When your work becomes more stressful and negative, it can cause a great amount of distress. You might have heard a co-worker mention that he or she is depressed or burned out; these are some of the common outcomes and negative effects of stress in the workplace. Individual stress, in general, also affects the mind, body, emotions, and behavior.
BODY AND MIND
The effects of stress in the body include headaches, muscular twitches, frequent infections, skin irritations, fatigue, and breathlessness to name a few. When you don’t take action against these effects, it will eventually worsen and give you more severe problems like heart disease, backaches, stroke, and peptic ulcers, to name a few.
As for the mind, stress can cause one to worry too much, blurred thinking, impaired judgment, nightmares, indecisions, and negativity. Some of the types of psychological problems are psychosomatic in nature. Psychosomatic disorders are physical problems that are caused by psychological problems. One example is the overwhelming amount of fear of something or someone, which we all know as phobias. When someone, for example, is afraid of public speaking, this type of stress is easily noticed. It is encouraged that managers should look carefully if an employee manifests this kind of behavior to check for discomfort or distress.
EMOTIONS AND BEHAVIOR
When it comes to your emotions, stress can make you lose your confidence, irritable, depressed, alienated, and apprehensive. And when it affects your mind, it will also affect your behavior, making you more prone to accidents, lose your appetite and/or sex drive, drink and smoke more, and develop insomnia.
When you feel these negatives effects of stress in the workplace, not only it will affect you, but also your work performance, your co-workers, and the company. Other behavioral problems that may affect everyone you work with include aggression, substance abuse, poor decision making, lack of interest, and sabotage. Stress may make you ignore your duties, which can affect workflow and processes and, eventually, put the entire company in jeopardy.
These negative effects of stress in the workplace are something that managers should always observe, as they are the ones who are responsible for looking out for the entire team and delegating responsibilities; they should also be aware of tasks that induce stress. In addition, they should also know how to keep their workforce happy by making sure that their workforce is physically, mentally, and psychologically satisfied.