Stress is an increasing issue in today’s time. The most important reason why stress is increasing is that people don’t talk about it. People don’t discuss it with their friends and families and alone keep suffering from it. We need to understand that discussing our issues with someone can actually help us in getting a better solution to the problem.
On the other hand, we must understand that we ourselves should try to figure out if any of our close people like a friend of a family member or a college is suffering from something or facing some issues.
Below all these points are discussed in detail.
WHAT’S IN IT
How to identify Stress in others?
Identifying someone in stress is not a difficult task. One can easily spot someone suffering from stress. When a person is under stress there are many changes that he or she goes through. These changes in the body are both on a mental and physical level. Thus the side effect of stress is also seen at both levels.
At the physical level, the first sign that you can notice is that the person is having more frequent headaches. Headaches are normal but having frequent headaches can be a sign of stress. Another early sign may be restlessness or a disturbed sleep cycle. People under stress often face difficulty in sleeping. The third sign which you can notice is felling of weakness and dizziness. A person under stress often complains about not feeling well. Apart from this, there may be other signs like not feeling hungry or excessive hunger, too much sweating and an increase in smoking and alcohol consumption than normal.
It may be a little difficult to spot a person suffering from stress at the mental level, how ever you can notice various changes like the person may have lost his sense of humour or maybe losing his temper faster than before. Another thing which you can notice is they get irritated very fast and also have very low self-esteem.
Why helping matters?
Someone who is suffering from stress faces many difficult situations and most of the times these situations are at a mental level only. A person who is standing at a spectators point of view may consider a situation to be normal while the person from a victims point may feel the same situation to be very stressful. That is why it is always important to help someone suffering from stress. Another reason that you should by yourself ask a person if he is suffering from stress and help him because people in stress usually don’t share anything with anyone they just stay isolated and keep suffering alone. That is why it becomes important to identify stress in your close ones.
Also, stress may lead to various health and emotional issues. These issues may highly affect a person and may also lead to an increase in stress. Also human beings are considered social animals and being socially connected to someone may actually help him or them to release stress.
Supporting someone and helping them in a stressful situation may actually help them recover fast and get out of the situation.No one can imagine how a little help to a stressful person can benefit him. It doesn’t require any professional qualification to help a person suffering from stress, that is why you should always be ahead in offering help.
5 ways to support someone in stress
Listen to them
The first step in helping a stressful person suffering from stress is listening to them. Listening may help you understand the situation and reach the cause of stress and for the stress full person, it may be a positive sign as he may not feel alone in such a situation.
Find the root cause
After you listen to the person you may easily reach the root cause of stress as you are in the position of a calm mind. However, at some time it may be difficult for the person suffering from stress to identify the root cause of stress as he is not in a proper state of mind.
Provide a solution
The best thing you can do is provide a solution to the person suffering from stress as a spectator because for spectators the situation is a third-person view movie where he can actually see the solution but for the victim, it may be a deadly situation where he may be stuck and there is no other option left.
Help
It may be possible that the stressed person may require your help to get out of the situation. Do not step back always be ahead in offering help to the person.
Record and recover
Keep recording the recovery in the person and keep supporting him as and when required.
When is work stress considered too much?
Work may often lead to a little bit of stress. This stress can be sometimes a motivation factor for the employee to complete the work on time. However sometimes this stress becomes too much and the employee loses his motivation and seems less interested in his job. Below given are signs that can tell you that the employee is facing work stress.
Less interest in work: The employee may seem less interested than he was before in the same work. However stress may not be the only reason for this but it can be one of the reasons.
The decrease in efficiency: Decrease inefficiency is very common during stress.
The decrease in performance: An employee when under stress doesn’t want to work due to a decrease in interest it is obvious that his performance will be affected.
Tips for managers and employees
During such a situation when an employee suffers from stress and his performance and efficiency decreases, the managers become very rude to their employee instead of finding the reason behind the problem. Therefore it is suggested that the managers should first try to understand the employee’s situation and react accordingly and if possible they should counsel the employee and help him by proving him with proper guidance.
Coming to employees, in such a situation the employee start distancing themselves from their managers or seniors which is not a very good approach. However it is suggested that the employee should consider having a conversation with the manager and tell him the reasons for stress.
Conclusion
Identifying someone in stress is not a difficult task. One can easily spot someone suffering from stress. stress may lead to various health and emotional issues. These issues may highly affect a person and may also lead to an increase in stress. Also human beings are considered social animals and being socially connected to someone may actually help him or them to release stress. 5 ways to support someone in stress i.e. Listen to them, Find the root cause, Provide a solution, Help, Record and recover.
Also you can read our blog on Using well-formed outcome in goal setting