Coping with Stress at Work

Aug 31, 2025 News

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By Dr. Telford Layne Jr. PsyD, MSc. Postgrad, BSc.
Clinical and Developmental Psychologist – Psychoanalyst
Unwrapping Gift – Clinic

Kaieteur News – Stress is a physiological or psychological response to internal or external stressors. Stress involves changes affecting nearly every system of the body, influencing how people feel and behave.

Chronic stress can damage both mental and physical health. Being chronically stressed may leave you feeling fatigued, sap your ability to concentrate, and cause headaches and digestive difficulties. People prone to irritable bowel syndrome often find that their symptoms spike with psychological stress. Though acute stress can heighten certain immune responses, the wear-and-tear of chronic stress is bad for the immune system.

It’s crucial to recognise that working hard is not synonymous with overworking to the detriment of your relationships and physical well-being.

Common Sources of Work Stress. Some factors are directly linked to work-related stress. Key stressors in the workplace include:

• Low salaries
• Excessive workloads
• Leaders and workers with unresolved childhood traumatic injuries
• Limited opportunities for growth or advancement
• Unengaging or unchallenging work
• Lack of social support
• Insufficient control over job-related decisions
• Conflicting demands and unclear performance expectations

Effects of Uncontrolled Stress

Work-related stress doesn’t simply vanish when you leave the office. Chronic stress can lead to serious health issues, including headaches, stomachaches, sleep disturbances, irritability, and trouble concentrating. It also contributes to anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure, and weakened immunity, and can worsen conditions such as depression, obesity, and heart disease.

By taking charge of your work-related stress, you can protect your well-being and maintain a healthier, more balanced life.

Fortunately, there are many evidence-based tools to help combat the negative effects of stress in healthy ways. I recommend that you:

• Track Your Stressors: Start a journal to identify specific situations that trigger your stress and how you respond. Document your thoughts, feelings, and the surrounding circumstances, including people and environments. Review your entries to identify patterns connecting stressors and reactions.
• Develop Healthy Responses: Reject unhealthy coping strategies like fast food or alcohol. Instead, focus on healthy choices when faced with stress. Exercise is a powerful antidote to stress; consider yoga or any form of physical activity. Prioritise hobbies and activities that bring you joy, whether it’s reading, attending concerts, or playing games with family. Maintain good sleep hygiene by limiting caffeine and reducing stimulating activities in the evening.
• Establish Boundaries: In our hyper-connected world, it’s easy to feel compelled to be available around the clock. Set clear boundaries for work and personal time. This could mean refraining from checking email at home or not answering work calls during dinner. While the balance between work and personal life varies for everyone, establishing these boundaries is essential for reducing conflict and stress.
• Take Time to Recharge: Chronic stress and burnout require deliberate actions to restore your well-being. Implement necessary breaks from work, ensuring you don’t engage in job-related activities or allow work thoughts to intrude. Use your vacation days to relax and rejuvenate, ensuring you return to work refreshed and ready to tackle challenges.
• Communicate with Your Supervisor: Take your health seriously and discuss any stressors you are facing with your supervisor. Employee well-being should be a priority in any workplace, and addressing this issue directly can lead to necessary changes or accommodations.
• Cultivate social support: Strong social support can improve resilience to stress. Reach out strategically. Some friends or family members may be good at listening and sympathising.
• Seek good nutrition: When confronted with a stressor, the central nervous system releases adrenaline and cortisol, which affects the digestive tract, among other physiological changes. Acute stress can kill the appetite, but the release of the hormone cortisol during chronic stress can cause fat and sugar cravings. Research also suggests that high cortisol combined with high sugar consumption may prompt the deposition of fat around our internal organs—visceral fat that is associated with cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. A diet high in a variety of nutrients can both protect health and provide more physical energy to deal with challenges.
• Relax your muscles: Because stress causes muscles to tense, being stressed out can create tension headaches, backaches, and general fatigue. Combat stress and these symptoms with stretches, massage, or warm baths. Or try progressive muscle relaxation, a method that has been shown to reduce anxiety and improve overall mental health.
• Meditate: To get started, set aside five minutes in a quiet place to sit and breathe. Focus on the present moment; if stray thoughts intrude, acknowledge them and then let them go. Don’t judge yourself for any mental wavering. Gently refocus and bring the attention back to the present moment.
• Protect your sleep: Daytime stress affects nighttime sleep. Making matters worse, losing sleep can affect both cognition and mood. How to sleep better? Try to have a consistent sleep routine that allows time to wind down before lights out. Meditation and relaxation can help with insomnia.
• Get physical: Brisk movement can not only improve sleep, but it can also directly combat stress. Physical activity may also cancel out some of the negative effects of stress, including the impact of stress on the immune system. Adding physical activity needn’t be expensive or complex: A 10-minute walk or a dance session in the living room can do the trick.
• Take a moment in nature:  Green space improves mood. Even nature videos can speed the recovery from stress compared with videos of urban scenes. Taking a moment to notice nature—even in the form of a bustling city park—can refocus and calm your mind.
• Keep your pleasurable activities: When life gets overwhelming, people often drop their leisure activities first. But cutting yourself off from pleasure can be counterproductive. Even when time is tight, look for opportunities to do something for yourself, whether that means reading a novel, singing along to your favourite tunes, or streaming your favourite comedy on Netflix. Humour and laughter benefit both mental and physical health.
• Reframe your thinking: Reframing your thoughts around a stressor can help manage your emotions, reducing feelings of stress. Some tips: If you feel yourself spiraling into imagining worst-case scenarios, stop and put your mind elsewhere. Set realistic expectations for yourself. Strive for acceptance of situations outside of your control.
• Seek help: If you feel overwhelmed and self-help isn’t helping, look for a psychologist who can help you learn how to manage your stress effectively. They will help you identify situations or behaviours that contribute to your stress and then develop an action plan to change the stressors, change your environment, and change your responses.

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