Stressors

Question 1: What stressors/stressful situations (e. g. major life events, daily hassles, job stress, and family stress) did you have to deal with over the past year? Please mention at least 5 different sources of stress and explain in detail why you perceived these situations as stressful. Change is oftentimes a welcome respite, but having to undergo something which is really quite new is not so thrilling a prospect for me. These past years were both exciting and depressing in a sense for me.

Basically, what made me react negatively to changes include the changes that had been occurring in the workplace (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). The introduction of a new work procedure requiring many employees including myself, were not very easy to do as they involved learning and adapting to different production methods. Then what follows that is the annual performance appraisal; even though it is a common thing to do, nevertheless, the appraisal is still a source of stress. Few people like the idea of being evaluated whether at school or work.

There were times before that I had a very queasy feeling in my stomach two days prior and during the appraisal schedule (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). Thirdly, what added to my stress at work especially during appraisal time was that all throughout the year I was also going through what is termed as role ambiguity (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). The demands were actually too many for me that I anticipated that many of the assigned tasks were not going to be finished. My work role at times became ambiguous though my job description makes it clear what are expected of me.

What was wrong in that was the implementation part especially when my direct superior forgets where the boundaries lie and sees my role in the job as poorly structured and ill-defined (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). Moreover, what makes my job so difficult is when a situation arises at work that demands my attention and it conflicts with my personal values especially my religion. Called role conflict- it arises when there is a disparity among the demands of a job and the employee’s, personal standard and values (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). Lastly, when I was held responsible for other people is a major source of difficulty for me.

When I was assigned and promoted, it was a great joy, until I realized that I need to handle many other employees under my care and supervision and I will be answerable to management for their conduct, accomplishment of their tasks and overall performance on the job. This is difficult because the principle of command responsibility is applied on the kind of leadership I have and thus how I handle the people under me (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). Question 2: How did the stressors mentioned above affect your personal life, physical health, and/or emotional well-being? Try to be as specific as possible when answering this question.

All these changes, hassles and toil resulted firstly to emotional exhaustion, a feeling of being drained and empty. I felt physical aches and pains from my neck, to my lower back, not to mention the frequent tension headaches similar to migraines that I suffered that I had to see a neurologist for a cure. Then I also felt a sense of cynicism and the lack of sensitivity toward others. I tend to think also that all my work seemed futile and felt a sense of frustration so many times. Futility is the feeling that all the effort put forth previously was wasted and worthless.

In addition, it has compounded the adjustments that my family has to do since they were also adjusting to my flares of temper and irritability as I was continually getting to be exhausted and despondent many times in a week (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). It was good that the problems that I had were addressed properly as stress has been known to reduce drastically employee motivation, and this was what I was already experiencing; my physical ability to perform my tasks were reduced and increasingly absenteeism and tardiness were very real and welcoming thoughts that I frequently entertained (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006).

Question 3: What coping mechanisms did you use to deal with the stressors mentioned above and how would you rate their effectiveness? Please refer to the Coping with Stress section of the textbook and give clear examples of the coping mechanisms you have used in the past. Firstly, it was fortunate that my family came to understand what I was experiencing then. I started to properly communicate to my loved ones specific incidents that peeved me and tried to enlist their support. Social support can reduce one’s vulnerability to stress (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006).

Secondly, my work mates were also veterans to the trade or profession that one of them advised me to see things differently. It was good that I happened to have a very cohesive group to belong to in the first place. Organizations can enhance social support by facilitating the cohesiveness of work groups and the training that my workplace gave to us employees on how to cope with our pressures at work and other various stressors in our lives, in addition to the overall atmosphere of support that eventually was developed in our place of work (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006).

On a personal level, my approach during these times was a combination of problem-focused coping (trying to find ways of changing the problem or avoiding it) or at times emotion-focused coping (where I attended to attempting to the alleviation of the emotions associated with the stressful situation), cognitive, physiological reactivity and sense of humour. With sense of humour, what I did was watch humorous films to get things out of my system. And surely it seemed to work with me though this was not a long-term solution (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006).

A cognitive model was my frequent resource wherein I attempted to change my perception of the events that seemed stressful to me (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). My appraisal at first of the events was mostly negative and thus stressful such as those that had to do with someone who pushed me to my limits concerning certain tasks I needed to finish. However, pertaining to secondary appraisal which was considering whether I had the necessary abilities and capacities or resources to accomplish these tasks were initially disheartening.

But then I had to do a re-evaluation of these resources and forced myself to see that indeed I had the resources I needed to accomplish the said tasks. This worked many times but not all the time; I was also trying to be realistic that I can be physically exhausted for the very reason that the work was truly too much to handle, not that it was just a perception of how hard the job was (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). Then I started to do work-outs when possible. I did incorporate exercises into my schedule especially some brisk walking which I found exhilarating and energy boosting.

I watched my diet, whether I was careful about eating a balanced meal daily especially in the morning and careful about getting a good night sleep. I also went swimming with friends and some co-workers around once weekly for two months until we quit because there were seminars scheduled in between. So I maintained my walking exercises three times a week on the average (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). Question 4: Please take a moment to reflect on how it was like to be enrolled in this course. Then answer the following questions: How stressful was the experience of taking this course for you?

What aspects of the course (e. g. discussion board entries, exams, assignments) were most stressful for you and why? What strategies (if any) did you use to deal with course related stress? The lectures and textbooks did a good job of relating the lessons to my personal encounters and hardships. It helped me understand the physiology of our emotions and what would occur in our bodies when we are under emotional distresses or upheavals (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). Controlling emotions, although a remote possibility before, has now become a possibility.

Emotional reactions can be controlled and trained. Control is the key to the avoidance of extreme expressions of anger for instance, and so with other intense emotional states (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). Emotion is an overwhelming aspect of any human being. Any of the three challenges stated that I somehow managed to achieve actually, each has a lot to do with emotionality (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006). In addition, what was highlighted was the role of exercise, proper diet and good rest or enough sleep to reduce the person’s negative appraisal of events surrounding him/her.

Social support is also unquestionably important or essential to help any one to weather through many of the turbulent though, occasionally-occurring incidences of one’s life. The daily grind and hassles such as traveling or commuting are usually overlooked but equally potential problems for the average student or worker and are also addressed in the class which was truly an eye opener, among other things mentioned or discussed (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006)..

Question 5: In hindsight, what advice would you give other students who are thinking about enrolling in this course in regard to keeping their stress level low? Knowledge is indeed vital to one’s ability to find solutions to many of our human problems. It includes background as to the physiology of behavior of individuals in reaction or in appraisal to potential stressors, the kinds of events or experiences that put a person to stressful reactions, and the positive or healthy ways of coping that a person must use for lengthier and healthier life and of course, for that person to operate on an optimum level of functioning (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006).

Only when stress is viewed and appreciated properly can an individual operate under good conditions and enjoy what life has to offer, instead of shirking responsibilities and avoiding many possible circumstances or opportunities for fear and anxiety (Ciccarelli & Meyer, 2006).