When many of us get asked to complete tasks at work that make us overly stressed, we often resort to completing the job while well in the knowledge that we arenโt paid anywhere near the amount of our boss โ whose job it actually is to complete the task or make the decision.
PAs are constantly given the โsmaller decisionsโ to make on behalf of their boss, which adds to the workload of an already stressful job.
In a recent survey carried out by CALLCARE, 64 per cent of respondents felt that their salary wasnโt high enough to match the stress of their job.
With the economic pressure on UK businesses following 2016โs EU referendum,ย businesses are more cautious about investing in higher salaries,ย especially in light of the increase to the national living wage levy.
As a result, making up the deficit in this salary-stress ratio isnโt simply a case of making more money. Itโs more important that workers understand how to reduce the amount of stress they experience in the day-to-day, to reduce their risk of burnout or depression.
Why are we so stressed out?
Stress is by no stretch of the imagination a new development. In fact, stress is a necessary part of our physiology; itโs what pushes us to work harder when we need to, and historically itโs what saved us from the jaws of a hungry predator. Yet in the world of work โ where circumstances arenโt quite as โlife or deathโ as they were for more primitive homo sapiens โ stress has become something of a dirty word.
Dr Dimitrios Paschos, consultant psychiatrist atย Re: Cognition Health, said: ย โThe total number of working days lost in 2015/2016 was 11.7 million days, which has a huge effect on businesses and the economy.โ
He urged businesses to address stress as a mental health problem in the workplace. Failing to do so, he warned, โwill end up costing businesses more money in the long run in sickness absence costs.โ
But whatโs the source of such high levels of stress?
Geraldine Joaquim, clinical hypnotherapist and psychotherapist atย Mind Your Business, points to technology as one culprit in turning stress into a chronic problem.
โWe spend a huge amount of our adult life at work and it often carries over into our home life, with emails pinging well into the evening.
โThis constant switching of attention โ from texts and emails to social media โ is exhausting and leaves us feeling like we havenโt achieved much.โ
Feeling unproductive is yet another source of stress, because we often find a sense of purpose in our work. The frustration of non-productivity is toxic to our mental health if it is allowed to build up.
The key to reducing stress
One of the main reasons that work stress feels so overwhelming is that it builds up over time because many UK workers โ especially those at a higher pay grade โ struggle to โswitch offโ.
Richard Daniel Curtis, leading behaviour expert and founder of The Mentoring School, said: โWhen people get used to a certain level of stress, it becomes the โnormโ for them. As humans, weโre programmed to return to our default emotional state โ our โnormโ โ which is known as โhedonic adaptionโ.โ
Hedonic adaption in people with high-stress jobs can be damaging to their mental health, because stress can only be relieved when the mind can relax. โWe get used to high demands and then struggle when those same demands are no longer placed on us, thatโs the reason why it can take a few days for you to start relaxing when youโre on holiday.โ
Practical ways you can reduce stress at work
Preventing stress from building up is vital to feeling content in your job. Follow these helpful tips to ease stress:
- Change what you can, accept what you canโtย โ If you can learn to accept what you cannot change, you wonโt become easily irritated when things go wrong. Instead, youโll reduce the scope of your concern to only those things you can actively control, helping boost your productivity and job satisfaction.
- Attention managementโ We live in an era of constant interruption from emails, telephone, texts, social media and apps. Help yourself focus on the task at hand by delaying notifications on your phone and computer for the duration you intend to work for.
- Take a breakโ Make sure you use up all of your holidays, even if you just spend a week at home. This is important in training your mind and body to relax, so itโll be easier for you to de-stress in future. You should also take your whole lunch break if you can, engaging in something other than work to help refresh your mind.
- Nurture your relationshipsโ Actively listen to other people, make new connections whenever you can, and donโt be afraid to ask for help from managers, colleagues, friends and family. Sharing your problems often helps you realise theyโre not as big as you originally thought.
- Practice mindfulnessโ Take time in your day to meditate, sign up for a yoga class, and listen to mindfulness podcasts to help declutter your mind so you can think more clearly.
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