Seeing the signs of stress

As staff settle back in to work after the holidays, employers are finding that some of their best staff are having to take time off on stress leave, says stress consultant, Dr John McEwan. Dr Stress, as he's known, says employers need to take heed if their workers are starting to burn out.

"The people that I see who are burning out are obviously good workers. Bad workers don't burnout. This is where a business that doesn't look after its good workers will lose its best and be left with its drones. Burnout only affects the good people."

Recently, McEwan has seen workers come into his office so stressed that they've had gastric reflux to the point of vomiting, irritable bowel, skin rashes, muscle tension and compromised immune systems. An increasing number of people are even developing chronic fatigue which, he says, some people never recover from.

"What I see is chronically overloaded people who simply are not aware of the impact of stress. I see successful people who are used to pushing the boundaries and who have just simply worn themselves out. Of course, in society we're taught to push the boundaries but they have not seen the signs that their body was failing. They've kept the hammer down and ended up completely burned out with their brain unravelling and then their organs and systems starting to fail."

McEwan says this time of year is prime time for people to go on stress leave because people have come back from the holidays and returned to dysfunctional situations. But some people feel unable to take a break because the work will just keep piling up.

"What appears to be happening is that when people overload, they know there is no one there to cover them. Organisations have become too lean and far too mean. What it means is people go on holiday and come back and there's 400 emails. So, even a holiday or stress leave is no answer in firms like this."

McEwan recently advised two Auckland doctors to take a fortnight of stress leave completely away from their work and gave them some pointers on what to do with the backlog of emails when they get back.

"I just encourage them to select all and delete every email that's come in while they were away so that they start with a clean sheet. It's sort of ruthless things like that you've got to do to get ahead.

"You've got to let the ball drop rather than pick it up and kill yourself. It's teaching people a more ruthless approach to their work so that they're still alive at the end of it."

The sheer volume of the work and office bullying are the primary factors McEwan says are stressing people out. The difficulty most people have in addressing the problem is due to a psychological ancestral drive to survive which keeps us from wanting to look weak.

"That's why it's so hard for people to ask for help. Because we're hard wired not to put our hand up and say we're not coping."

Dealing with stress by taking stress leave is a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

"All stress leave does is buy time to see the doctor and get something in place to recharge the batteries. But the answer is always going to be in two areas. One is to directly confront the nature of the problem and face it. The second thing is to have strategies of self-care and self-awareness."

McEwan says it is important to have daily exercise, relaxation, good food (including breakfast), plenty of fluids and pull tension out of the muscles hourly. But particularly, if there is no one to take on your workload, stress leave could do more harm than good.

"There's an acknowledgement and recognition that no matter how long they take off there is just more of a mountain. People are never able to catch up and despair compounds stress. So a couple of days off with all that work still there when you get back is no answer at all."

Dr Colleen Rigby agrees that stress leave is no magic bullet to solve the problem. She has a Phd in stress management and runs PsychoDynamix.

"I don't commonly suggest that people take stress leave. It's in rare circumstances because generally you can help people to find ways to manage the situation and give them some coping strategies to deal with those.

"It's only when it becomes a mental health issue where they're either drinking, gambling, depressed or anxious to such a significant degree that you don't feel it will be easy to teach them coping skills if they stay in the same situation and those things keep getting reinforced everyday."

Rigby outlines a number of factors which could cause someone to snap and justify a need for some stress leave.

* Where there are huge home demands as well as work demands

* The nature of the job has changed, the role is now not necessarily clear

* There is conflict with the supervisor about the role

* Relationship issues at home perhaps caused by the person going home unhappy and stressed

"So they've gone beyond the point of simply being stressed and they're now depressed and highly anxious," says Rigby. "In that sort of situation it is a stage at which I would suggest they take some stress leave."

Whether it's a duvet day or a three to six-month leave of absence in an extreme situation, stress leave can be a wake-up call for the employer.

"If the organisation does not take some steps to address the issue as well then that's the type of situation where I've often recommended stress leave. The situation's been going on and on and on and the organisation's had opportunities to address it. They haven't done that. And the person just keeps going back into the same situation even though they've raised it with the organisation."

An organisation may discover that they need two people to handle the responsibilities of the person on stress leave or even discover a new process or way of doing things. But employers can spot someone who is stressed before they are driven to take stress leave if they know what to look for.

"Generally the work output seems to decrease. They are quite often a lot more cynical. They get frustrated a lot more easily. They withdraw from their colleagues. There are a full range of symptoms."

If an employee is unwilling to discuss the reasons for their change in outlook then there is probably a problem at home effecting on their work. Rigby says the best way to deal with stress is to change your thinking about your situation. Not everything is a catastrophe.

"If you really think it is, then you should change your situation. Change jobs or downsize your lifestyle," she says "Maybe you can simply alleviate some traffic woes by travelling at different times of the day. Make sure you have adequate social support at work and at home."

Stress can reduce our decision making, judgment and memory. This actually makes work harder and therefore it takes longer for us to complete it. But Rigby says the solution is not to take work home.

"If you're taking work home then stop doing it. Say to your boss that that is as much as you're able to do and staffing needs to be looked at."