The Effects of Stress on Everyday Life

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TAQ 5
“Stress is the body's normal response to anything that disturbs its natural physical, emotional, or mental balance. Stress reduction refers to various strategies that counteract this response and produce a sense of relaxation and tranquillity’’ (1-TheFreeDictionary.com). Stress has become part of everyday life especially within the western world and particularly in the work place. Stress from work is as a result of workers reacting negatively and harmfully to the demands, pressures, targets, expectations and demands placed on them at work. Every worker more especially professionals essentially need some measure of stress in their lives to meet the challenges of life each day, but if it is steady or acute, it becomes dangerous to health. According to the latest estimates from the Labour Force Survey, the total number of cases of stress in 2011/12 was 428 000 (40%) out of a total of 1 073 000 for all work-related illnesses 2 (http://www.hse.gov.uk). Stress, specifically work related stress, can be a significant cause of illness and comes with high levels of sickness absence, low productivity, staff turnover, increased errors, lack of concentration and other issues. Stress must be controlled, understood, managed and reasonably minimised. There are different strategies and therapies available help people relax, cope and manage stress.
The main trigger for stress is known as the stressor. The stressor may be a good or bad event such as marriage, moving home, a promotion, experiencing violence or bereavement, guilty feelings or anger felt in a relationship, natural disaster, frustrations, exercise or hard work worries and much more. Work related stress can as a result of certain actions, such as a formal warning, reorganisation,...

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...stern world significantly increased the amount of work related stress which is not going away any time soon. There will always be a demand to do more on professionals and in the work place generally. The only way forward is to live with it. Good stress management has both long and short term gains. The short-term gain helps people affected restore some sense of control of their lives, giving those positive strategies to cope, and making healthier and more relaxed. The long-term benefits also include better immune system, good hormonal balance, and lower susceptibility to serious, life-threatening diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Badly managed stress could trigger unhealthy habits like smoking, illicit use of drugs and increased alcohol consumption, which can increase your risk of heart disease. Stress has come to stay and is better managed than be sorry.

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