■ Factors of stress at work
What causes stress at work
The stress check goes over the stress factors from 9 different criteria.
In order to improve your job working environment, it is necessary to analyze each criterion in sections of several groups and organizations.
At the same time, it is also important for each person to put effort in improving the working environment as well.
Here we will introduce several ways that one could start easily.
Stress reaction at work
Stress reaction is made mostly out of factors listed below:
・ Mental burden (overtask at work)
・ Mental burden (the quality of work)）
・ Physical burden
・ Stress caused by relationships with other people at work
・ Stress caused by the working environment
・ Task controllability
・ Your job skills
・ How much you think you are fit for the job
・ Job satisfaction
In which subject did you score low according to your result?
See below for further advice on categories which you scored low.
Heavy workloads
★Comment from the public health nurse★
It is hard to reduce the amount of your work, so we recommend you to ask your boss or colleagues for advice.
Also, it is effective to keep a record of what task you did and how much time it took you to complete it.
By visualizing, your task and your job schedule, it will be easier for your boss or colleagues to give a precise advice.
Reference site :
http://news.doctor-trust.co.jp/?p=37057
(“Sangyo Hoken” newspaper)
This occurs when you are required a high knowledge, skill level which becomes stressful.
★Comment from the public health nurse★
It is important for you to switch your on & off mode. For example, you arrange your day off from work in advance and tell yourself “I will not think about work when I come here”.
That will keep you from thinking about work endlessly. When you are constantly thinking about work, it will keep on making you feel insecure, which will lead to shortage in sleep.
Moderate amount of rest is essential to keep a good quality in work.
Physical work stress due to physical labor
★Comment from the public health nurse★
Too much physical labor leads to higher amount of stress.
By taking enough amount of rest, it will reduce the stress from the body.
After a long time of physical labor, make sure to take enough amount of sleep to reset your body.
Also make sure to sleep in a well-ordered environment, such as good bedding, and suitable lighting.
This occurs when the human relationship at your working environment is not going well.
★Comment from the public health nurse★
Each person has his or her own will and emotions, so it is very hard to control him or her at your own wish.
On the other hand, you are able to change your way of thinking, and to control your emotions and actions.
One way to change yourself is to enhance your EQ.
EQ is short for “Emotional Intelligence Quotient”, which means “a mental intelligence quotient”.
To increase your EQ, you must understand both your feelings and the partner’s feelings, and also to understand that what people say on the outside does not always show his or her true emotions.
Reference site :
http://news.doctor-trust.co.jp/?p=37155
(“Sangyo Hoken” newspaper)
This occurs when noise, lights, the temperature, and other exterior influences distracts you during work.
★Comment from the public health nurse★
Let us say, that there was a problem in the humidity or the temperature in the office or the environment you are working in.
In those cases, it is recommended that you check the temperature and humidity, and then report it to the person in charge.
There might be several risks according to what kind of job you are doing, and what your position is at work, but by reporting some improvement can be expected.
There is no need to buy an expensive device to measure the room temperature and humidity, and the intensity of illumination. You can measure by using your smartphone.
Reference site :
http://news.doctor-trust.co.jp/pdf/201402_humidity.pdf
This occurs when you are overloaded with task and unable to control it.
★Comment from the public health nurse★
How much discretion you have at work leads to high self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy occurs when you realize that your ideas and thoughts are reflected on your work, or when you are able to make decisions in your work.
There may be times when you must do as you are told to by the rules or by your boss and there are not much flexibility in your task.
In those cases, it is necessary for you to negotiate with your boss in order to complete your task in the way you want to as much as you can.
If you are not sure about the discretion you have at work, you may want to check with your boss and make it clear and maybe keep it in document.
This means whether your job skills and techniques are inflected in your work.
★Comment from the public health nurse★
If you wish for more opportunities to use your techniques and skills, you should make suggestions to your boss, or think about transferring to a different department.
At the same time, we are expected to acquire new skills in accordance with the times.
To brush up your skills which you have already is essential, but at the same time training and acquiring new skills or techniques is highly recommended too.
To have interest in a new skill may lead you to a new work, or a collaboration with something you would have never known.
By holding interest in skills which differs from your profession, you might be able to expand your insights which may help your career enhancement.
Whether you think the job is fit for you or not can change the amount of stress you are under.
★Comment from the public health nurse★
When you think that your present job is not fit for you, do you tend to persuade yourself by thinking “I’m only doing this for money”, or “It’s my job, so I should cope with it” ?
These thoughts may lead to less interest and more stress towards your job.
You may need to look at your job objectively.
For example, by looking at your job from a different point of view such as “How useful is my job in the society?” and “What is the meaning in doing this job?”, may teach you how your job suits you.
Or it may be a chance to search for your new career.
This means whether your working environment is satisfactory or not.
★Comment from the public health nurse★
What kind of work do you feel worthwhile?
To feel worthwhile, to be able to challenge new things, to be relied on, to have great teamwork with your colleagues, to receive high evaluations from your boss, to be appreciated from your customers, to achieve your goal, to improve your skills, to be paid an amount which fits your performance…etc.
There are varieties in sense of values to feel worthwhile.
It is necessary to recognize what you feel worthwhile and what kind of worthwhileness you wish for, and then work on what you can do to fill the gap between your ideal situation and the present.
You may feel that it is useless, and that only by your effort nothing will change.
Let’s put those negative thought aside for a while.
It is true that there are many things that you cannot do only by yourself, but to challenge, not to give up, and those process will let you grow to enhance your worthwhileness.
So why not try from something you can do by yourself to make a small change?