Positive effect stress

Not all stress is bad. There are positive effects of stress and it has its own unique
characteristics. When it comes to feelings such as anxiety, worry, fear, pain or anger
then these are linked to negative stress and this is what many people associate stress
with. However, the positive effects of stress are something that can help motivate
individuals to accomplish something good. Positive stress helps an individual to make
any necessary changes in their lives.

There is good types of stress that can actually be healthy for your body.
There are also positive ways to relieve stress that allow you to help cope with your
bad stress. One of the best examples of positive stress is the fight or flight response
that one receives in threatening situations. This response may even be triggered in our
body during illnesses or traumas like bites and scrapes. This type of stress response in
our body helps provide a defense again infection.

While stress is typically discussed in a negative con text, it is also has positive value.
It offers potential gain, for example, the superior performance that an ophthalmologist
gives during a complicated surgery. Such individuals often use stress positively to rise
to the occasion and perform to their maximum. And hence the productivity rises.

Indeed, Han Selye, father of stress research m bekieved that some stress, what he
termed ‘ eustress’, was actually beneficial. It motivates us to get things done and not
make mistakes, which fits which the idea of us functioning best under moderate
stinulation.

Many discoveries and creative solutions that an individual comes up with will be the
result of positive stress. Positive stress can even help a person to take up a new job,
change their schedule, leave during a threatening or dangerous situation and make
necessary lifestyle changes. Basically the positive stress is something that is products,
good and useful.

Negative :
Cost of stress, Cause of stress

Cost of stress

Stress can have various effects on the individual as well as on the organisation.
Clearly not only the individual suffers but the organisation may also be affected by
absenteeism, work related accidents, turnover and impaired decision making.

In the US, it is estimated that 54% of sickness absence is in some way stress
related(Elkin and Rosch, 1990), In Erurope as well, the costs are high. It appears that
28% of over 15000 European workers report that stress is a work-related health
problem. In many developed countries, the total cost of workplace pressure has been
estimated at roughly 10% of gross national product (Cartwright and Cooper, 1997)

There is a range of expensive direct and indirect costs due to absenteeism and
disability. For examples: in the UK 177 million working days were lost in 1994 as a
result of absence due to sickness; this equates to over 13.2 billion ECU in lost
productivity at a cost of 630 ECU per employee ( Balcombe and Tate, 1995)
These figures relate to the benefits paid through the social security schemes for each
country. Figures concerned with other costs of ill health of workers are more
difficult to obtain.

In terms of job nad organisational problems, it has been estimated that about half of
all absences is related to stress in the workplace.

In 2003, The Health and Safety Executive estimated that industry in the UK loses
£370 million a year because of stress. It also suggested the cost to the UK as a whole
through stress-related illnesses and other social consequences could be as much as
£3.75 billion

In the last century in one large sample of 11000 individuals working in the UK health
service, 27 per cent reported significant level of minor psychiatric disorder (Wall et al
1997)

In economic, mismanaged stress can cause the lost of productivity, health care cost
and compensation payment.

Humanitarian in nature, it is not nice to overstress individual in the course of their

work lives. When individuals are overstressed, they become dysfunctional in any
number of ways

Job distress can lead to some adverse consequences for organization. Direct costs
include dysfunctional turnover and absenteeism, health care, and compensation
awards of various categories. The indirect cost includes poor morale and job-
dissatisfaction.

The experience of stress can be associated with, or can bring about, other changes in
emotional state, in mental and physiological function, and in behaviour. These
changes may seriously challenge aspects of their health (headache, high blood
pressure, ulcer and loss of appetite), their availability for and their performance at
work (job dissatisfaction, tension, anxiety, boredom, and difficulty in making routine
decision)

In the UK, organisational interest in the problems of workplace stress and stress
intervention strategies has been motivated by concerns about rising absenteeism due
to psychological disorders and stress-related illness. On the basis, it is estimated that
the direct cost of sickness absence to British employers is £513 per employee.