A study on stress management

stress is usually defined in terms of the internal and external conditions that create stressful situations, and the symptoms that people experience when they are stressed. stress management is a very vital aspect of every organization. stress management can be linked to our day to day activities.

McGrath (1976) proposed a definition based on the conditions necessary for stress. The most commonly accepted definition of stress (mainly attributed to Richard S Lazarus) is that stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that "demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize." Williams and Huber (1986) defined stress as "a psychological and physical reaction to prolonged internal and/or environmental conditions in which an individual's adaptive capabilities are over extended."

In Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (Real People Press, 1969) Perls proposes a more general definition, where stress is a manifestation of thinking about the future. Anxiety is created by focusing attention away from the "here and now". When anxiety finds an outlet, we say that the stress was motivating; when it doesn't, we call it debilitating. French, Kast, and Rosenzweig(1985) also emphasized the idea that stress it self is not necessarily bad. "The term stress can be considered neutral with the words distress and eustress used for designating bad and good effects."

stress has become a part and parcel of human life and is more pronounced in corporate life. While the idea to excel in life is a great thing to have, the same should not result in such a stressful situation where the individual is forced to devote more time in solving stress related problems than in achieving his objectives. This is what is happening in the present day corporate environment with deadlines hanging over one's head, day in day out. Yes a certain amount of stress is essential even in our day-to-day life without which nothing can be achieved: it could be even at school level where a student goes through stress while appearing for his exams, extending upto a CEO of a company as the accounting year end approaches. This stress gives us zest for life and releases our creativity in finding better ways of performing our tasks. But with the intense competition, work _related stress has assumed economic proportions as identified by the WHO. Employees are experiencing work related stress a little too frequently resulting in their inability to cope with both official and domestic lives ,since it manifests on psychological, physiological and behavioral planes companies are doing their best to remedy the situation through recreational facilities, flexible timings, forced holidays, yoga centers, gymnasiums and even with art of living programs. Whatever may be done at the organizational level to alleviate and free people from stress, unless it is addressed at an individual level no tangible results can be achieved.