Stress Management – Individual and Organizational Coping Strategies

Stress Management

Stress management is required when an individual is unable to cope with the demanding environment. This inability generated anxiety and produces defensive behavior and stress symptoms. Therefore, the actions are required for developing adaptive behavior so as to overcome the consequences of stress. Such actions may be taken at individual level as well as at organizational level.

Individual Coping Strategies

Many people manage their time poorly. The well-organized employee, like the well-organized student, can often accomplish twice as much as the person who is poorly organized. So an understanding and utilization of basic time-management principles can help individuals better cope with tensions created by job demands. A few of the more well-known time management principles are:

  1. Making daily lists of activities to be accomplished.
  2. Prioritizing activities by importance and urgency
  3. Scheduling activities according to the priorities set
  4. Knowing your daily cycle and handling the most demanding parts of your job during the high part of your cycle when you are most alert and productive.

An employee can take personal responsibility for reducing stress levels. Individual strategies that have proven effective include implementing time-management techniques, increasing physical exercise, relaxation training and expanding the social support network.

  1. Noncompetitive physical exercise such as aerobics, walking, jogging, swimming and riding a bicycle have long been recommended by physicians as a way to deal with excessive stress levels. These forms of physical exercise increase heart capacity, lower the at-rest heart rate and provide a mental diversion from work pressures.
  2. Individuals can also reduce tension through relaxation tech­niques such as meditation, hypnosis, and biofeedback. The objective is to reach a state of deep relaxation, in which one feels physically relaxed, somewhat detached from the immediate environment, and detached from body sensa­tions. Deep relaxation for 15 or 20 minutes a day releases tension and provides a person with a pronounced sense of peacefulness. Importantly, significant changes in heart rate, blood pressure, and other physiological factors result from achieving the condition of deep relaxation.
  3. Expanding your social support, network,  can also be a means for tension reduction. It provides you with someone to hear your problems and to offer a more objective perspective on the situation.

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