Purpose of Workplace Stress Control

According to the US Army's leadership manual for "Combat Stress Control," stress is the body's and mind's process for dealing with uncertain change and danger. Elimination of stress is both impossible and undesirable in either the Army's combat or peacetime missions." This publication explains the following objectives of stress control:

• To contain stress
• To maximize peak performance and accomplish unit missions
• To return stress levels to normal when they are out of control
• To increase stress tolerance so soldiers can perform under the server stress situations that are unavoidable in combat

Frequent, ongoing episodes of stress can cause serious health problems and chronic stress can actually lead to death through suicide or illnesses that result from long-term stress. Everyone is interested in avoiding health problems. People certainly want to help eliminate debilitating chronic stress, but this doesn't mean getting rid of stress altogether.

Corporate employees react the same as soldiers do to sleep deprivation, physical discomfort, irresponsible leadership, and trauma. Some people are more stress tolerant than others, but everyone has the same type of reactions to these stressful situations. Next time I'll provide a list of the reactions we typically find in overstressed people.

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