Terms: Symptoms And Consequences Of Stress

2.1 Definition of Terms.
2.1.1. Symptoms and Consequences of Stress: The physiological changes that take place within the body in response to stress are responsible for most stress symptoms. The battle against the stressor is referred to as the fight-or-flight response. Recent studies suggest that females tend-and befriend in response to a stressor. They protect and nurture (tend) and turn to social networks for support (befriend). Also, the brain senses stress as damage to well-being and therefore sends out a signal to the body to cope. The purpose of the coping is to modify the discrepancy between the ideal (low-stress) and actual (high-stress) conditions. The brain is a self-regulating system that helps us cope with stressors.

i. Physiological
If stress is continuous and accompanied by these short-term physiological changes, annoying and life-threatening conditions can occur. A stressful life event usually leads to a high cholesterol level (of the unhealthy type) and high blood pressure. ii. Job Performance Consequences.
Stress can also play a positive role, such as preparing us to for meeting difficult challenges and spurring us on to peak performance. In general, performance tends to be best under moderate amounts of stress. Too little stress leads to lethargy, and too much to choking. Personal and environmental factors influence the job performance consequences of stress, such as the worker who has clear job expectations and high self-esteem being less susceptible to stress. iii. Burnout and Stress.
One of the major problems of prolonged stress is that it may lead to burnout, a condition of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion in response to long-term stressors. Work exhaustion is another term for burnout. Burnout contributors include feeling out of control, insufficient recognition and reward, and a lack of emotional support in the workplace. Burnout sufferers shift into a mode of doing the minimum as a way of protecting
Downsizing and corporate mergers have contributed to job insecurity.
e) Workplace Violence and catastrophes.
Violence may be both the cause and the result of stress. An average of 20 people is murdered in the U.S. workplace each week, and 1 million workers are assaulted annually. Being a victim of violence, watching violence, or worrying about violence are all stressors. Witnessing a catastrophe can result in post-traumatic disorder, with symptoms including anxiety, nightmares, and difficulties in concentration. Many people associated with the attacks on the World Trade Center suffered from post-traumatic disorder.
2.2.3 Link between stress and Performance:
To measure job performance and job stress, four relationships has been suggested. When performance diminishes with stress, negative linear relationship is there. Positive linear relationship is also found, when stress causes better performance. If stress initially improves productivity, and then it diminishes when feelings of distress prevails on employee, then curvilinear or u-shaped relationship is found. Sometimes, no certain relationship is found between stress and performance. Stress positively affects up to tolerable level and when it exceeds this level, it has negative impact on employee