Work can often be a pressure cooker. Insane deadlines, difficult bosses, personality clashes with co-workers and toxic office cultures can spell trouble for employees who can't cope with work stress.
The bad news is there's really no such thing as a stress-free job. Nearly eight of 10 workers (77%) reported experiencing work-related stress, according to the American Psychological Association's "2023 Work in America Survey." And 57% of employees said they've experienced negative impacts because of stress at work.
The good news? Workers can deal with workplace stress in a positive way that propels their career rather than derails it, says Chris McCarthy, a leading authority on stress and coping and professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Main Causes Of Work Stress
The origin of work stress has a lot to do with workers' own perceptions, says McCarthy. Heavy work demands surpassing resources available to get things done can trigger work-related anxiety. "Once the demands get too high, that's when the stress response kicks in," said McCarthy.
And it's important to note that stress triggers for one worker may be no big deal for another employee. "There's a lot of individual variation," said McCarthy.
Often, the source of anxiety at work can be personal in nature. Workers asked to do a task they have little or no experience with is an example. That could be giving a speech to 1,000 people at a business conference for the first time.
"If you have done it a lot and have the resources to do it and the time to prepare, giving a speech is not that stressful," said McCarthy. "But if you've never done it before, you don't have the time to prepare and did not practice, then it can be very stressful."
Fight Or Flight Kicks In At Work
Common stress responses are part of our DNA and date back thousands of years. Stress ramps up when a tiger chases you or a boss gives you an assignment with an impossible deadline. Either way, the fight or flight reaction kicks in as you deal with a perceived harmful event or threat to your job survival.
The problem is that the body's physiological response — such as a faster heartbeat and the release of adrenaline and cortisol — may be overdone. Getting a challenging work assignment, of course, is different from coming face-to-face with, say, a black bear on a mountain hike.
"(A fight-or-flight response) is great if you're being chased in the wilderness," said McCarthy. "But it really gets in the way in the short run at work and being able to do what you usually have to do at work to be productive, which is to focus and concentrate."
Steps To Manage Work Stress
How can you tame work stress? Choose a career that fits your personality and stress limit. McCarthy tells his undergraduate students that a key to managing stress at work is to make sure you are in the right career.
If deadlines put you in a state of panic, for instance, working on a daily newspaper or being a breaking-news reporter for your local TV station probably isn't a wise career choice. What you do for a living can be a predictor of how much stress you face.
"People who aren't in the right careers can be very vulnerable to stress no matter how many resources they develop because they're in the wrong industry," said McCarthy.
Take Care Of Yourself
Employ self-care strategies. Mediation and mindfulness can help you manage your fight-or-flight reaction to work stress. "These are things you can call upon in an emergency to kind of focus yourself and settle down," said McCarthy.
Getting your heart rate down, staying in the present, not extrapolating a new deadline into future doom and not making too much of a minor challenge can help keep stress manageable. So, too, can a walk around the block at lunchtime or a regular workout schedule.
Build A Support Team
Bottling up work anxiety inside your head will likely only make things worse, says McCarthy. Talking about what's stressing you out at work with someone you trust can help you keep job pressures — and general life challenges — in perspective.
"Interpersonal connections and social support are incredibly important resources for coping," said McCarthy.
As part of talking to people, challenge irrational beliefs. Your attitudes, beliefs and how you think play a big role in your response to stress, says McCarthy. So, it's important to be aware of how you're thinking about certain situations. Make sure your mindset isn't making matters worse.
Irrational beliefs that might set you up for failure include things like: "I have to be perfect. I have to do everything well. I'm not allowed to make a mistake or other people will judge me harshly," said McCarthy. "Or it could be I have a deadline coming up and I'm going to be fired if I don't meet the deadline and do a perfect job, too."
You don't want to give these negative thoughts any credence.
"These types of thoughts are really important to be aware of, and you should refute the irrational belief (that you will be fired)," said McCarthy. "Kind of ask yourself, 'Is that really true? Am I really going to get fired if I submit the deadline project a little later that day or ask for an extension?' A lot of times there is no evidence for that irrational belief. In fact, there's often a lot of counter evidence to it."
Find Ways To Recover From Stress
It's important to identify your own stress triggers. But you must also master ways to recover quickly. "Do you have ways to kind of tell yourself it's going to be OK? That can be really important," said McCarthy.
There are a few effective ways to cope with stress. Try "problem-focused coping," says McCarthy. Do this by acknowledging that something triggered a stress reaction. But then look for ways to actively fix what's broken. This strategy can help whether it's a relationship issue, some kind of work skill you're lacking or a conflict with a fellow employee.
"Is there something I can do actively to change things?" said McCarthy. "Problem-focused coping is about saying to yourself, 'I'm going to remove the source of the stress, so it doesn't continue to affect me.'"
Deploy Emotion-Focused Coping
Emotion-focused coping is all about focusing on ways to get yourself feeling better about things after stressful events. "And that involves things like taking care of yourself, being aware of your emotions, doing things like exercise, connecting with other people, just to make yourself feel better," said McCarthy.
What you want to avoid is so-called "maladaptive coping," which involves short-term fixes like using alcohol or withdrawing from friends and family. Those methods won't help address the problem, says McCarthy.
Sometimes recovering from work stress is as simple as "giving yourself space to heal," said McCarthy. "Often, we just need a little timeout to recalibrate and cool down. We can often cope better after that."
Focus On The Now
What you don't want to do is look too far ahead. Don't anticipate bad things happening that may never happen. Skip the mistake of thinking your bosses are out to get you, when in fact they're not even thinking about you.
"You need to ground yourself in the present," said McCarthy. "Once we get into that trap of being stressed out all the time, you're in survival mode, you're thinking about threats in the future, and your emotions are kicking up. And it's really hard to be productive at work when you're in that mind space."
