Dealing to stress

August 28, 2018 Cait Sykes

Any work will have its stressful moments, but when that stress becomes prolonged and severe the effects can be serious and wide ranging. How you deal with it, is key.

 

If you’re looking to point a finger at the causes of stress in our modern-day workplaces you’ll find no shortage of options: high workloads, long hours, workplace bullying and harrassment, increasing compliance demands, staff shortages and technology that keeps us connected 24/7. Then there are the factors that come into play from outside the workplace: relationship difficulties, financial pressures, illness – the list goes on.

 

Many of us may feel stress is becoming more prevalent in our workplaces and there’s evidence to back this up. The 2017 Wellness in the Workplace Survey, sponsored by Southern Cross Health Society and BusinessNZ, shows stress and anxiety levels in Kiwi workplaces are increasing.

 

In 2017, the survey canvassed 109 private and public sector organisations, representing a total 93,125 employees. A net 23% of organisations indicated an increase in the stress and anxiety levels of their people, compared with a net 14% from the survey two years earlier. The surveys cover organisations of all sizes – from those with one-to-five employees to those with more than 100 – noting that in 2017, stress and anxiety were more prominent in workplaces with more than 50 staff (a net 37%) compared to those with fewer than 50 employees (24%).

 

Last year’s survey pointed to ‘general workload’ as the biggest factor causing stress across workplaces of all sizes, followed by ‘family relationships’, then ‘pressure to meet work targets’.

 

Shaun Robinson, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, says stress is prevalent across many workplaces in New Zealand, including in the health sector where there can be considerable pressure due to rising demand and shortages of key clinical staff.

 

Stress is both good and bad, however, says Robinson. “We all need a certain amount of challenge to help with goal setting and achievement in our lives; the right amount of stress can push us and help us gain a sense of achievement, so it can be really useful. But if we’re operating under prolonged periods of stress, it pushes us to operate more continually out of the instinctive, survival-focused parts of our brain – essentially in ‘flight or fight’ mode, because that’s how we’re hard-wired as humans to behave when we’re under pressure and threat.”

 

The problem with being permanently in a state of stress is it literally limits our thinking, he says, reducing our ability to see the ‘bigger picture’, think more creatively and be open to alternative perspectives. “That’s not good for any workplace in terms of getting the best out of people. And equally it has damaging impacts on people’s bodies and emotions to be stuck in that stressed space for a long period of time, leading to conditions like depression and anxiety.”

 

The importance of balance

 

The answer is to structure balance into our lives, says Robinson. Just as we understand that keeping our bodies in good nick is important, and that we do that by regularly exercising and eating well, we need to understand the importance of maintaining good mental health, and that that requires the same commitment to consistent, healthy habits.

 

The Mental Health Foundation uses a framework called ‘The five ways to wellbeing’, which outlines five habits to actively cultivate good mental health.

 

“What we encourage and promote is a balanced approach, where people essentially invest in their mental and emotional wellbeing. It’s about having a mindset that you’re a key asset to your business, or as a breadwinner, and you need to invest in yourself so you can continue to earn, be productive, and enjoy your work.

 

“People realise their physical health is ‘a thing’ and if they put time into that, then they will get fitter and stronger and that will have positive benefits for their health.

 

“Your mental health and wellbeing is ‘a thing’ in the same way,” continues Robinson. “There are activities, actions and behaviours that you can work into your daily life that will have a positive impact on how you feel, how you think and how you perform, in your family, community and in your work life.”

 

Structuring balance into daily life is something ophthalmology nurse practitioner Carol Slight is conscious of to keep on top of stress. Slight says the causes of workplace stress can be complex, multifactorial (and due to factors both inside and outside of the workplace) and ever-changing. One example, she says, is the high price of houses in Auckland, which is putting pressure on some people to take on more hours to meet high mortgage payments or help their children get into first homes.

 

“I feel very strongly about keeping stress under control and, for me, that’s about creating work-life balance,” she says. “Work is important – it’s how you get paid, and you have a job to do – but you have to balance that with things you’re doing outside of work as well.”

 

Spending quality time on holiday is one way Slight strikes a balance. “I’m a believer in getting an annual two-week break, not just the odd day or week here or there. Although it doesn’t always happen, I think you need at least a couple of weeks of continuous time off each year to create that complete break from work and everyday stress.”

 

Spreading the busy-ness

 

Being busy is often cited as a prominent cause of stress, but Slight’s experience offers a different take on this idea. Alongside her senior, full-time nursing job, she holds the role of secretary with Nurse Practitioners New Zealand, is a keen cyclist and regularly travels to spend time with her children and grandchildren, who all live outside of Auckland.

 

Being busy, she says, is not necessarily a problem in itself; it’s when that ‘busy-ness’ is focused on just one area of your life, such as work, that things can get out of kilter.

 

Stress expert and author Sarah Laurie agrees the factors that can lead us to feel stressed are myriad. What drives stress in a farmer’s work life, for example, may be vastly different from the drivers of stress for a surgeon, a lawyer or a parent. For that reason, her work has focused on the common denominator across these sectors – the brain and its stress response.

 

Laurie believes the critical factor to managing stress is to manage the physiological stress response before we turn our attention to managing the stressors. She has a number of simple tips for moving out of the ‘fight or flight’ mode caused by stress, but the first and foremost is learning to breathe correctly.

 

“Breath is a direct trigger of our stress response and the aim should be that we consistently breathe well,” she says. “Without realising, many of us have inadvertently become shallow breathers, due to the rush and pressure in our lives. Instead it needs to completely fill our lungs. This doesn’t need to be a laborious exercise; it is something we should aim to do as we go about our day, regardless of the pace and nature of our work.”

 

Some of Laurie’s other tips for reducing stress include scheduling down-time, particularly switching off from technology, and writing things down. Writing with a pen on paper helps us solidify our ideas, she says, and switch our brains into problem-solving mode. If you write down the things you’re finding challenging, it helps you think of solutions you hadn’t previously considered, she adds.

 

Laurie also advocates creating an ideal structure to your week. Work can seep into most of our waking hours if we let it, so she recommends thinking about what regular activities you can do to add more enjoyment and richness to your life – regular exercise, for example, or reading before bed – and prioritising those just as you would an important meeting.

 

A problem shared

 

Kirk Hope, CEO of BusinessNZ, says our willingness to talk about stress and its impacts is increasing. People expressing their experiences following the Christchurch earthquakes and John Kirwan’s fronting of awareness campaigns about depression have helped make discussing mental health issues more mainstream.

 

But workplaces still need to actively cultivate a culture where their people feel they can talk about any issues they’re facing, he says. As well as the obvious emotional and physical impacts on individuals that can be caused by stress, it also presents a potentially significant financial cost to organisations through issues like lost productivity and absenteeism. The Wellness in the Workplace survey calculated the direct costs of absence alone were $1.51 billion across the New Zealand economy in 2016.

 

By law, New Zealand employers must also ensure, where reasonably possible, that health and safety risks – including stress – are properly identified and managed. A focus of the recently introduced Health and Safety at Work Act has been on workplaces taking a more proactive approach to health and safety issues. Businesses, therefore, need to view creating a positive workplace culture that supports wellbeing as an investment rather than a cost, says Hope.

 

There are lots of resources available to organisations looking to support staff in reducing and mitigating the impacts of stress, including in the health industry. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO) provides an Employee Assistance Programme, which offers confidential counselling services and support for its members and staff, while BusinessNZ’s regional partners have a range of resources that business owners can access. These include toolkits to help employers develop their culture, ensuring managers can identify when a staff member or even they themselves might be stressed.

 

“It’s that old thing about spending a dollar to save a dollar,” says Hope. “That culture component of creating a healthy workplace is really critical and has to be embedded as part of the way the business operates, because if people are not well and they’re not happy, they’re hardly going to be productive.”

 

 

Take five

 

The Mental Health Foundation has launched a ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ toolkit specifically for workplaces, featuring information and resources to help workplaces undertake a wellbeing campaign based on these concepts.

 

1. Connect

Human beings are social animals, so actively investing in both the depth and breadth of our relationships is an important part of our wellbeing. Not only do we need a circle of people that we trust to spend time with, confide in, have fun with and support, but we also need to have a sense of belonging to something bigger. Whether that’s a local community, an iwi, or a sense of belonging to a wider workforce, that need for a ‘tribe’ is something that is hardwired into us. And it’s all very well to say ‘I’ve got lots of friends’ but how much active time are you spending on a daily basis working on those connections?

 

2. Give

This is not necessarily about giving money, but giving of your time and your support – so perhaps volunteering for some community or charitable activity. The act of giving helps us connect with others; gives us a sense of purpose and belonging; and it helps us feel valuable, enhancing our self-esteem, all of which help build our positive wellbeing and balance any stress we might have in our lives.

 

3. Take notice

This is about taking time to appreciate the things in your life that make you happy. It can be anything from noticing the changing seasons as you travel to work to appreciating your children or your neighbours. Often in our busy lives we stop noticing those positive things. A simple thing you can do is create an appreciation diary, where each day you write down three things you really appreciate and that have made you happy. Various relaxation techniques, such as mindfulness or guided meditations, can also help you to slow down and notice what’s going on in your body and your mind.

 

4. Keep learning

Whether it’s through a hobby or paying attention to what’s going on in current affairs or acquiring a new skill, learning keeps your mind active, open and inquisitive, which generates positive thoughts and feelings.

 

5. Be Active

You don’t need to be an athlete, but there is a link between doing some physical activity on a daily basis and relieving stress and positively impacting your thoughts and feelings.

 

Useful resources

 

The Foundation’s ‘Open Minds’ project also features videos and electronic resources to help managers have successful conversations about mental health in the workplace.

 

http://www.worksafe.govt.nz/worksafe/hswa/health-safety/topics/stress

 

https://ranzco.edu/site-layout/embedded-articles/quicklinks/public-quicklinks/mental-health-matters

 

https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/

 

https://www.employment.govt.nz/leave-and-holidays/other-types-of-leave/stress-leave/