castellano et al. who used multimodal data to identify human affective behaviors. Specific movement metrics, such as the amount of movement, intensity and fluidity, were used to help deduct emotions, and it was found that the amount of movement was a major factor in distinguishing different types of emotions [ 51 ]. Melzer et al. investigated whether movements comprised of collections of Laban movement components could be recognized as expressing basic emotions [ 52 ]. The results of their study confirm that, even when the subject has no intention of expressing emotions, particular movements can assist in the perception of bodily expressions of emotions. Accelerometer sensors may be used to detect these movements and different types of affect. The accelerometer sensor data are used for two different purposes in our system. Firstly, we extracted features from the accelerometer sensor, for detecting stress levels. We also selected the features to be used as described in Table 4 [ 53 ] and, as mentioned above, this sensor was also employed to clean the EDA signal in the EDAExplorer Tool [ 41 ].

ACC features and their definitions.

4.1.5. Skin Temperature

A skin temperature signal is used for the artifact detection phase of the EDA signal in the EDAExplorer Tool [ 41 ]. After we divide our data into segments, different modalities were merged into one feature vector. The heart activity signal started with a delay (to calculate heartbeats per minute at the start) and all signals were then synchronized. We included start and end timestamps for each segment, and each modality was merged with a custom Python script.

4.1.6. Machine Learning Classifier Algorithms

The Weka machine learning toolkit [ 54 ] is used for identifying stress levels. The Weka toolkit has several preprocessing features before classification. Our data set was not balanced when the number of instances belonging to each class was considered. We solved this issue by removing samples from the majority class. We selected random undersampling because it is the most commonly applied method [ 55 ]. In this way, we prevented classifiers from biasing towards the class with more instances. In this study, we employed five different machine learning classification algorithms to recognize different stress levels: MultiLayer Perceptron (MLP), Random Forest (RF) (with 100 trees), K-nearest neighbors (kNN) ( n = 1–4), Linear discriminant analysis (LDA), Principal component analysis (PCA) and support vector machine (SVM) with a radial basis function. These algorithms were selected because they were the most commonly applied and successful classifiers for detecting stress levels [ 30 , 48 ]. In addition, 10-fold stratified cross-validation was then applied and hyperparameters of the machine learning algorithms were fine-tuned with grid search. The best performing models have been reported.

4.1.7. Dimensionality Reduction

We applied correlation-based feature selection (CBFS) technique which is available in the Weka machine learning package for combined signal [ 56 ]. The CBFS method removes the features that are less correlated with the output class. For every model, we selected the ten most important features. This method is applied for MLP, RF, kNN and LDA. In order to create an SVM based model, we applied PCA based dimensionality reduction where the covered variance is selected as 0.95 (the default setting).

4.1.8. Insights from the Feature Selection Process

The CBFS method computes the correlation of features with the ground truth label of the stress level. Insights about the contribution of the features to the stress detection performance can be obtained from Figure 1 and Figure 2 . Three of the best features (over 0.15 correlation) are frequency domain features. These features are high, low and very-low frequency components of the HRV signal (see Figure 1 ). When we examine the EDA features, peaks per 100 s feature are the most important and distinctive feature by far. Since the EDA signal is distorted under the influence of the stimuli, the number of peaks and valleys increases. Lastly, when the acceleration signal is investigated, the most discriminative feature is mean acceleration in the z -axis (see Figure 2 b). This could be due to the nature of hand and body gestures which are caused by stressed situations.

Top-ranking features selected for the HRV signal.

Top-ranking features selected for the EDA and ACC signals.

4.2. Relaxation Method Suggestion by Analyzing the Physical Activity-Based Context

Context is a broad term that could contain different types of information such as calendars, activity type, location and activity intensity. Physical activity intensity could be used to infer contextual information. In more restricted environments such as office, classrooms, public transportation and physical activity intensity could be low, whereas, in outdoor environments, physical activity intensity could increase. Therefore, an appropriate relaxation method will change according to the context of individuals.

For calculating physical activity intensity, we used the EDAExplorer tool [ 41 ]. The stillness metric is used for this purpose. It is the percentage of periods in which the person is still or motionless. Total acceleration must be less than a threshold (default is 0.1 [ 41 ]) for 95 percent of a minute in order for this minute to count as still [ 41 ]. Then, the ratio of still minutes in a session can be calculated. For the ratio of still minutes in a session, we labeled sessions below 20% as still, above 20% as active and suggested relaxation method accordingly (see Figure 3 ).

The whole system diagram is depicted. When a high stress level is experienced, by analyzing the physical activity based context, the system suggests the most appropriate reduction method.

4.3. Description of the Data Collection Procedure

The proposed stress level monitoring mechanism, for real-life settings, was evaluated during an eight day Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (ITN) training event in Istanbul, Turkey, for the AffecTech project. AffecTech is a program funded by Horizon 2020 (H2020) framework established by the European Commission. The AffecTech project is an international collaborative research network involving 15 PhD students (early stage researchers (ESR)) with the aim of developing low-cost effective wearable technologies for individuals who experience affective disorders (for example, depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder).

The eight-day training event included workshops, lectures and training with clearly defined tasks and activities to ensure that the ESR had developed the required skills, knowledge and values outline prior to the training event. At the end of the eight-day training, ESRs were required to deliver a presentation about their PhD work to two evaluators from the European Union where they received feedback about their progress (see Figure 4 for raw physiological signals at the start of the presentation). For studying the effects of emotion regulation on stress, yoga, guided mindfulness and mobile-based mindfulness, sessions were held by a certified instructor.

Sample data belong to a presentation session. The increase in EDA, ST and IBI could be observed when the subject started the presentation.

During the training, physiological and questionnaire data were collected from the 16 ESR participants (9 men, mean age 28); 15 ESRs and one of the AffecTech project academics, all of whom gave informed consent to participate in the study. Participants were from different countries with diverse nationalities (two from Iran, two from Spain, two from Italy, one from Argentina, one from Pakistan, one from China, one from Switzerland, one from Belarus, one from France, one from England, one from Barbados, one from Turkey and one from Bulgaria). Due to the fault of one of the Empatica E4 devices, it was not possible to include data from one participant. The remaining 15 participants completed all stages of the study successfully.

During the eight days of training and presentations, psychophysiological data were collected from 16 participants during the training event from Empatica E4 smart band while they are awake. For studying the effects of emotion regulation on stress, yoga, guided mindfulness and mobile-based mindfulness sessions were held by a certified instructor. The timeline of the event is shown in Figure 5 .

Time-line depicting eight days of the training event. Presentations, relaxations and lectures are highlighted.

4.3.1. Physiological Stress Data

The psychophysiological signal data were collected using the Empatica E4 smart band whilst participants were awake throughout the eight days of the AffecTech training. Physiological data included IBI, EDA, ACC (Accelerometer) and ST and stored in different csv files. In addition, 27.39% of the data are obtained from free times (free day and after training until subjects slept 5:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.), 43.83% of the data comes from lectures in the training, 11.41% is the presentation session and relax sessions consist of 17.35% of the data. As mentioned previously, we randomly undersampled (most commonly applied method [ 55 ] ) the data to overcome the class imbalance problem. The participants’ blood pressure (BP) was also recorded using CE(0123) Harvard Medical Devices Ltd. automated sphygmomanometer prior to and after each stress reduction event (yoga and mindfulness), in order to demonstrate whether the participants stress levels were modified. On each occasion that the participants’ BP was recorded, the mean of three recordings was used as the final BP. A reduction in the participants’ blood pressure and/or pulse rate may be seen, which demonstrates a reduction in stress level.

4.3.2. Ethics

The procedure used in this study was approved by the Institutional Review Board for Research with Human Subjects of Boğaziçi University with the approval number 2018/16. Prior to data acquisition, each participant received a consent form describing the experimental procedure and its benefits and implications to both the society and the subject. The procedure was also explained verbally to the subject. All of the data are stored anonymously.

4.3.3. Questionnaire Self-Report Stress Data

A session-based self-report questionnaire comprised of six questions based on the Nasa Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) [ 57 ]. The frustration scale was specifically used to measure perceived stress levels [ 32 ]. We asked the following question to the participants for each session:

How irritated, stressed and annoyed versus content, relaxed and complacent did you feel during the task?

Questionnaires were completed daily (at the end of the day) and, after each presentation, lecture and stress reduction event (such as yoga and mindfulness).

4.3.4. Stress Management Scheme Using Yoga and Mindfulness

During the eight day training, it is assumed that the participants’ stress levels are likely to have increased day by day because they were required to give a presentation (perceived as a stressful event) reporting their PhD progress to the EU project evaluators at the end of the training.

Underpinned by James Gross’s Emotion Regulation model (see Figure 6 ) [ 4 ], we modified the situation to help the participants to reduce their thoughts of the end of the training presentation. To help participants manage their stress levels, we applied Yoga and mindfulness sessions on two separate days (day three and day four, respectively). These sessions lasted approximately 1 h and, throughout the sessions, participants wore an Empatica E4 smartband. In addition to the physiological signals coming from the Smartbands, participants’ blood pressure values were also recorded before and after the yoga and mindfulness sessions.

Application of James Gross’s Emotion Regulation model [ 4 ] in the context of stress management.

5. Experimental Results and Discussion

5.1. statistical data analysis, 5.1.1. validation of different perceived stress levels by using the self-reports.

In order to validate that the participants experienced different perceived stress levels in different contexts (lecture, relaxation, presentation), we used the Frustration item (see Section 4.5) from the NASA-TLX [ 57 ]. The distribution of answers is demonstrated in Figure 7 . Our aim is to show that the perceived stress levels (obtained from self-report answers) differ in relaxation sessions considerably when compared to the presentation session (high stress). To this end, we applied the t -test (in R programming language) to the perceived stress self-report answers of yoga versus presentation, mindfulness versus presentation and pause (mobile mindfulness) versus presentation session pairs. The paired t -test is used to evaluate the separability of each session. The degree of freedom is 15. We applied the variance test to each session tuple; we could not identify equal variance in any of the session tuples. Thus, we selected the variance as unequal. We used 99.5% confidence intervals. The t -test results’ ( p -values and test statistics) are provided in Table 5 . For all tuples, the null hypothesis stating that the perceived stress of the relaxation method is not less than the presentation session is rejected. The perceived stress levels of participants for all meditation sessions are observed to be significantly lower than the presentation session (high stress).

Visual representation of the frustration scores collected in different types of sessions.

T -test results for session tuple comparison of perceived stress levels using self-reports.

5.1.2. Before and After Physiological Measurements for Evaluating Performance of Yoga and Mindfulness with Blood Pressure

In this section, we compared the effect of stress management tools such as yoga and mindfulness on blood pressure. It is expected that blood pressure sensors will be part of unobtrusive wrist-worn wearable sensors soon. We plan to integrate a blood pressure (BP) module to our system when they are available. Therefore, by using the measurements of a medical-grade blood pressure monitor, we provided insights about how stress reaction affects BP. We further applied and tested the prominent emotion regulation model of James Gross by analyzing these measurements in the context of stress management. We measured the diastolic and systolic BP and pulse using a medical-grade blood pressure monitor before and after the yoga and mindfulness sessions. In order to ensure that the participants were relaxed and that an accurate BP was recorded, BP was measured three times with the mean as the recorded result. A one-sample t -test was applied to the difference between mean values. The results are shown in Table 6 .

The difference between the mean diastolic blood pressure, the mean systolic blood pressure and the mean pulse, before and after sessions of guided mindfulness and guided yoga. (* p < 0.05).

Mindfulness decreased the systolic BP, –1.13% (ns), increased diastolic BP, +1.75% ( p < 0.05) and decreased the pulse –5.75% ( p < 0.05). Medicine knows that systolic blood pressure (the top number or highest blood pressure when the heart is squeezing and pushing the blood around the body) is more important than diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number or lowest blood pressure between heartbeats) because it gives the best idea of the risk of having a stroke or heart attack. In this view, the significant reduction of systolic BP after mindfulness is an important result.

Moreover, the difference between systolic and diastolic BP is called pulse pressure. For example, 120 systolic minus 60 diastolic equals a pulse pressure of 60. It is also known that a pulse pressure greater than 60 can be a predictor of heart attacks or other cardiovascular diseases, while a low pulse pressure (less than 40) may indicate poor heart function. In our study, pulse pressure was lower after mindfulness (we had both a significant reduction in systolic BP and an increase in diastolic BP), but its value was higher than 40 (42.69 mean difference before the mindfulness and 40.48 mean difference after the mindfulness), suggesting that this result can also be considered clinically positive.

During yoga, there was a decrease in systolic BP by −5.81% ( p < 0.05), diastolic BP by −1.93% (ns) and increase in pulse +8.06% ( p < 0.05). Yoga appears to be more effective than mindfulness at decreasing systolic and diastolic blood pressure, although mindfulness seems to be more effective than yoga for decreasing the pulse due to the activity involved in yoga.

5.2. Physiological Stress Level Detection with Wearables by Using Context Labels as the Class Label

We tested our system by using the known context labels of sessions as the class label. We used Lecture (mild stress), Yoga and Mindfulness (relax) and Presentation in front of the board of juries (high stress) as class labels by examining perceived stress self-report answers in Figure 6 . We investigated the success of relaxation methods, different modalities and finding the presenter.

5.2.1. Effect of Different Physiological Signals on Stress Detection

We evaluated the effect of using the interbeat-interval, the skin conductance and the accelerometer signals separately and in a combined manner on two and three class classification performance. These classes are mild stress, high stress and relax states from mindfulness and yoga sessions. The results are shown in Table 7 , Table 8 and Table 9 . For the three-class classification problem, we achieved a maximum accuracy of 72% by using MLP on only HRV features and 86.61% with only accelerometer features using the Random Forest classifier and 85.36% accuracy combination of all features with LDA classifier (see Table 7 ). The difficulty in this classification task is a similar physiological reaction to relax and mild stress situations. However, since the main focus of our study is to discriminate high stress from other classes to offer relaxation techniques in this state, it did not affect our system performance. We also investigated high-mild stress and high stress-relax 2-class classification performance. For the discrimination of high and mild stress, HRV outperformed other signals with 98% accuracy using MLP (see Table 8 ). In the high stress-relax 2-class problem, only HRV features with RF achieved a maximum accuracy of 86%, whereas ACC features with MLP achieved a maximum of 94% accuracy. In this problem, the combination of all signals with RF achieved 92% accuracy which is the best among all classifiers (see Table 9 ). For all models, EDA did not perform well. This might be caused by the loose contact with EDA electrodes in the strap due to loosely worn smartbands.

Effect of different modalities and their combination on the system performance. Note that the number of classes is fixed at 3 (high stress, mild stress and relax).

Effect of different modalities and their combination on the system performance. Note that the number of classes is fixed at 2 (high stress and mild stress).

Effect of different modalities and their combination on the system performance. Note that the number of classes is fixed at 2 (high stress and relax).

5.2.2. Effectiveness of Yoga, Mindfulness and Mobile Mindfulness (Pause)

We applied three different relaxation methods to manage stress levels of individuals. In order to measure the effectiveness of each method, we examined how easily these physiological signals in the relaxation sessions can be separated from high stress presentations. If it can be separated from high stress levels with higher classification performance, it could be inferred that they are more successful at reducing stress. As seen in Table 10 and Table 11 , mobile mindfulness has lower success in reducing stress levels. Yoga has the highest classification performance with both HR and EDA signals.

The classification accuracy of the relaxation sessions using stress management methods and stressful sessions using EDA.

The classification accuracy of the relaxation sessions using stress management methods and stressful sessions using HRV.

6. Conclusions

In this study, by using our automatic stress detection system with the use of Empatica-E4 smart-bands, we detected stress levels and suggested appropriate relaxation methods (i.e., traditional or mobile) when high stress levels are experienced. Our stress detection framework is unobtrusive, comfortable and suitable for use in daily life and our relaxation method suggestion system makes its decisions based on the physical activity-related context of a user. To test our system, we collected eight days of data from 16 individuals participating in an EU research project training event. Individuals were exposed to varied stressful and relaxation events (1) training and lectures (mild stress), (2) yoga, mindfulness and mobile mindfulness (PAUSE) (relax) and (3) were required to give a moderated presentation (high stress). The participants were from different countries with diverse cultures.

In addition, 1440 h of mobile data (12 h in a day) were collected during this eight-day event from each participant measuring their stress levels. Data were collected during the training sessions, relaxation events and the moderated presentation and during their free time for 12 h in a day, demonstrating that our study monitored daily life stress. EDA and HR signals were collected to detect physiological stress and a combination of different modalities increased stress detection, performance and provided the most discriminative features. We first applied James Gross ER model in the context of stress management and measured the blood pressure during the ER cycle. When the known context was used as the label for stress level detection system, we achieved 98% accuracy for 2-class and 85% accuracy for 3-class. Most of the studies in the literature only detect stress levels of individuals. The participants’ stress levels were managed with yoga, mindfulness and a mobile mindfulness application while monitoring their stress levels. We investigated the success of each stress management technique by the separability of physiological signals from high-stress sessions. We demonstrated that yoga and traditional mindfulness performed slightly better than the mobile mindfulness application. Furthermore, this study is not without limitations. In order to generalize the conclusions, more experiments based on larger sample groups should be conducted. As future work, we plan to develop personalized perceived stress models by using self-reports and test our system in the wild. Furthermore, attitudes in the psychological field constitute a topic of utmost relevance, which always play an instrumental role in the determination of human behavior [ 58 ]. We plan to design a new experiment which accounts for the attitudes of participants towards relaxation methods and their effects on the performance of stress recognition systems.

Acknowledgments

We would like to show our gratitude to the Affectech Project for providing us the opportunity for the data collection in the training event and funding the research.

Author Contributions

Y.S.C. is the main editor of this work and made major contributions in data collection, analysis and manuscript writing. H.I.-S. made valuable contributions in both data collection and manuscript writing. She was the yoga and mindfulness instructor in the event and contributed the related sections regarding traditional and mobile methods. She also led the blood pressure measurement efforts before and after relaxation methods. D.E. and N.C. contributed equally to this work in design, implementation, data analysis and writing the manuscript. J.F.-Á., C.R. and G.R. contributed the experiment design and provided valuable insights into both emotion regulation theory. They also contributed to the related sections in the manuscript. C.E. provided invaluable feedback and technical guidance to interpret the design and the detail of the field study. He also performed comprehensive critical editing to increase the overall quality of the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This work has been supported by AffecTech: Personal Technologies for Affective Health, Innovative Training Network funded by the H2020 People Programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 722022. This work is supported by the Turkish Directorate of Strategy and Budget under the TAM Project number DPT2007K120610.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Essay on Stress Management

500 words essay on stress management.

Stress is a very complex phenomenon that we can define in several ways. However, if you put them together, it is basically the wear and tear of daily life. Stress management refers to a wide spectrum of techniques and psychotherapies for controlling a person’s stress level, especially chronic stress . If there is effective stress management, we can help one another break the hold of stress on our lives. The essay on stress management will throw light on the very same thing.

Identifying the Source of Stress

The first step of stress management is identifying the source of stress in your life. It is not as easy as that but it is essential. The true source of stress may not always be evident as we tend to overlook our own stress-inducing thoughts and feelings.

For instance, you might constantly worry about meeting your deadline. But, in reality, maybe your procrastination is what leads to this stress than the actual deadline. In order to identify the source of stress, we must look closely within ourselves.

If you explain away stress as temporary, then it may be a problem. Like if you yourself don’t take a breather from time to time, what is the point? On the other hand, is stress an integral part of your work and you acknowledging it like that?

If you make it a part of your personality, like you label things as crazy or nervous energy, you need to look further. Most importantly, do you blame the stress on people around you or the events surrounding you?

It is essential to take responsibility for the role one plays in creating or maintaining stress. Your stress will remain outside your control if you do not do it.

Strategies for Stress Management

It is obvious that we cannot avoid all kinds of stress but there are many stressors in your life which you can definitely eliminate. It is important to learn how to say no and stick to them.  Try to avoid people who stress you out.

Further, if you cannot avoid a stressful situation, try altering it. Express your feelings don’t bottle them up and manage your time better. Moreover, you can also adapt to the stressor if you can’t change it.

Reframe problems and look at the big picture. Similarly, adjust your standards and focus on the positive side. Never try to control the uncontrollable. Most importantly, make time for having fun and relaxing.

Spend some time with nature, go for a walk or call a friend, whatever pleases you.  You can also try working out, listening to music and more. As long as it makes you happy, never give up.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Stress Management

All in all, we can control our stress levels with relaxation techniques that evoke the relaxation response of our body. It is the state of restfulness that is the opposite of the stress response. Thus, when you practice these techniques regularly, you can build your resilience and heal yourself.

FAQ of Essay on Stress Management

Question 1: What is the importance of stress management?

Answer 1: Stress management is very efficient as it helps in breaking the hold which stress has on our lives. Moreover, you can also become happy, healthy and more productive because of it. The ultimate goal should be to live a balanced life and have the resilience to hold up under pressure.

Question 2: Give some stress management techniques.

Answer 2: There are many stress management techniques through which one can reduce stress in their lives. One can change their situation or their reaction to it. We can try by altering the situation. If not, we can change our attitudes towards it. Remember, accept things that you cannot change.

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Management of Workplace Stress

Introduction.

Work related stress could lead to poor performance, health, and welfare issues in employees. It is hence important to identify employees’ stress levels and create a conducive working environment for them. There are many factors that lead to work related stress. This paper comprises of primary and secondary research used to determine the stress levels in employees of our organization and factors that may lead to it. It highlights the findings of the research and gives recommendations for improvement.

Primary research

To identify the level of work stress in the organization, close-ended and self-administered questionnaires were developed and administered to all employees at Nescol Industries. Questionnaires were a better option for the survey as they ensured privacy of employees hence encourage expression. The following questionnaire was used;

Individual Questionnaire

Fill in the following questionnaire with a score of 1-10.

• It is impossible to impossible express my honest opinion in the at work ———-
• I have a lot of work responsibility but less decision making authority ——————-
• I can perform better with more time —————————-
• I rarely receive appreciation and acknowledgement for good performance ———–
• Generally, I do not like of my job ——————————————
• I feel discriminated against or constantly picked at work ——————————-
• I do not have a safe or pleasant working environment ———————————
• I have less time and attention for personal, family, and social obligations ————-
• I have frequent misunderstandings and arguments with my superiors at work ——-
• Add up the scores of each reply to have a Total Work Stress Score —————-

Secondary Research

To further understand workplace stress, an article by Health and Safety Executive (2009) was reviewed. The article clarified on the difference between work pressure and stress where by pressure could act as a catalyst to work harder. However, too much work pressure could result in stressful employees, thus should be avoided. Health and Safety Executive (HSE) advices employers and management to assess stressful situations at the work place regularly. In addition, they outline the benefits of reduced work stress such as increased productivity, saving money used to manage stress related complications, and raising a healthy workforce.

Workplace stress could be caused by several factors as noted by HSE. One of the primary factors include increased demand such as heavy workload, work patterns and unconducive working environment. Employees have indicated that they are unable to cope with heavy demands at work. Managers should ensure that the enforced systems cater for individual employee’s needs. HSE (2009) argue that employees who lack much control in their duties have stressful work environments. Such employees are not able to express their opinion on how to perform their duties best for increased production.

Lack of support from the management such as provision of necessary resources, sponsorship, and encouragement could motivate work related stress. Resources could be financial, information, or other resources required to perform a task HSE (2009). Colleagues and management relationships are important to establish a conducive working environment. Poor relationships and discrimination is a primary source of work stress among employees. HSE (2009) also notes that poor definition of employees’ roles could lead to conflict among employees and their superiors. Lastly, poor change management and communication in an organization would result in increased stress levels on employees.

Findings from Primary Research

After filling questionnaires, 96% of all the employees at Nescol Industries submitted them at the organization’s suggestion box. The company has 230 employees who all were considered as the sample size. The results from the analysis were as follows;

Findings from Secondary Research

The secondary source used in this research revealed the different sources of employees’ stress. It also revealed the factors that influence job satisfaction as shown below;

Correlations Analysis Results.

Without a doubt, a significant number of employees suffer from work-related stress. At Nescol Industries, 31% of the employees were identified to have stressful environments. The number is large enough to reveal that there is room for the management to improve working conditions. On the other hand, the secondary source reveal that employees are averagely satisfied with their jobs although different levels are driven by diverse factors. These factors include age, job position, workload, salary and conflict with management.

Recommendations

Vividly, the management of Nescol Industries need to close the gap between the satisfied and unsatisfied employees. To address this issue, several actions should be taken that meets needs at each employee’s level. To begin with, every employee should clearly understand their roles and responsibilities to avoid conflict with the management. Employees should be allowed to make basic decision on their line of work. A good communication channel and culture is also effective for reducing work stress. Encouraging and motivating employees while providing necessary resources is a primary method of motivating employees. Nescol Industries management should assess the amount of work done by every employee to employ more workers where needed. This will help to reduce work overload and overtime hours.

Reference List

Health and Safety Executive (2009). How to tackle work‐related stress: A guide for employers on making the management standards work . Web.

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Sample Essay On Stress In A Workplace

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Workplace , Stress , Employee , Management , Psychology , Health , Organization , Human Resource Management

Words: 1800

Published: 11/30/2022

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Annotative Bibliography

Colligan, W.T, Higgins, M.E,(2005). Workplace stress: Etiology and the Consequences. Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health. Vol. 21(2) 2005. This journal focuses on workplace stress by identifying factors that contributes to stress at workplace and the resultant impact of stress on employees productivity and personal life. Managers can play a critical role in reducing or eliminating stress on epmloyess by creating a conducive work environment, providing employees assistance program in stress management and identifying and reducing work tension between individuals or groups in a work setting. This would results to improved productivity and improved workplace dynamic. Richardson, M.K, Rothstein, R.H, (2008). The Effects of Occupational Stress Management Intervention Programs: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. New York. Vol. 13, No. 1, 69-93. This article looks at the different Stress Management Intevention (SMI) programs used by organizations and their effectiveness in managing stress at work. A stress management intervention is a program that seeks to reduce work-related stressors so as to minimize the negative results of exposure to these stressors. To determine how effective the SMI implemented in an organization is, researchers can examine the outcomes at organizational level in terms of productivity or at individual level by observing the psychological or physiological measures. Michie, S., (2002). The Causes and management of Stress at Work. Occupational Environment Medic. London. Vol. 59, 67-72. In this journal, Michie looks at some causes of stress at work and how it can be managed. Stress at work can be caused by internal factors at work such as the pressure of work deadlines, job insecurity, complex tasks, long working hours, poor relationships at work between employees, work overload or external factors such as family demands or long commuting hours. This is in employer’s long term economic interests to help minimize or eliminate stress. Since stress is likely to lead to high workers turnover, absence, early retirement, reduced productivity as well as client satisfaction. The stress can be managed at individual level like training and psychological services like clinical or occupational counseling, or at organizational level interventions like restructuring work or providing psychological support such as social supports or simply employees participation in decision-making processes. Saha D, Sinha R, Bhavsar K., (2011, April 15). Understanding the Job Stress among Healthcare Staff. Online Journal of Health and Allied Sciences. Mangalore, South India.Vol 10 (1) 2011. This research article evaluates the sources of job stress among healthcare workers to identifying measures on how best to reduce work-related stress. Small payment of employees and work overload were found to contribute immensely towards stress at work. The working conditions are the primary source of stress but with a sound management intervention such as proper workload management, adequate staffing, improved payment, recognition of efforts along with ongoing training and stress management support would improve the productivity of the workforce.

Introduction

Workplace stress is defined as the change in an individual’s physical or mental state in reaction to shifts in the work environment that pose a challenge or harm to that individual.This applies in particular when the job requests do not match the worker’s capabilities, resources, and needs. Stress can be divided into two categories; that is eustress also known as positive or good stress with positive effects on an individual. The second category, on the other hand, is distress which comes with adverse effects. Globally documented as a challenge to personal physicall and mental health,besides organizational health, stressed employees are usually found to be unhealthy, less motivated, less productive and less safe at work. An organization’s competitiveness in the market is determined by the productivity of its' workforce. It is, therefore, necessary for managers in an organization to make proper interventions and help manage the well-being of employees and provide support to them whenever in stress so as to realize their maximum potential and productivity in their work. Better employment practice should include evaluating the risk of stress amongst employees, identify causes of stress at work and determine who is at risk to be affected and finally deciding what can be done to prevent stress at work.

Stress is not only a bodily response to a difficult or stressful condition. It is a contact between that individual and the source of demand within their environment (Colligan and Higgins, p 92). Different factors contribute to workplace stress. These factors are associated with workplace stress and health risks. They can be categorized as those brought about due to the content of work and those related to the social and organizational setting of work. Example of factors associated with the job include work overload, pressure to meet deadlines, the complexity of tasks, long working hours and poor physical work conditions like space (Miche, p3). The role of the employee in an organization regarding responsibility also contributes to stress, as there are times where workers in an organization are required to perform multiple functions simultaneously, particularly when the work is unclear, and there are conflicting roles and boundaries. Other causes pertain to the promotion at workplace, work security, and career development, especially in the current time of technological changes where employees’ roles could be phased out by inventions that limits opportunities for their creativity. Aside from that, interpersonal relationships between workers in the workplace and group dynamics have been found to be among primary factors of stress. The staff’s emotional, behavioral, physiological and cognitive response to stress is directly related to the characteristic of the cause of stress, the resources available to the employee to prevent pressure, as well as the employee’s personal characteristics. Based on this, individuals can react differently to stressors in an organization. To some, stress can propel them to achieve their personal goals and come out shining through the challenging moments. However, to some individuals, it can be burdensome with significant impact on their mental, emotional and physical well-being. It is important therefore for managers to understand the causes of stress and strategies that can be implemented to help prevent or overcome them. This would result in improved employee’s performance and productivity. Even though stress at work can be external, for example, family demands or any other personal problems at home, it is advisable to the managers to show social support and care in such moments. Such encouragement or aid in time of need would still enable the employees to perform productively at work.

Recommendations

As a recommendation, to reduce or eliminate the stress within the work force, it is vital for every organization to have a Stress Management Intervention program. These interventions can be grouped into primary, secondary or tertiary interventions (Richardson and Rothstein, p70). In primary interventions, the sources of stress at work are identified. After the identification, the working conditions of the employees are changed or improved, creating a conducive environment that enables them to be productive without any undue pressure. An example, in this case, is reducing the workload by distributing work among employees or employing adequate staff to cater for the job demands (Saha, Sinha, and Bhavsar, p4). Managers should do a job analysis to determine the number of resources and skills required to complete a given task before assigning the work correctly. Where the organization falls short of the necessary manpower or financial capability to hire new resources, the work can be subdivided into small tasks and assigned to different employees with regards to their skills. The organization structure can also be altered in terms of management, in either the supervision or transfer of employees to departments they best fit in based on their skills to ease the complexity of work, flow of information in addition to distributed decision making with the focus on removing stressors from the workplace. When it comes to secondary interventions, the focus is to reduce the severity of stress symptoms by helping employees improve their transaction with the environment. This is the widely used intervention that has proven positive results based on their outcomes .Here managers provide employees with access to stress management programs or health services to help them manage stressful situations in the form of training. Employees will be trained how to use behavioral skills like the change of diet, deep-breathing, meditation, exercise, time management, goal setting and relaxation methods to get rid of the psychological and physical side effects of stress. The tertiary interventions are almost similar to the Secondary one though here programs are not just to take employees through training that can reduce stress symptoms; they are also meant to treat the health conditions of workers through free and confidential access to qualified health professionals.

Stress in the workplace has a cost to both an employee in an organization as well as the organization as a whole regarding psychological, physiological and financial costs. The performance of the employees goes hand-in-hand with the prevailing work conditions besides the well-being of an individual. Heart diseases, immunosuppression, and chronic pain are some of the physical disorders of stress that affect productivity in an employee. Depression, persistent anxiety, pessimism, and resentment are psychological disorders associated with workplace stress. The stress can lead to hostility between employees or with their managers, interpersonal conflict, small production, high staff turnover or low morale in the workplace. The cognitive behavioral training designs to educate staffs on the role of their beliefs and emotions in managing demanding situations and to provide them with skills necessary to revise their opinions to facilitate adaptive coping is touted to be one of the best intervention to alleviate stress. Successful interventions should involve both an employee and the organization by providing training that helps one to identify the stress and the cause, the approach or method to be used to tackle them. Collaborative decision-making processes and problem-solving processes in an organization increases support and improve communications in an organization reducing frictions between employees or workgroups besides on-the-job training on how to cope with stress and resolve conflicts. By creating a conducive work environment and providing social support to employees in distress, the management can be able to motivate their staff to reach their full potential with significant improvement in production. This, in turn, translates into a competitive organization in the market with a healthy workforce.

Colligan, W.T, Higgins, M.E,(2005). Workplace stress: Etiology and the Consequences. Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health. Vol. 21(2) 2005. Richardson, M.K, Rothstein, R.H, (2008). The Effects of Occupational Stress Management Intervention Programs: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. New York. Vol. 13, No. 1, 69-93. Michie, S., (2002). The Causes and management of Stress at Work. Occupational Environment Medic. London. Vol. 59, 67-72. Saha D, Sinha R, Bhavsar K., (2011, April 15). Understanding the Job Stress among Healthcare Staff. Online Journal of Health and Allied Sciences. Mangalore, South India.Vol 10 (1) 2011.

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117 Stress Management Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best stress management topic ideas & essay examples, 💡 most interesting stress management topics to write about, ⭐ good research topics about stress management, 📃 simple & easy stress management essay titles, ❓ research questions about stress management.

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• Herbal Stress Management Rule, Regular Exercise, and Healthy Diet
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• Yoga and Music Therapy as Effective Methods of Stress Management
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• Employee Stress Management During Organizational Change
• The Unease Modulation Model: An Experiential Model of Stress With Implications for Health, Stress Management, and Public Policy
• Biofeedback for Everyday Stress Management: A Systematic Review
• Stress Management and Reduction for Nurses
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• Conflict Management and Stress Management: How to Handle
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• Stress and Stress Management: How Food Can Help Your Stress Levels
• Perceived Stress Levels and Stress Management
• Stress Management and the Effects of Stress on the Mind and Body
• Stress Management During Exam Time
• Assessing the Therapeutic Uses and Effectiveness of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Video Games for Emotion Regulation and Stress Management
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• Stress Management Spa Treatments in the Age of Stress
• The Relationship Between Time and Stress Management
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• Stress Management Among Bank Employees
• Stress Management Using Hypnotherapy
• Activities for Stress Management and Prevention
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• Stress Management During Pregnancy
• Stress Management and the Effects on Wellness
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• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Based Stress Management Interventions: An Evaluation of Methodology
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• Why Is Stress Management Necessary for Students?
• What Are the Approaches to Stress Management?
• What Are the Important Factors for Managing Stress?
• What Is Avoid in Stress Management?
• How Does Stress Affect Motivation?
• Why Is Stress Management Critical at the Workplace?
• What Are the Types of Stress Management?
• What Are the Main Stress Management Techniques?
• How Well Do Managers Manage Stress Management?
• What Are the Advantages of Stress Management?
• What Is the Meaning of Stress Management?
• What Is the First Step in Stress Management?
• What Are the Critical Factors for Stress Management?
• Why Is It Important to Study Stress Management?
• What Are the Objectives of Stress Management?
• What Is the Most Effective Stress Management Strategy?
• How Can Effective Stress Management Help to Develop Healthy Responses to Given Tasks?
• What Are the Stress Management Techniques and Relaxation Methods?
• What Is a Stress Management Study?
• What Are the Strategies of Stress Management?
• Why Is Stress Management Important to Health?
• What Are the Positive Methods of Stress Management?
• What Are the Sources of Stress Management?
• Why Is Stress Harmful?
• What Are the Steps for Stress Management?
• Why Is Stress Management Critical?
• What Are the 3 Stress Hormones?
• How Does Stress Affect the Brain?
• What Is the Best Definition of Stress Management?
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