Work Stress: The Making Of Modern

Epidemic

What is Stress?
Stress is most widely defined as the body’s response to external events that somehow upset one’s
internal balance or make a person feel threatened. And from the biological point of view stress has
different forms, impacts on all the ages of people, social strata. When feeling stressed one’s body
starts automatic process known as the stress response in order to protect the individual from other
internal damages. If working properly his mechanism helps to stay alert, focused and energetic.
Stress can be extremely dangerous to productivity, relationship, quality and the most important
health if not treated sensitively. Stress can cause or exacerbate health problems like high blood
pressure, heart disease, obesity, depression, autoimmune, digestive and skin disease.

Now moving to the external factors includes physical environment such as one’s job, relationships
difficulties and the expectations of each day may also cause stress. Internal factors define the ability
of one’s body to respond to and handle the external stress factors. Explaining each and every stress
related problems would be a tedious job but few would do the help to at least understand and deal
with it.

Sitting all day is terrible for the body, aches and pains are the least of the problems, there are
higher risks of muscular skeletal disorder, obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease and more.
Regular slouching on chair can lead to long term illness. To decrease all the variety of outcomes
doctors recommends change of position every 8 minutes and take a two minute walk at least twice
an hour.
Skipping breakfast puts body in a constant stressful state and disrupt metabolism. People who don’t
eat breakfast have a greater risk of high blood pressure, being overweight, and having heart issues
too. And to maintain the balance of not eating breakfast they compensate it in fast food which
causes much more. Most of office-folks go out for unhealthy lunch. A portion of fast food usually
has around double the calories to another similar food of the
same size, and it has a lot of oxidized fat, which increases the
risk of heart disease. Just to decrease the cause it is better to
have food on time and have healthy food.
Long commutes can lead to poor sleep, higher cholesterol and
an increase risk of depression. Commuting more than 10 miles
by car can lead to higher blood pressure. So it’s better to use
public transport or cycling to work station for better health.
Over exposure to printers and photocopiers could lead to lung
disease. Photocopiers are a source of potentially deadly ozone
if the filters aren’t changed periodically and it’s also possible that even very small amounts can
cause chest pain and irritated. Laser printers do this, too, and they also release tonner particles that
can get in your lungs and blood streams which could lead lung disease and other ailments.
Working continuously for more than 10 hours may lead to heart attack, 60% greater risk of a
multitude of cardiovascular problems and angina. It can also cause weight gain and increase stress
hormones.
Endlessly staring at a computer screen harms vision. Even though computer screen don’t give off
radiations, the strain from staring over longer periods can cause headaches and migraine.
Not getting enough sunlight can make it harder to fall asleep and more difficult to concentrate
when awake.
Smartphone’s overuse may eventually weaken hands and wrists. People using smart phones to text
and email are prone to muscle fatigue. Excessive amount of typing is a well known cause carpal
tunnel syndrome, which is painful wrist strain that can go up to arms. CTS can get bad enough to
cause permanent nerve damage and muscle wasting.
Above are the few causes of stress which needs medical checkups or an outside conversation with
friends and relatives. This may help to lower down stress and make a person better to live life
ahead. There are some realistic measures to decrease stress or to prevent it: time management,
anger management and regular physical exercise. One can also try not to get upset for matters that
are not so important and to keep a positive attitude.

Stress is curable before it mugs you up.....

Stay charm and happy days ahead.....

By Group 4: Malavika, Anaswara, Shiji, Athul, Chanchal, Jijin, Akhil and Arun