As the world of healthcare becomes more complex and more demanding, nurses can respond by living in the wreckage of a stressful lifestyle. Coupled with the pressures of job loss and uncertainty, you have a recipe for emotional disaster. This constant pressure can ruin lives and cause disease, and most people have difficulty coping and eliminating stress. There are ways, however, to successfully take control of your life and minimize your degree of stress and the devastating effects it can have on your life.
What is Stress?
Although nurses are familiar with the physiology of stress, at times they seem to forget the impact on themselves. Very simply, the term stress refers to any demands either physical or emotional placed on the body. Stress is the body’s normal mechanism to kick up the metabolism and energy level to meet the body’s demands. Nurses see the effects of stress on the body of their patients every day. Some degree of stress is an advantage that peaks our performance by heightening awareness and stimulating the body. The result is the body’s ability to meet the demands of the stress and ultimately produce a stronger physique or protect life.
The problem with stress is the concern that nurses, as a society, are under continuous pressure, which keeps us in an overloaded state for protracted periods of time. Most people in the United States report that they experience stress on a daily basis. Four out of five people report regular periods of high stress every day. Work stress is reported to have increased by fourfold resulting in stress-related illnesses in the workplace. This pressure is compounded in healthcare organizations that struggle with reducing margins which can affect staffing levels, nursing shortages or high turnover and attrition rates. It is reported that twenty-five percent of all drugs prescribed in the United States are for the treatment of stress and stress-related symptoms, and ninety percent of all illnesses are now attributed to stress, including cardiac disease, hypertension and even cancer.
Categories of Stress
Stress has been classified in two different categories, good (eustress) and bad (distress) stress. Some examples of good stress would be things like getting married, sports events, and new relationships. All of these place stress on the mind and ultimately the body. The examples of bad stress include things like work pressure, family problems, divorce, and financial challenges. The problem is that regardless of whether the stress is “good” or “bad”, the body reacts the same way, by invoking the stress response. As we remember through our nursing education, the stress response has been identified as the fight or flight phenomena designed to protect the body by providing a mechanism that supplies immediate energy to the body in times of need. Negative effects on the body can become apparent when the stress response becomes prolonged or repetitive. The body needs time to rest and recover, and this level of stress does not allow for that time.
Stressors
Everybody experiences stress from two major categories of input - external and internal sources. External sources are those that come from the environment around us. Internal sources are those that come from our mental thought processing or personal decisions that we make in our lives. It is also important to note that fatigue, especially in the context of how much activity is experienced through the course of a day, is a stressor. Many individuals do not realize that the effect of prolonged fatigue on the body increases stress and also increases the potential for disease.
One of the greatest challenges with the management of stress is the control over thought processes and personal perceptions. Perceptions are our own reality and not necessarily truth, yet are oftentimes accept as true. These perceptions therefore create unrealistic fears, which increase stress levels. Almost all of these fears are unrealized, yet we allow them to negatively affect us and increase stress levels. Analysis of personal fears, in many cases, will reveal that the origin of many of our fears relate to our egos secondary to the fear of looking bad to others, or being perceived as unsuccessful or feelings of being out of control.
No comments:
Post a Comment