Stress Management and Crisis Management

What is Stress?

• Stress is the feeling of being under too much mental or emotional pressure.

  • Examples considered in the material include: mental stress alone, emotional stress alone, or both together.

  • The addition of physical pressures can make stress worse and, if not managed, can lead to serious consequences.

• People react differently to stress:

  • A situation that feels stressful to one person may be motivating to another.

• Common life demands that can cause stress include:

  • Work

  • Relationships

  • Money problems

• Stress is not solely about mental pressure; physical pressures can amplify it.

• Stress can affect how you feel, think, behave and how the body works (e.g., palpitations, numbness).

Signs and Effects of Stress

• When you feel stressed, it can interfere with meeting demands and can affect everything you do.

• Signs include:

  • Sleep problems

  • Sweating

  • Loss of appetite

  • Difficulty concentrating

• You may feel anxious, have low self-esteem, racing thoughts, worry constantly, or go over things in your head.

Emotional and Behavioral Indicators

• May notice:

  • Losing your temper more easily

  • Drinking more than usual or acting unreasonably

• Physical indicators:

  • Headaches

  • Muscle tension or pain

  • Dizziness

• Stress triggers a surge of hormones in the body; after the threat passes, stress hormone levels generally return to normal.

Stress is not an illness but can lead to serious illness if unaddressed

• Early recognition of symptoms is important to coping effectively and avoiding unhealthy coping methods (e.g., excessive drinking or smoking).

• Spotting early signs helps prevent the condition from getting worse and potentially reducing complications such as hypertension.

How to Manage Stress

• There are practical steps to manage stress effectively:

  • Learn how to relax

  • Engage in regular exercise

  • Adopt good time-management techniques

• If self-help techniques aren’t effective, consider professional help (see a GP).

When to See Your GP

• If self-help strategies don’t work, consult your GP.

  • They may suggest other coping techniques or recommend counselling or cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

• CBT is a talking therapy that helps you manage problems by changing the way you think and behave.

• CBT cannot remove problems, but it can help you manage them more positively.

• It encourages you to examine how your actions affect your thoughts and feelings.

• By talking and changing your behaviour, you can influence both cognitive (thinking) and behavioural (actions) processes, potentially improving your overall mood and life satisfaction.

Health Implications and Medical Context

• If your stress leads to serious health problems (e.g., high blood pressure), you may need medication or further tests.

• Mental health issues (including stress, anxiety and depression) contribute to about \frac{1}{5} of visits to a GP.

Re-emphasizing Stress Management

• The guidance on managing stress is repeated:

  • Learn to relax

  • Exercise regularly

  • Use good time-management techniques

Stress Diary and Triggers

• If you’re unsure what’s causing your stress, keep a diary for a period of 2\text{ to }4\ \text{weeks} and review it to identify triggers.

• Things to record in the diary:

  • Date, time, and place of a stressful episode

  • What you were doing

  • Who you were with

  • How you felt emotionally

  • What you were thinking

  • What you started doing

  • How you felt physically

• The diary helps you:

  • Work out what triggers your stress

  • Understand how you operate under pressure

  • Develop better coping mechanisms

• Doctors may recommend keeping a stress diary to aid diagnosis; you should keep one consistently.

Recognize Your Stress Triggers

• Use the diary to identify triggers and patterns in responses to stress.

Crisis Management

• A crisis is any event that is expected to lead to an unstable or dangerous situation affecting individuals, groups, organizations, or communities.

• Crises are typically negative changes (security, economic, political, public health, or environmental) that occur abruptly with little or no warning.

• In a broader sense, a crisis is a "testing time" or an emergency event.

What is a Crisis?

• Examples of crisis contexts include:

  • Natural disasters

  • Workplace bombing

  • Plant explosions

  • Kidnappings of executives or key employees

  • Terrorist attacks

  • Hostile takeovers

  • Personnel assaults

  • Litigation or arrests of key personnel

  • Sabotage

  • Employee unrest

Forms of Organizational Crisis

• Various crisis forms can threaten reputation, profitability or survival of an organization.

• Crisis management is the systematic anticipation and preparation for events that could damage the organization.

• It is sometimes viewed negatively as "managerial fire fighting"—waiting for things to go wrong, then scrambling to limit damage.

Managing Crisis

• Key idea: Develop a crisis management program to proactively handle crises rather than reactively scrambling.

Developing a Crisis Management Program

• Steps include:

  • Conducting a Crisis Audit

  • Formulating Contingency Plans

  • Creating a Crisis Management Team

  • Perfecting the program through Practice

Key Elements of a Crisis Management Program

• Core elements include:

  • ANTICIPATE (Disaster scenarios by 'what ifs')

  • PLAN (Warning, actions, consequences)

  • STAFF (Relevant specialists)

  • PERFECT (Simulation, drills, mock scenarios, management support)

• Associated activities:

  • Conduct a crisis audit

  • Formulate contingency plans

  • Create a crisis management team

  • Perfect the program through practice

Summary and Connections

• Stress and crisis management are interconnected: chronic stress can elevate the risk of crises at personal and organizational levels.

• Early recognition, coping skills, and professional support (including CBT) can mitigate negative outcomes.

• Systematic planning (crisis audits, contingency plans, and trained teams) reduces the severity and impact of crises on individuals and organizations.

• Practical implications include:

  • Regular relaxation techniques, exercise, and time management to prevent chronic stress.

  • Keeping a stress diary to identify triggers and tailor coping strategies.

  • Considering CBT when stress impacts functioning; understanding that therapy helps modify thoughts and behaviours rather than eliminating events.

  • Proactive crisis preparedness to safeguard reputation, profitability, and survival of organizations, with defined roles and rehearsed responses.