This document presents a comprehensive overview of stress management, including definitions, causes, and consequences of stress, as well as individual and organizational strategies for coping. It highlights the importance of understanding stress and implementing techniques such as time management, physical exercise, and psychological methods to reduce stress levels. Overall, the goal of stress management is to improve mental and physical well-being and enhance quality of life.

4. STRESS
MANAGEMENT
Presented by,
Ms. Ansu Varghese
S.Y.M.Sc. Nursing, INS, BU

5. OBJECTIVES
General Objectives
On completing this presentation,
students will have in-depth
knowledge on stress management
Specific Objectives
Introduce stress
Define stress
List the causes of stress
Enumerate consequences of stress
Elaborate individual strategies of
coping up stress
Explain the organizational strategies of
stress reduction

6. INTRODUCTION
• Stress is a common phenomenon of modern life.
• Stress is generally due to conflict emanating from
high aspirations and goal attainment.
• Stress is common for all, but the degree varies
depending on various intra psychic and
interpersonal factors.

7. DEFINITION
• According to WHO, Stress can be defined as a state of
worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation.
Stress is a natural human response that prompts us to
address challenges and threats in our lives.
• In the words of Fred Luthans, Stress is defined as an
adaptive response to an external situation that results in
physical, psychological, and/or behavioral deviations
for organizational participants.

8. Cont….
• Ivancevich and Matteson define stress as the interaction of the individual
with the environment.
• Schuler defines stress as a dynamic condition in which an individual is
confronted with an opportunity, constraint, or demand related to what he or
she desires and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and
important

9. Features of stress
• Stress is both psychological and physical aspect
• It is common to both the genders
• It results from the deviation of expectations
from actual situation
• It is symptomatic
• Stress is treated negatively
• Stress is an interactive concept

10. • Stress occurs only when the human being feels
mediation of the internal or external factors
• Stress is related to the attitude of the person
• Stress is associated with certain common
biological disorders such as heart attack, stroke,
diabetic, blood pressure, neurological disorders
etc

11. CAUSES OF STRESS
• Individual factor
• Organizational factors
Intra-
organizatio
nal stress
Environment of the
organization
Extra
organizatio
nal stress

12. Individual factor
Personality
and
individual
differences
Family
problems
Economic
problems
Lifestyles Role
demands

13. Organizational Factors
• Employees working with poor working conditions are subject to greater stress.
• Such as dust, heat, noise, polluted air, strong odour due to toxic chemicals, radiation,
poor ventilation, lack of privacy.
Working Conditions
• Poorly designed tasks, Task autonomy, task inter-dependency, task demands, task
overload.
• Employees to adjust themselves to coworkers, superiors, and subordinates, irrespective
of their willingness.
Organizational Tasks
• Downsizing, competing pressure, unfair pay structures, rigidity in rules, job rotation.
Administrative Policies and Strategies

14. • Wider span of management compels the executive to manage large number of
subordinates.
• Frequent line and staff conflict lead to obstacles in the work performance.
Organizational Structure and Design
• Number of organizational processes is designed for meeting organizational goals.
Communication process, control process, decision making process, promotion process,
performance appraisal process, etc.
• Improper design of various organizational processes leads to strained relationships among
the employees
Organization Process and Styles
• Authoritarian leadership style
Organizational Leaderships

15. • Initial stages of organizational birth, stress is caused because of
ambiguous policies and designs.
• In the growth stage, employees experience stress due to failure to
meet conflicting demands.
• At the time of decline, stress is caused due to downsizing,
retrenchment and loss of financial rewards and changing
organizational systems.
Organizational Life Cycle
• Lack of cohesiveness, lack of social support, lack of recognition by
the group and incompatible goals cause stress
Group Dynamics

16. CONSEQUENCES OF
STRESS

17. Physiological
Consequences
Increased
Blood
Pressure
Headache
Heart
Disease
Sweating
Dry
Mouth
Hot and
Cold
flashes
Increased
level of
cholesterol
Ulcer
Sleep
Disorder
Increasing
heart
beating
Increase in
breathing
rate

18. Psychological Consequences
• Anger
• Anxiety and
Depression
• Nervousness
• Irritation
• Tension
• Boredom
• Aggressiveness
• Moodiness
• Hostility
• Poor Concentration

19. Behavioral
Consequences
Aloofness
Impulsive and Aggressive Behavior
Frequent Interpersonal Conflicts
Under eating, overeating, drug abuse
Increased Smoking
Alcoholism
Fidgeting

20. Behavioral Consequences
• Perception: Stressful individuals develop tension and
anxiety. As a result, their level of understanding
considerably decreases.
• Attitudes: Continued stressful environment creates
certain permanent negative impressions in the mind of
the employees which influence their work performance
• Learning: Stressful employees cannot learn the things
quickly

21. ORGANIZATIONAL CONSEQUENCES
Absenteeism Turnover
Poor
Decision-
Making
Disturbed
Customer
Relationships

22. STRESS PERFORMANCE CURVE

24. TECHNIQUES OF
MANAGING STRESS

25. Individual Management
Time Management
Physical Management
Psychological Management
Social Management
Self-awareness Management
Inter Personal Management

26. Time management
• The following principles of time management can help in combating stress.
• Identifying and listing of daily activities in a logical order.
• Arranging the activities of the day based on importance and urgency.
• Preparing logical schedule of activities.
• Analyzing and understanding the daily cycle and nature of the job.
• Allocating time properly to various activities based on time demands.
• Delegating minor tasks to the subordinates in order to make use of the time in a better manner.
• Discouraging unwanted visitors.
• Setting unfinished tasks on the top of list for tomorrow.

27. Physical Management
• Management of stress relates to understanding one’s own biological and body conditions.
• Overcoming stress is possible with managing physiological relaxation. Physical exercises
greatly help in relieving tension and stress.
• When body is conditioned with physical exercise, oxygen is inhaled properly and blood
circulation increases. This promotes healthy secretions from glands and the supply of blood
to all the parts of the body keeps every organ active.
• Physical exercises could be reactive or proactive.
• Non competitive physical exercises like walking, jogging, swimming, riding, aerobics and
playing games considerably increases heart capacity, provide mental diversion from work
pressures and increases heart capacity to withstand stressful situations.

28. Psychological Management
• Relaxation
Relaxation of mind through meditation, hypnosis
and biofeedback can effectively reduce mental
tensions.
Meditation involves silently sitting on the ground
taking deep inhalation and chanting mantra.
This takes the mind into deep relaxation. This
technique relaxes muscles and mind.
Transcendental Meditation, Soul management,
Silence sitting posture, and praying the God are
some of the relaxation techniques practiced for
reducing stress.

29. Behavioural Self-control: Exercising proper control
over behaviour in dealing with others can bring down
the chance of stress.
• Self-introspection brings self-awareness of the
individual.
• Stress can be relaxed by developing proper perception,
practicing good listening, maintaining calm and tension
free mind empathy and positive attitude.
Cognitive Therapy: Cognitive therapy involves knowing
ones’ own emotions to release anxiety and tension.
• In this technique, people are made to understand the
reasons causing stress in them by the process of self-
observation.

30. Yogic Management:
In recent times, yoga is an
effective technique of
relieving stress. Yoga
practice involves Asana,
Pranayama, Mudra and
Kriya.
Certain asanas which help
stress relaxation are pada
hasthasana, vajra asana,
sashanka asana, camel
asana, lotus asana, crocodile
asana, sarvanga asana,
shava asana .
Sashanka Asana,
Vajra Asana
Pada Hasthasana,

31. Social Management
• Developing good social networks involves grouping of people who
are good listeners and confidence builders.
• Encouraging informal groups to share information without
inhibitions, developing free exchange of ideas, views and distasteful
experiences, promoting confidence of social support decrease
tensions and stress.
• Social clubs, recreation clubs, friendship clubs, informal gatherings,
birthday parties, and family are some of the social networks that
increase social support and reduce stress.

32. Self-awareness Management
• Self-awareness is similar to self-audit or personal audit. Being aware of self is
a difficult task, as individuals are unprepared to accept their defects. Self-
awareness management involves three stages.
• Stage–I: Identify, understand and analyse one’s own skills, capacities,
limitations and defects.
• Stage – II: Encourage feedback from others viz., subordinates, peers,
superiors, friends, family members and other social associations. This
requires patient hearing without inhibitions.
• Stage -III: Develop self program to improve the skills, capacities to
overcome the limitations in a scientific way. Attend self-management-training
programs to develop the personality for all round development of self.

33. Inter Personal Management
• Inter- personal communication, inter personal attraction and inter
personal knowledge improve understanding of others behavior.
• Most of the organizational stresses are created due to
misunderstanding, organizational politics, setting one self-aloof
from others and encouraging unreliable comments. Thus,
maintaining openness of communication and valuing proper
comment enable development of inter personal understanding.
• Transactional Analysis, Johari Window and Grid techniques help
in the development of inter personal understanding and
consequent relief from stress

34. Organizational
Management

35. Organizational Management
Selection
and
Placement
Policy
Goal
Setting
Job
Enrichment
and Job
Design
Role
Clarity
Communication
and Counseling
Carrier planning
and
Development
Democratic
Leadership
Organisation
Climate
Wellness
Programmes
Quality of
Work Life

36. 1. Selection and Placement Policy: Selecting the employees by a proper
personality fit suitable to jobs minimize the chance of stress in the
individuals.
2. Goal Setting: Organizations should follow a strategy of participation in
goal setting to provide motivation, reduce frustration and ambiguity of
goals. Management by Objectives (MBO) is an appropriate technique of
goal setting which reduces stress.
3. Job Enrichment and Job Design: Job redesign provides more
responsibility, more meaningful work, more autonomy and increased
feedback. This provides greater control over work activities and reduces
dependence on others.

37. 4. Role Clarity: Proper role definition helps
employees understand their role in
organisation and appraise interpersonal roles.
This reduces the chance of role conflict and
increases role compatibility.
5. Communication and Counseling:
Redesigning the formal communication
channels can improve understanding and
consequently reduce stress caused by
communication bottlenecks.
Counseling is exchange of ideas and views in a
free and fair manner. It is intended to share
problems of employees and cope up with the
stressful situation.

38. 6. Carrier planning and Development:
Designing appropriate career plans, education
programs, development programs and
organisation development considerably reduce
employee’s stress.
7. Democratic Leadership: Democratic leaders
create confidence in the subordinates and allow
participation in the decision making process.
8. Organisation Climate: Sound organisation
climate and culture characterized by sound
administrative policy, good organizational
communication, participative culture and
supportive climate ensure reduction of stress.

39. 9. Wellness Programmes: Programmes that focus on employee’s physical and
mental condition organized by the management are known as wellness
programmes.
As part of these programmes, workshops, seminars and counseling sessions
are conducted to help the employees understand the dangers of smoking,
alcoholism and drug abuse.
10. Quality of Work Life: This technique involves improving the working
conditions and other internal and external aspects of work life.
Such as, providing good housing facilities, living conditions, social and
recreational facilities, training and development of employees for overall
development of human resources in the organisation will develop quality of
work life.

40. CONCLUSION
Stress management involves adopting strategies and techniques to cope with
and reduce the negative effects of stress on physical and mental well-being.
This process includes recognizing stressors, developing coping mechanisms,
and implementing lifestyle changes to promote a healthier and more balanced
life. Key elements of stress management may include mindfulness, relaxation
techniques, time management, exercise, and seeking social support. The goal
is to enhance resilience, improve overall quality of life, and prevent the
adverse health effects associated with chronic stress

41. Question
• What are consequences of stress?
• Which are the individual strategies of coping up the stress?
• Which are the organizational strategies of stress reduction?
Assignment:
• Discuss the creation of stress free environment in working area.

42. References
• Broman-Fulks, J. J., & Kelso, K. (2020, January 1). Stress Management. ResearchGate.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273946086_Stress_Management
• Saravanakumar, A. (2019, January 16). UNIT 4 STRESS MANAGEMENT. ResearchGate.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330409437_UNIT_4_STRESS_MANAGEMENT
• Worthen, M. (2023, August 14). Stress Management. StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK513300/
• Turaga, R. (2019). Stress management techniques. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 13(3), 56-64.
• Naylor, M., Ridout, B., & Campbell, A. (2020). A scoping review identifying the need for quality research on the use of virtual
reality in workplace settings for stress management. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 23(8), 506-518.
• Hepburn, S. J., Carroll, A., & McCuaig, L. (2021). Exploring a complementary stress management and wellbeing intervention
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