Psychological burnout syndrome as a result of professional stress.
Life without stress is impossible. Every day we face one form or another of stressful situations. We manage to cope with some of them without visible losses, others are knocked out of the saddle for a long time, forcing us to long and painfully experience its consequences.
In recent years, more and more often it is said about the relationship and mutual influence of professional stress, and the syndrome of psychological burnout or burnout of workers.
- Introduction.
What is stress? Literally, this word is translated as “stress”, and quite often it denotes a wide range of human conditions that arise in response to extreme impacts. But it is always the tension of the whole human body, responding to the influence of various factors, both physical and psychological. For the first time the concept of "stress" was introduced by Hans Selye, who is considered the founder of the theory of stress, in 1935 - 1936. However, back in the 14th century, the English poet Robert Manning wrote in one of his works: « And this torment was manna from heaven, which the Lord sent to people who had been in the desert for 40 winters and were under great stress!” . But the word itself is even older, it has its roots in the Latin language, where it means “to tighten”. So, through the modern appearance, the ancient meaning of the word comes through, quite accurately reflecting what a person experiences, being in certain, often unfavorable conditions.
Starting with Selye, stress is understood as a non-specific reaction of the body in response to any action (often unfavorable) and increased demands. At the moment of occurrence of a stressful situation, a number of psychophysiological changes occur in the body, which in some cases can lead to disorders in the physical, mental and social components of a person's integrity.
By introducing the concepts of "eustress" and "distress" Selye differentiated the understanding of stress. Eustress - positive emotional reactions of the body to the demands made on it, corresponding to its resources; distress - emotional stressful states characterized by negative experiences due to the lack of available resources for the implementation of the requirements. But in both cases, no matter what the stress is - positive or negative, it will always be a state of loss of balance. Thus, it can be noted that stress is inherent in our very life, it is an integral component of existence. It is impossible to completely avoid stress, but you can learn how to manage stressful situations, which is especially important in the conditions of the organization's activities, since prolonged stress leads to a symptom of professional burnout.
The term burnout was first introduced by the American psychiatrist H. Fredenberg in 1974. Burnout meant a state of exhaustion combined with a sense of one's own uselessness, uselessness.
V.V. Boyko gives the following definition of the term: “Emotional burnout is a psychological defense mechanism developed by a person in the form of a complete or partial exclusion of emotions in response to selected psycho-traumatic effects.”
In accordance with the views of K. Maslach and S. Jackson, burnout syndrome is considered as a response to long-term professional stresses arising in interpersonal communications. The syndrome model can be represented as a three-component structure, including:
emotional exhaustion;
Depersonalization;
Reduction of personal achievements.
Emotional exhaustion is felt as emotional overstrain, emptiness, exhaustion of one's own emotional resources. A person cannot give himself to work as before, he feels muffled, dullness of his own emotions, emotional breakdowns are possible.
Depersonalization is a tendency to develop a negative, soulless, cynical attitude towards stimuli. The impersonality and formality of contacts is increasing. Negative attitudes that are hidden in nature may begin to manifest themselves in internal pent-up irritation, which eventually enters the outside in the form of outbursts of irritation or conflict situations.
Reduction of personal (personal) achievements - a decrease in the sense of competence in one's work, dissatisfaction with oneself, a decrease in the value of one's activity, negative self-perception in the professional sphere. The emergence of a sense of guilt for one's own negative manifestations or feelings, a decrease in professional and personal self-esteem, the appearance of a sense of one's own insolvency, indifference to work.
In this regard, the phenomenon of burnout syndrome can be considered in the aspect of practical, professional activity. The manifestation of this syndrome is most typical for representatives of the communicative professions of the “person-to-person” system.
As stressors - factors influencing the occurrence of a state of stress - are life situations, events that can be systematized according to the intensity of the negative impact and the time required for adaptation. Accordingly, there are:
Daily difficulties, troubles, difficulties. The time for adaptation to them ranges from several minutes to several hours.
Critical life, traumatic events. Time for adaptation - from several weeks to several months.
chronic stressors. They can last for years.
In accordance with the identified types of occupational stress, the stress factors of labor activity can be classified as follows:
I. Production related to working conditions and organization of the workplace:
overload;
monotonous work;
microclimate of the working room (noise, vibration, illumination);
interior, room design;
organization of an individual workplace;
inconvenient work schedule, overtime;
safety.
II Factors related to the profession:
understanding of the goals of the activity (clarity, inconsistency, reality);
professional experience, level of knowledge;
vocational training, retraining;
opportunity to express creativity
role status;
psychological climate in the team (relationships with colleagues, clients, interpersonal conflicts);
Social responsibility;
feedback on performance results;
III Structural:
organization management (centralization, the ability to participate in the management of employees);
the ratio of structure and function, the goals of the organization;
violation of subordination, incorrectly built hierarchy;
specialization and division of labor;
personnel policy, promotion (too fast or too slow);
interpersonal relationships with management, conflicts;
IV Personal:
moral maturity and stability;
purposefulness and discipline, accuracy;
satisfaction of expectations and performance results (correlation of expectations and goals);
frustration (impossibility to satisfy) needs;
personality traits (emotional instability, inadequate self-esteem, anxiety, aggressiveness, risk taking, etc.);
features of the mental state (presence of fatigue);
features of the physiological state (the presence of acute and chronic diseases, biological rhythms, bad habits, age-related changes).
The syndrome of professional burnout is a problem that has not yet been sufficiently studied in Russia, and therefore the problems of this topic have not yet received their due consideration. This was largely due to the peculiarities of domestic business, in which a person was by no means in the first place for a long time. Especially such a dismissive attitude towards a person can be seen in the field of trading business on the example of sales managers, sales consultants and salespeople, that is, the lowest link in the complex organizational structure of the company.
Professional burnout syndrome is a complex, multifaceted construct, consisting of a number of negative psychological experiences caused by long and intense interpersonal communications, emotionally rich or cognitively complex. Thus, the burnout syndrome is a response to long-term stresses that arise in the process of interpersonal communications, and this syndrome is most clearly manifested in representatives of professions related to the “person-to-person” system.
Burnout is a relatively stable condition, the symptoms of which are a decrease in motivation to work, increased conflict and increasing dissatisfaction with the work performed, constant fatigue, boredom, emotional exhaustion, irritability and nervousness, etc. Just as the reaction to stressful situations is different for different people, being an individual reaction, the symptoms of burnout syndrome are strictly individual and do not appear all at the same time, representing individual variations. The development of the syndrome depends on a combination of professional, organizational and personal stress factors. Depending on the proportion of one or another component of the process, the dynamics of the development of the syndrome will also differ. The process of professional burnout has an extremely negative impact on the activities of the organization as a whole, and each individual employee in particular, being sometimes disastrous for the existence of the institution and the person.
Speaking about the impact of the burnout process on the organization and the individual employee, we can note the mutual influence of these two factors. Whether burnout depends more on the personal characteristics of a person or on the organizational structure - the debate on this topic is not over. So, K. Maslach believes that to a greater extent, the burnout syndrome is influenced by working conditions and the characteristics of the organization. However, it seems to me appropriate to consider two factors - both personal and organizational, given their relationship and influence on each other.
Burnout syndrome is a process that develops over time. The onset of burnout lies in severe and prolonged stress at work. In the event that external and internal requirements for a person exceed his own resources, there is an imbalance in his psychophysiological state. A persistent or growing imbalance leads to the complete depletion of available resources and employee burnout.
The cause of resource depletion leading to burnout is unmanaged stress. In the absence of constructive measures to overcome the chronic state of stress in professional activities, a person develops a complex of negative experiences, impaired adaptive abilities that pose a threat both to his personal health and to the organization as a whole.
The development of the syndrome leads to the activation of protective mechanisms (coping reactions), psychological distance from the performance of professional duties: apathy, cynicism, rigidity of behavior, a decrease in the significance of achievements and performance results.
Recently, the victims of professional burnout syndrome are increasingly becoming not only representatives of helping professions: teachers, medical workers, psychologists and psychotherapists, social workers, but also representatives of business and commercial structures. The consequences of the syndrome negatively affect the activities of the entire organization as a whole.
If, as noted above, stress occurs when demands exceed available resources, it follows that either the requirements need to be modified or resources need to be increased. Very often, it seems impossible to change the requirements due to objective reasons, especially when it comes to the junior link in the management chain, ordinary employees of the organization.
Therefore, most often measures to prevent or overcome stressful conditions and employee burnout syndrome are aimed at replenishing, increasing the personal resources of the subjects of labor relations. But this requires a thorough preparatory process. Preventive measures can only be developed after the problem is recognized and studied. This requires not only time, but also an understanding by the management of organizations and enterprises of the need for such measures.
LIST OF USED LITERATURE.
1. Vodopyanova N.E., Starchenkova E.S. Burnout syndrome: diagnosis and prevention. - St. Petersburg, 2005.
2. Miteva I.Yu. Stress management course. - M., 2005.
3. Ababkov V.A., Perret M. Adaptation to stress. - St. Petersburg, 2004.
4. Kamenyukin A., Kovpak D. Antistress - training. - St. Petersburg, 2004.
5. Samoukina N.V. Occupational burnout syndrome. - January 12, 2005 / Based on materials from Internet sites.
6. Methodology for diagnosing the level of emotional burnout V. V. Boyko / based on materials from Internet sites.
Under stressful factors - stressors(stress factors) - understand set of stimuli affecting the psychophysical state of a person and his behavior. They are also defined as any external stimuli or events, that cause mental stress or arousal in a person. In psychology, stressors are unfavorable, significant in strength and duration. external and internal influences, leading to stress conditions.
In psychophysiology, a stressor (stress factor, stress situation) is an emergency or pathological stimulus, an adverse effect that is significant in strength and duration, causing stress. The stimulus becomes a stressor either due to the meaning attributed to it by a person (cognitive interpretation), or through lower brain sensory mechanisms, through the mechanisms of digestion and metabolism.
Stressors include: danger, threat, pressure, severe physical and mental trauma, blood loss, great physical, mental and communication stress, infections, ionizing radiation, sudden changes in temperature, many pharmacological effects, abdominal surgical interventions, extreme situations and other factors. In a number of classifications, they also include largely similar psychological states - conflict and frustration.
Exists various classifications of stressors, in which they are divided into physiological stressors (excessive pain and noise, exposure to extreme temperatures, taking a number of drugs, such as caffeine or amphetamine) and psychological (information overload; competition; threat to social status, self-esteem, immediate environment, etc.). There are other reasons for classifying stressors. These can be environmental factors (toxins, heat, cold), they can be psychological (low self-esteem, depression) or social (unemployment, death of a loved one). Stressors can be classified in another way. They can be global, affecting the population, the nation as a whole (lack of stability in the way of life in the whole state, people's uncertainty about the future), and personal, associated with problems in their personal lives, loss of work, loss of a loved one, conflicts at work.
Typically, stressors are divided into physiological(pain, hunger, thirst, excessive exercise, etc.) and psychological(danger, threat, loss, deceit, information overload, etc.). The latter, in turn, are divided into emotional and informational.
Currently there is no single classification stress factors. At the basis of various classifications, their parameters are distinguished as system-forming ones: the nature and nature of stressful stimuli (psychological, social, physical and other influences); their intensity and exposure (duration); features of the conditions and the complexity of the impact. Allocate types of stimuli associated with professional, industrial and personal activities.
Life events are also considered as stressors, which can be systematized by the magnitude of negative valence and the time required for readaptation. Distinguish microstressors (daily hassles)- daily difficulties, difficulties, troubles; macrostressors - critical life (traumatic) events and chronic stressors, both situational (long-term divorce, chronic illness) and interpersonal in nature (communication with people suffering from serious illnesses, such as schizophrenia, cancer).
For penitentiary stressology the most acceptable is the classification of stress factors based on the practical experience of psychologists in the armed forces and various departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (G.S. Chovdyrova et al.).
This classification provides for the division of stressors according to the following criteria:
I. By the nature of psychosocial motivation:
- 1. Stressors of everyday intense professional activity.
- 2. Stressors of activity in extreme conditions (ES):
- a) emergency stressors (ES);
- b) stressors of emergency situations (ES);
- c) stressors of emergencies (PE).
- 3. Stressors of family life (marriage, divorce, childbirth, illness or death of loved ones, etc.).
- 4. Moral stressors (remorse, responsibility for the life and health of both innocent people and criminals, the need to use weapons and other means of destruction).
- 5. Stressors of social conditions of mixed origin: long-term isolation from the usual environment (service in the army, being held hostage, being in prison), the need to retire and adapt to other living conditions, sexual disharmony, illness, the need for surgical intervention, unsatisfied material needs, etc.
II. By duration:
- 1. Stressors with a short-term effect (from several hours to several days):
- a) causing anxiety and fear (meeting with an armed enemy, hostage-taking, actions in conditions associated with large human losses, with a real threat to life);
- b) causing unpleasant physical sensations (pain, fatigue, due to unfavorable meteorological conditions - fires, floods, toxic substances);
- c) by pace and speed (the need to process a large flow of information and make a decision, the need to show maximum speed and speed of movement);
- d) to divert attention (tactical maneuvers of the enemy);
- e) with an unsuccessful result (miscalculation in the assessment of situations, an error in the technique of movement).
- 2. Long-acting stressors (from several months to several years):
- a) long-term workloads that cause fatigue (long-term duty associated with a certain risk and danger, protection of valuables, special objects, monotony of working conditions, the need to constantly comply with the requirements of superiors in a limited time);
- b) isolation (service in the troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, serving sentences in places of deprivation of liberty associated with a long separation from the family and familiar conditions, long business trips in tense conditions, service in places of deprivation of liberty);
- c) wars (long-term hostilities).
III. By the nature of the impact on the senses:
- 1. Stressors of the visual-psychic series (death in front of relatives, colleagues, contact with a large number of wounded, crippled, panicked people; destruction of buildings, equipment, structures, landscape; fires, explosions; sight of corpses, blood, etc.).
- 2. Stressors of the auditory series (hum, roar, roar, shooting).
- 3. Stressors of the tactile-olfactory series (vibration, air wave shocks, concussions, smells of gas and corpses, cold, heat, electric current, etc.).
This classification of stress factors is conditional, since in each specific area these factors can affect the personality in a complex. For example, participants in special hostage rescue operations are affected to varying degrees by the following stress factors:
- - Immediate and highly probable threat to life and health;
- - responsibility for the life and health of the hostages, the constant risk of causing harm to them by their inaction or wrong actions;
- - wide public response to each specific case, especially close attention to the actions of law enforcement agencies, the socio-political significance of their mistakes;
- - the absence or inconsistency of information about criminals, their psychological characteristics;
- - extreme dynamism and difficult to predict the nature of changes in the situation in connection with the peculiarities of the behavior of criminals;
- - the need for long-term containment of natural, extremely negative emotions in the process of direct contact with criminals;
- - constant overload of psychophysiological functions, due to the need to analyze and predict the development of the situation, make responsible decisions, organize and perform clear and coordinated actions within a strict time limit;
- - moral and ethical experiences associated with the need to use weapons or other means of destruction against the criminal as a person.
At the same time, the external stress factors themselves, acting in this or that extreme situation, are not of decisive importance without correlating them with the internal characteristics of each person, his spiritual and physical preparation.
The stressors to which the human body has adapted during evolution are a variety of factors that violate safety or require adaptation. Some stressors require immediate physical activity to avoid injury or damage. Other stressors also encourage fight or flight, even if an immediate physical response is not possible or would be unacceptable to the environment. These stressors can be called symbolic. These include loss of social status, decreased self-esteem, overwork, etc. Despite the fact that the nature of stressors can be different, they can trigger in the body genetically determined non-specific defense reaction. From these positions, there is no need to use any adjectives in combination with the term "stress". Summarizing the presented material, we can conclude that a stressor is an external or internal stimulus that can trigger the fight or flight reaction.
It should be noted once again that the adjectives encountered such as "emotional", "professional", "penal" and others are used more often in order to emphasize nature stressors or ways of "causing" stress. At symbolic threat, as in the case of the action of real stressors, there is an accumulation of products of the activity of stress mechanisms. But in today's society, the fight-or-flight response is rarely used. "Products" of stress accumulate, and a person cannot use them. As a result, an increased stress response becomes lingering leading to the development of distress and various diseases. In other words, unacceptable for an individual is that information (stimulus, situation) that awakens or intensifies the needful excitation, but does not give the individual the opportunity to take active actions towards the realization (and, consequently, discharge) of this excitation. At the same time, of the two characteristics - the duration and strength of the stressor - duration is more important. The longer the stressor acts on a person, the stronger the distress disorder.
In psychophysiology, stress reactivity is understood as the magnitude of the reaction of fight and flight; it is strictly individual and genetically determined. Stress reactivity at the physiological level is manifested in an increase in muscle tension, an increase in heart rate, an increase in blood pressure and nervous excitation, an increase in sweating, a change in the wave (electrophysiological) activity of the brain, redistribution of blood in the body, etc. In the most simplified form, all these changes prepare the body for rapid action and are due to the production of biologically active substances, and if the latter are not used, this leads to a health disorder. Stress reactivity is closely related to stress resistance. Stress resistance - the individual ability of the body to maintain normal performance during the action of a stressor, which can be improved through training.
Thus, considering the above definitions of stress, it should be considered that stress in its most generalized form is understood not as a reaction, but as a state of homeostasis that provides the necessary activity of a person in certain environmental conditions. stress response - change in the level of activity under the influence of certain stressors, and distress- such an overstrain of the work of psychophysiological (primarily neuroendocrine) mechanisms, which causes a violation (functional or morphological) of the activity of various structures of the body and the development of pathology.
People say that all diseases are from nerves. And this statement is partly true. The impact of stress on human health is one of the most serious and pressing issues today. The fast rhythm of life, psychological stress and the desire to do everything make themselves felt. People often get sick, referring to overwork or stress. What is it and what are
What do we know about stress?
Stress has long been an integral part of life, perhaps, of every person. Psychologists by this word mean a special and neuropsychic stress. In modern conditions, it is almost impossible to avoid it. At the same time, different people have different reactions to the same loads. So, for example, one group reacts actively, that is, their work productivity continues to grow to the maximum possible limit (psychologists call this type "lion stress"). Another group of people shows a passive reaction, i.e. their work productivity immediately drops (this is the "stress of the rabbit").
In addition, stress can be acute. That is, it occurs once and is characterized by severe physical and mental shock. An example of such a form would be accidents. A person once gets into then comes rehabilitation. However, there is a long-term form, when stress gradually accumulates, overwhelming a person. It can be long-term conflicts in the family or a typical workload.
Stress and health are interrelated components. To find the key to recovery from ailments, you need to understand the causes that cause stress.
Causes
The causes of stress are external stimuli, or stressors. These are uncomfortable situations that a person finds himself in at work, at home, at school, etc. They have a different nature, degree of impact, and consequences.
Stressors include any changes in a person's life. But not all situations can be regarded as negative, pressing, constraining. The severity of stress is deeply individual. And its root lies in uncertainty and loss of control over the situation. In many ways, the impact of stressors depends on a person's awareness of personal responsibility and the staging of personal participation in the current state of affairs.
Classification
Experts divide the factors that cause stress into two main groups: physiological and psychological. This classification is based on the nature of stressors. According to the degree of manifestation, stressors are a kind of limitation. They can be actual and possible (or potential).
The types of stressors of the second category depend on the psychological attitudes and individual abilities of a person. Simply put, is he able to adequately assess the degree of load and correctly distribute it without harming his health.
However, stressors are not always external stimuli. Sometimes stress arises due to a discrepancy between the desired and the actual. That is, the stress factor focuses on the very collision of the inner and outer worlds of a person. From this position, stressors are divided into subjective and objective. The first correspond to the incompatibility of genetic programs with modern conditions, incorrect implementation of conditioned reflexes, incorrect communication and personal attitudes, etc. Objective stressors include housing and working conditions, emergencies, and interaction with people.
Physiological
Physiological factors that cause stress include:
The group of physiological stressors can include hunger, thirst, isolation. Depending on the degree and duration of exposure, these stressors can cause both significant and minor harm to health.
A typical reaction to physiological stress can be a rapid heartbeat, muscle tension, tremors (tremors) in the limbs, and an increase in blood pressure.
Psychological
According to experts, psychological stressors are the most destructive for the human body. They are conditionally divided into informational and emotional:
Emotional stressors are known to be the most profound in their impact. They form resentments and fears in a person, which over time, without an adequate assessment of the situation, like a weed, will only grow. Thus, stress and health will become a single, destructive mechanism.
Professional
Occupational stressors are a mixed group. They combine psychological and physiological stressors. These are external irritants and loads that each person experiences at work. Consider the example of a rescue worker. It most clearly accumulates the maximum level of stressors. Namely, with high responsibility, mental stress of readiness, negative environmental factors, information uncertainty, lack of time for decision-making and danger to life.
It is noteworthy that stressors tend to "infect" the masses with themselves. Using the same example of an employee of the rescue service, one can see that not only the performer of the task is subjected to stress, but also the team and family of the employee. This is due to the psychological factors of interaction, trust, solidarity in society. Thus, when distributing the internal load and reserves, a person gets rid of the accumulated stress.
The effects of stress
The impact of stress on human health, regardless of its degree of impact, is a negative phenomenon and has a fairly wide range of psychological, physical and social consequences. All of them can be divided into:
- Primary- appear on the psychological and intellectual level in connection with the occurrence of extreme situations (loss of attention, fatigue, psychoneurotic states).
- Secondary- arise as a result of unsuccessful attempts to overcome a maladaptive state. Among these consequences are emotional "burnout", abuse of nicotine, alcohol or sedatives, decreased performance, aggressive or depressive states.
- Tertiary- combine the psychological, social, intellectual and physical aspects. They can be expressed in the deformation of the personality, the increase in conflicts with other people due to internal disorder, in the severance of family and work ties, the loss of work, study, pessimism and social apathy. The extreme degree of tertiary consequences are suicides.
It is very important to learn how to cope with your own stresses, while the key point is to determine as accurately as possible what kind of stressor you have met, and only after that take certain measures.
· Here it is important to remember that the stressor itself is only a reason for the onset of stress, and we ourselves make it the cause of the neuropsychic experience. For example, a “troika” for a student who has never opened a textbook for the entire semester is happiness, for a student who is used to working half-heartedly, a satisfactory mark is the norm, and for an excellent student, an accidental triple can be a real tragedy. In other words, there is only one stressor, and the reaction to it varies from despair to delight, so it is very important to learn how to control your attitude to troubles and select adequate methods to deal with them.
· stressors that are beyond our control are prices, taxes, the government, the weather, the habits and characters of other people, and much more. You can be nervous and angry about a power outage or an inept driver causing a traffic jam at an intersection, but apart from raising blood pressure and adrenaline levels in the blood, you will not achieve anything.
· <<МЕТОДЫ>>
· Muscle relaxation
· Deep breathing
· Visualization
· Reframing
· Walks in the open air
· Dream
· Tasty food
· Sex
· Stressors that we can directly influence- these are our own non-constructive actions, the inability to set life goals and prioritize, the inability to manage our time, as well as various difficulties in interpersonal interaction. As a rule, these stressors are in the present or in the near future, and we, in principle, have a chance to influence the situation). If we met with just such a stressor, then it is very important to determine what resource we lack, and then take care of finding it.
· <<МЕТОДЫ>>
· Finding the Right Resources
· Setting adequate goals
· Social skills training (communication, etc.)
· Self-confidence training
· Time management training
· Analysis of causes and conclusions for the future
· Training of relevant qualities
· Advice and help from loved ones
· perseverance b
· Stressors that cause stress only because of our interpretation- these are events and phenomena that we ourselves turn into problems. Most often, such an event is either in the past or in the future, and its occurrence is unlikely. This includes all kinds of anxiety about the future (from the obsessive thought “Did I turn off the iron?” to the fear of death), as well as worries about past events that we cannot change. Quite often, this type of stress also occurs in the case of an incorrect interpretation of current events, but in any case, the assessment of the situation is more influenced by the attitudes of the individual than by the real facts.
· <<МЕТОДЫ>>
· Reframing
· Positive Thinking Skills
· Changing Inappropriate Beliefs
· Neutralization of unwanted thoughts
· Development of optimistic views
· Humor
· Indifference
1.3. Causal classification of stressors 43.1. The degree of control of the stressor
As the experience of many psychotherapists who are approached by people suffering from stress shows, the mistake of the latter is that they sometimes unjustly transfer responsibility for their problems to external environmental factors. The essence of this position was well expressed by the British psychologist Xandria Williams, who has been conducting anti-stress seminars for many years.
“Currently, my business is not going very well: problems have accumulated. I have a lot of worries, very little money, too many responsibilities and a catastrophic lack of time. Those whom I love do not like me, my friends have forgotten me, the boss is unbearable, there is only anxiety from the children, the news is always bad, times are difficult. If the downturn in the economy ended, the kids behaved decently, the boss quit, my marriage would return to the way it was at the very beginning, and people would make less demands on me, then I would be happy.
Commenting on such views, K. Williams notes:
“People sincerely believe that if all these external circumstances changed, then people would be happy. They rarely realize that they can change themselves and thus change the situation for the better. There are many seemingly reasonable explanations for why life does not turn out the way you would like. It's easier to think that the solution lies outside of yourself, in the world around you. But it is not in your power to change external factors the way you like.
From the inability to change the factors of life, the erroneous conclusion is drawn that you are not able to improve the situation.
The alternative to this approach is to believe that you are in some way responsible for how you feel. Of course, you are not able to influence the economic downturn in the country, but you are able to manage your
finances and change your attitude to material well-being. You may not be able to change the behavior of children, but it is in your power to change your attitude towards them and your reaction to their behavior. You can improve your relationship with your boss at some point, and then stick to that direction.
In order to accurately choose a way to deal with a particular stressor, it is important to identify its essence in time, and this requires the classification of stressors into several groups, each of which requires its own approach (Fig. 32).
The first way to separate stressors is to assess our control over the situation.
We can influence some events directly and to a large extent. For example, if a person is worried about the cold in the apartment in autumn, and the heating season has not yet begun, then he has many ways to get away from this stress, from the simplest (dress warmer or turn on the electric heater) to more complex and expensive (go south before turning on the central heating).
Other events are more difficult to influence directly, but they can be influenced indirectly. Such stressors, for example, include illness or relationships with friends. On the one hand, health is the result of taking care of it, as it depends on the nature of nutrition, daily routine, physical education, etc., but, on the other hand, it also depends on the environment and pathogens that are beyond human control. The same is true with interpersonal relationships. On the one hand, with your friendly and constructive actions, you can create good relationships with the people around you, but sometimes there are such conflicting personalities that cause stress, despite all efforts to avoid it.
Finally, there is another group of stressful environmental factors, which is practically beyond the control of man. The latter can only accept the situation as a given and stop experiencing stress about this. Fires, floods, thefts, injuries, illness or death of loved ones - all these stressors are often beyond the control of a person, and all that remains for him is to accept the sent test with patience and courage.
Anger, irritability, anger and other negative emotions only prevent you from adequately enduring the blows of fate, so you should learn to manage your feelings or translate them into a constructive channel. Tender affiliation, passport age (not pu
a person with biological age that can be influenced!), weather conditions, the government, the level of prices and pensions - much in Russia belongs to the third category of stressors. This also includes the habits and characters of other people.
Since no clear dividing line can be drawn between the above categories of stressors, they can be placed on a certain scale, ranging from those that we can certainly influence to those that are completely beyond our control (Fig. 32).
under our control
Rice. 32. Degree of control over stressors
It should be noted that a person, in principle, can, within certain limits, change the ratio of the part of the world controlled by him and the part of the world independent of him. Take, for example, appearance. On the one hand, it is given to a person from birth, and he can only come to terms with it as an unchanging reality. But, on the other hand, the successes of modern plastic surgery, endocrinology and other branches of medicine allow people to change the shape of the nose, transplant hair, change the size and shape of the breast, etc. Numerous cases of sex change in recent years show how far a person has come in his desire to change their nature at will.
Often, justifying their laziness and saving self-esteem, people relieve their responsibility for emerging problems, transferring responsibility to external factors, which is especially typical for individuals with an external locus of control. So, a bad teacher can be to blame for a student’s “deuce”, “near-minded” clients are to blame for low sales from a businessman, and “left” vodka, which was sold to a poor citizen by unscrupulous sellers, is to blame for a headache the next day after the holiday.
1.3.2. Localization of the stressor
Another way of separating stressors is based on the localization of the problem: it can be of a truly objective nature or be a product of the individual's consciousness. So, green devils who
ry tormenting an alcoholic during delirium tremens are a classic example of a subjective problem, and the orderly of a narcological dispensary who took away a hidden bottle of vodka from this alcoholic is already an objective factor.
In the reality we are accustomed to, all stress factors can be built in accordance with a ranked scale, at one end of which there will be invented problems, and at the other end - real problems, independent of human consciousness. Most often, real problems exist in a short period of the present, and "virtual" problems in the past or future (Fig. 33).
 |
Rice. 33. Localization of a stressor
Based on these two ways of separating stressors, a two-dimensional grid of coordinates can be drawn up, with the help of which it is easier to understand what stressor a person is facing and what can be done to reduce stress levels (Fig. 34).
For instance. Weather: “reality” by 8 points (a small subjective component remains: what is cold for an Italian, hot for a Yakut), “controllable” - about 2 points (we can only partially compensate for the vagaries of the weather with an umbrella or appropriate clothing). Therefore, it falls into the "Region of Wise Acceptance".
Poor living conditions: "reality" by 7 points (although, in general, it is clear what this is about, but still, that for one is a "decent apartment", for another - a "wretched haven"), and "controllability" - by 8 points (you can earn or borrow money in order to improve living conditions). Accordingly, this stress falls into the “Area of constructive actions”.
Fear of the dark: "reality" - 1.5 points (in the case of phobias, the darkness itself causes fear, and not that particular thing that may lurk in it); "controllability" is most often low (3 points), since people, as a rule, do not know how to manage their own emotions, although it is quite possible to do this with the help of a qualified psychologist. Thus, this is the "area of subjective stress".
Businessman's stress associated with fear about the fate of the concluded contract. "Reality" - 4 points (stress caused by anxiety about possible, but unlikely events), "controllability" - 7 points (you can take precautionary measures to insure against failure). This situation can be attributed to the "area of self-regulation".
fictional situations
Rice. 34. Localization of stresses on a two-dimensional grid of coordinates of the scale "Reality - Degree of control"
In the most general form, the task is to try to move the stressors to the right and up, i.e. from the "Area of stress" to the "Area of constructive decisions".
4.3.3. Ways to overcome stressors of various types
According to the type of stressor, the way to overcome it is selected.
For stressors of the first group (from the “Area of Wise Acceptance”), it is necessary, on the one hand, to divert consciousness from a traumatic situation, and on the other hand, to reconsider one's attitude to unpleasant facts, to devalue them. Breathing techniques (deep breathing or breath meditation), various muscle relaxation techniques, and visualization are well suited to achieve the first goal. To achieve the second goal, you can use the rational
psychotherapy and reframing (in literal translation - “replacement of the frame”), which consists in the ability to look at the situation from a different angle, to find the good where the usual look is looking for only the bad.
For stressors in the toro and groups (“Areas of constructive action”), the most appropriate methods are those aimed at improving behavioral skills: communication training, self-confidence training, time management training (time management). If stress is caused by frustration associated with the difficulty of achieving goals, then it makes sense to master the technique of choosing the right strategy and the technique of setting adequate goals.
For stressors in the third group (“Subjective Stress Area”), overcoming the evaluative approach, mastering positive thinking skills, changing inappropriate beliefs, or blocking unwanted thoughts may be the best option.
For stressors of the fourth group (“Area of self-regulation”), the use of autogenic training, neurolinguistic programming, neuromuscular relaxation techniques and biofeedback technology give good results.
5. Factors influencing the development of stress resistance in educational activities.
6. Influence of pedagogical influence on the development of stress and stress resistance in educational activities.
7. Influence of interpersonal interaction on the development of stress and stress resistance in educational activities.
8. The influence of stimulus factors on the development of stress and stress resistance in educational activities.
9. Influence of subjective factors on the development of stress and stress resistance in educational activities.
The mechanism of development of psychological stress can be demonstrated by the example of a student preparing to defend a graduation project. The severity of signs of stress will depend on a number of factors: his expectations, motivation, attitudes, past experience, etc. The expected forecast for the development of events is modified in accordance with the information and attitudes already available, after which the final assessment of the situation takes place. If the conscious (or subconscious) assesses the situation as dangerous, then stress develops. Parallel to this process, an emotional evaluation of the event takes place. The initial launch of an emotional reaction develops on a subconscious level, and then another emotional reaction is added to it, made on the basis of rational analysis.
In this example (waiting for the defense of a diploma), the developing psychological stress will be modified in the direction of uxi
increase or decrease in intensity depending on the following internal factors (Table 2).
Table 2. Subjective factors influencing the level of stress
|
The second group (subjective stress factors) includes two main varieties: interpersonal (communication) and intrapersonal stresses.
The former may occur when communicating with higher officials, subordinates and work colleagues (equivalent workers). The leader is quite often a source of stress for his subordinate, who may experience persistent psychological stress for a variety of reasons: due to excessive control by the leader, because of his excessive demands, underestimation of his work, lack of clear instructions and instructions, rude or neglect on the part of the boss, etc. In turn, subordinates become sources of stress for their bosses due to their passivity, excessive initiative, incompetence, theft, laziness, etc.
Persons who do not work in this organization, but are in contact with it, can also be a source of stress for employees of the organization. An example would be the stress of salespeople who have to deal with a large number of buyers, or the stress
accountants submitting a quarterly or annual report to the tax office. At the same time, for the tax inspector, the accountant will be a stressor, which in relation to him is an example of an external stressor.
Intrapersonal stresses, in turn, can be divided into professional, personal stresses and stresses associated with poor somatic health of employees. Professional causes of stress are due to a lack of knowledge, skills and abilities (novice stress), as well as a sense of mismatch between work and remuneration for it. The causes of personal stress are non-specific and are found in workers of various processions. Most often, these are low self-esteem, self-doubt, fear of failure, low motivation, uncertainty about one's future, etc. The state of human health can also be a source of work stress. So, chronic diseases can lead to stress, as they require increased efforts to compensate for them and reduce the efficiency of the employee, which may affect his authority and social status. Acute diseases also serve as a source of experience both through somatopsychic connections and indirectly, “turning off” the employee from the labor process for a while (which entails financial losses and the need to re-adapt to production).
5.2.1. Study stress
Examination stress occupies one of the first places among the causes of mental stress in students of secondary and, especially, higher education. Very often, the exam becomes a psycho-traumatic factor, which is taken into account even in clinical psychiatry when determining the nature of psychogeny and classifying neuroses. In recent years, convincing evidence has been obtained that exam stress has a negative impact on the nervous, cardiovascular and immune systems of students.
Another study showed that exam stress, especially when combined with caffeine intake, can lead to a persistent increase in students' blood pressure later on. According to Russian authors, during the examination session, students and schoolchildren register pronounced violations of the autonomic regulation of the cardiovascular system. Prolonged and very significant emotional stress can lead to the activation of the sympathetic or parasympathetic divisions of the autonomic nervous system, as well as to the development of transient processes, accompanied by a violation of autonomic homeostasis and increased lability of the reactions of the cardiovascular system to emotional stress.
Unfavorable factors of the period of preparation for exams include:
Intense mental activity; + increased static load; + extreme limitation of motor activity; + sleep disturbance;
Emotional experiences associated with a possible change in the social status of students.
All this leads to an overstrain of the autonomic nervous system, which regulates the normal functioning of the body. Numerous studies show that during the exam, the heart rate increases significantly, blood pressure, the level of muscle and psycho-emotional stress increase. After passing the exam, physiological parameters do not immediately return to normal and it takes several days for the blood pressure parameters to return to their original values. Thus, according to most researchers, examination stress is a serious threat to the health of students and schoolchildren, and the massive nature of this phenomenon, which annually covers hundreds of thousands of students throughout our country, makes the problem particularly relevant.
At the same time, it should be noted that examination stress is not always harmful, acquiring the properties of "distress". In certain situations, psychological stress can have a stimulating value, helping the student to mobilize all his knowledge and personal reserves to solve the educational tasks assigned to him. Therefore, we are talking about optimizing (correcting) the level of examination stress, i.e. reducing it in hyper-anxious students with an excessively labile psyche and, possibly, slightly increasing it in inert, low-motivated students. Correction of the level of examination stress can be achieved by various means - with the help of pharmacological preparations, methods of mental self-regulation, optimization of the work and rest regimen, using a biofeedback system, etc. In this case, the school psychologist faces the problem of predicting the stress reactions of a student for the exam procedure. Its solution is impossible without a detailed study of both the physiological and psychological components of examination stress with the obligatory consideration of individual personality characteristics.
Based on the stages described in the concept of the development of stress by G. Selye, three “classic” stages can be distinguished, reflecting the process of psychological stress associated with passing exams.
The first stage (the stage of mobilization or anxiety) is associated with the situation of uncertainty in which the student finds himself before the start of the exam. Psychological stress during this period is accompanied by excessive mobilization of all body resources, increased heart rate, and a general restructuring of metabolism.
At the second stage (adaptation), which occurs after receiving a ticket and starting to prepare for a response, the body manages to successfully cope with harmful effects due to the previous mobilization. At the same time, the restructuring of the autonomic regulation of the body leads to increased delivery of oxygen and glucose to the brain, however, this level of functioning of the body is energetically excessive and is accompanied by an intensive waste of vital reserves.
If the body fails to adapt to the extreme factor for a certain time, and its resources are depleted (for example, the ticket is very difficult or there is a conflict with the examiner), then the third stage begins - exhaustion.
In principle, these three phases of stress development can be traced over a longer time period - throughout the entire session, where the anxiety phase develops during the credit week preceding the exams, the second phase (adaptation) usually occurs between the second and third exams, and the third phase ( exhaustion) may develop towards the end of the session. It is important to note that the intensity of a developing adaptive response in a person, as a rule, depends not so much on the characteristics of the stressor as on the personal significance of the acting factor. Therefore, the same exam can lead to various psychophysiological and somatic manifestations in different students. This side of stress reactions to sociogenic factors emphasizes the need for a personal approach to this problem. For some students, the examination procedure can have a significant traumatic effect on the psyche, up to the appearance of neurotic disorders. It is known that short-term emotional stress, even of considerable strength, is quickly compensated by the body's neurohumoral mechanisms, while a relatively small but long-term stressful effect can lead to disruption of normal mental functions of the brain and cause irreversible vegetative disorders.
The duration of the study sessions lasts two to three weeks, which, under certain conditions, is sufficient for the occurrence of exam stress syndrome, which includes sleep disturbances, increased anxiety, a persistent increase in blood pressure and other indicators. In a conditioned reflex way, all these negative phenomena can be associated with the learning process itself, causing further fear of exams, unwillingness to learn, disbelief in one's own strengths. Therefore, some higher education specialists generally question the need for exams, suggesting replacing them with either a programmed form of education, or an attestation system with determining the student's final grade based on the results of intermediate results.
If we turn to examination stress as the most pronounced form of educational stress, then it can be noted that the expectation of an exam and the psychological stress associated with it can manifest itself in students in the form of various forms of mental activity: in the form of fear of the examiner or a negative assessment, or in the form of a more diffuse , little justified vague anxiety about the outcome of a future exam, and both of these conditions are accompanied by fairly pronounced vegetative manifestations. In special cases, these phenomena can develop into a neurosis of anxious expectation, especially among students for whom the features of anxious suspiciousness and emotional lability were already characteristic in the premorbid period. However, much more often, students do not experience neurosis, but acute neurotic reactions that have a similar picture, but occur in a more limited time period (hours - days - weeks). Clinically, during the exam, these neurotic reactions can manifest themselves:
Difficulty in performing the usual function or form of activity (speech, reading, writing, etc.);
In a feeling of anxious expectation of failure, which acquires great intensity and is accompanied by a complete inhibition of the corresponding form of activity or its violation. Traditionally, anxiety is classified as a negative phenomenon, as it manifests itself in the form of anxiety, tension, fear of upcoming exams, suspiciousness, etc. On the other hand, it is noted that there is an optimal level of anxiety, at which the greatest success of activity is achieved 1 .
It is also shown that high performance indicators are demonstrated by students who simultaneously have a high level of abilities (determined on the “B” scale of the Cattell test) and high
level of personal anxiety.
The reason for the emergence of an expectation neurosis is sometimes even a minor failure or illness that caused a transient change in some function. Inadequate anxiety develops, expectation of a repetition of failure; the more carefully and biasedly the patient monitors himself, the more this expectation really complicates the impaired function - thus, the so-called "self-fulfilling negative forecasts" are realized, when the expectation of some kind of misfortune naturally increases the likelihood of its implementation. A person suffering from a neurosis of anxious expectation creates in his mind a negative “model of the world”, for the construction of which he selects from the whole variety of environmental signals only those that correspond to his attitude to see everything only “in black”. In the case of exam stress, a student prone to this type of reaction mentally goes over in his mind all the negative factors according to which he can expect failure in the exam: a strict teacher, missed lectures, an unsuccessful ticket, etc. An unfavorable forecast of future events constructed in this way frightens the neurotic, causing him fear of the future, and he does not even realize that he himself is the author of this "hopeless" and "terrible" future. Thus, the "probability" of an unfavorable event turns in the mind of a person into a real "possibility" of its occurrence.
10. Subjective causes of psychological stress.
4.1. Subjective causes of psychological stress
There are two groups of subjective causes that cause stress. The first group is associated with a relatively constant component of a person's personality, while the second group of causes of stress is dynamic. In both cases, stress can be caused by a mismatch between expected events and reality, although human behavior programs can be long-term or short-term, rigid or dynamic (Fig. 23).
 |
4.1.1. Inconsistency of genetic programs with modern conditions
Many of our stresses and problems will be more understandable if we remember the evolution of man and his historical path from the wild to the bosom of civilization. Scientists have now firmly established that most of the responses to biological and physical influences are reflex in nature and are genetically programmed at the DNA level. The problem is that nature has prepared a person for life under conditions of increased physical exertion, intermittent fasting and temperature changes, while a modern person lives in conditions of hypodynamia, overeating and thermal comfort.
It can be noted that, by nature, people are quite resistant to natural factors (hunger, pain, physical exertion), but they have an increased sensitivity to social factors, to which innate protection has not yet been developed. Let us recall the well-known story by A.P. Chekhov “The Death of an Official”, in which a petty official dies of fear of a general, on whom he accidentally sneezed. This may be hyperbole, but, according to European doctors, tens of millions of people die every year from sociogenic stress and the psychosomatic illnesses they cause. Someone dies from a stroke after a fit of anger at their loved ones, someone from an exacerbation of an ulcer caused by hard work, someone is killed by cancer that developed after many months of experience and prolonged depression. Our ancestors did not have antibiotics
 |
coves and electric heaters, but their bodies had powerful natural defense mechanisms against stress. Our contemporaries, it would seem, have all the power of modern science, but thousands die from heart attacks, strokes and cancer (Fig. 24).
4.1.2. Stress from Implementing Negative Parenting Programs
Part of the programs of behavior is invested in the head of the child by his parents, teachers or other persons, while his consciousness is still characterized by increased suggestibility. These programs are called "unconscious attitudes", "life principles" or "parental scripts", and they can play a very significant role in the future life of an individual. These attitudes can be quite useful for a small child, but as he grows up and life conditions change, they begin to complicate life, making behavior inadequate and causing stress.
For example, parents forbade a girl to go into the forest, scaring her with a “gray wolf”, “woman” or a sexual maniac, and as a result, a fear formed that prevented an adult woman from enjoying communication with nature.
Another example: young people brought up in the 70s or 80s were given a political message that condemned doing business. “Buying low and selling high is not good! This is speculation, for which you can go to jail, ”the young people were inspired. This was a completely adequate setting of the era of socialism, but when perestroika began, it began to interfere with doing business, since the resale of goods for the purpose of enrichment was subconsciously perceived as something shameful, not good.
4.1.3. Stress Caused by Cognitive Dissonance and Psychological Defense Mechanisms
As we have already found out above, the source of many stresses is the emotions of a person, which provoke him to spontaneous reactions in spite of the voice of reason, trying to calmly and rationally assess this or that situation. However, it also happens that the mind begins to play along with the feelings, finding “pseudological” explanations to justify the illogical actions of a person. As the environment is mastered, a certain “virtual” picture of the surrounding world is formed in the mind of each person, which describes and explains everything that happens to him and other people, as well as to the rest of nature. If reality conflicts with our idea of what is possible and what should be, then stress arises, and quite strong. This phenomenon was first described by psychologist Leon Festinger, who introduced the concept of cognitive dissonance - a contradiction between two realities - the objective reality of the world and the virtual reality of our consciousness that describes the world. If a certain event cannot be described in the system of a person's ideas about the world, then he rarely changes the model of the world. Much more often, a person either creates additional structures that strengthen the model, or ignores reality.
For example, in general terms, we know the principle of the telephone, and we are not surprised that you can hear another person hundreds of kilometers away. At the same time, it seems incomprehensible and illogical to us the sudden death of a native who was “cursed” by a local sorcerer for violating some stupid taboo. And the tribesmen of the native, on the contrary, will calmly accept death “from the evil eye”, but they will be shocked by a mobile phone that does not fit into their picture of the world.
When life begins to destroy our myths with which we used to live, the psyche builds barriers against reality, which are called forms of psychological protection. In particular, quite often using such forms as “denial”, “rationalization”, “repression”, a person ensures the safety of consciousness from stress, leaving intact his (false) picture of the world. R. M. Granovskaya describes the essence of psychological defense as follows:
"Psychological defense is manifested in the tendency of a person to maintain a habitual opinion about himself, to reduce dissonance, rejecting or distorting information that is regarded as unfavorable and destroys the initial ideas about himself and others."
Denial means that stressful information is either ignored by consciousness or devalued. For example, social scientists have given people to read articles about the dangers of smoking, and then asked them if they were convinced by the press materials that smoking causes lung cancer. A positive answer was given by 54% of non-smokers and only 28% of smokers. In other words, most smokers did not want to face the fact that they themselves were contributing to the development of a deadly disease.
Rationalization is a pseudo-reasonable explanation by a person of his actions if the recognition of real reasons threatens with a loss of self-esteem or destroys the existing picture of the world. An example is Aesop's fable "The Fox and the Grapes", in which the fox, unable to reach the high-hanging grapes, consoles himself with the fact that they are green and tasteless. Rationalization is one way to avoid the stress of reliving past events that we cannot change. Only we should remember that the reasonableness and validity of the explanations of our actions are often only visible, but in fact they are tricks of the subconscious mind that protects our self-esteem and opinion about ourselves.
Repression is the most universal way to get rid of internal conflict by pushing unpleasant information or an unacceptable motive into the subconscious. So, a person who was scolded by his boss in front of his colleagues or who was cheated on by his wife seems to “forget” these facts, but they do not disappear forever, but only sink into the depths of the subconscious, sometimes emerging from there in the form of painful dreams or unconscious reservations.
All these phenomena show that special mechanisms of protection against psychological stress are not able to eliminate the real causes of the conflict, but only smooth it out or delay the moment of its resolution, which in itself cannot relieve a person from stress. However, they can be avoided if we remember that reality is always primary in comparison with the “map” in the human mind that reflects this reality. “The map is not the territory yet,” NLP followers argue, and most of our problems stem from a misunderstanding of this thesis.
4.1.4. Stress associated with inadequate attitudes and beliefs of the individual
Optimism and pessimism
One of the fairly common attitudes of consciousness is optimism and pessimism - that is, the tendency to see good or bad moments in the phenomena of the surrounding world. In fact, there are quite a few sharply expressed optimists or pessimists, and most of the people are located near a certain midpoint, moving away from it according to the laws of normal distribution. A significant distance from it corresponds to personality accentuations, which, in fact, are designated by people as “optimism” and “pessimism”, and extreme
values already belong to the field of psychopathology (manic-depressive syndrome).
Both of these strategies have their advantages and disadvantages, and each individual subconsciously or unconsciously chooses his own type of attitude to life, based on his own experience, examples of parents and characteristics of higher nervous activity. The benefit of pessimism is that this attitude makes a person prepare for an unfavorable outcome of events, and also allows you to more calmly accept the blows of fate, but this is where its positive meaning ends. Experience shows that positive thinking (search for mostly good sides in life) brings a person much more benefits, significantly reducing the total amount of stress in his life.
At Harvard University in the USA, 2280 men were under observation for 32 years. According to the results of numerous psychological and medical studies, the conclusion was made: “Pessimists suffered from serious disorders of the cardiovascular system 4.5 times more than individuals showing an optimistic attitude towards life's problems.”
An optimistic attitude helps to get out of the most hopeless situations. After all, if a person believes that there is a way out, then he is looking for it, which means that he has more chances to find it. If a person accepts the attitude of a pessimist and recognizes the situation as a dead end, then closed doors seem to be locked to him, and he does not even try to open them. As an illustration, we can recall the famous fable
A. Krylova “Casket”, in which the master, accustomed to complicating everything, initially decided that the casket was locked with an ingenious lock, while “the casket just opened!”
Political and religious settings
Quite often, the source of stress is the ideological attitudes of the individual - political or religious. Such stresses take on a mass character in the era of socio-economic changes (which include various revolutions, reformations and “perestroika”), however, these stresses are quite common even in relatively stable periods of the existence of society. If we turn to the recent past of our country, we can recall what a powerful ideological stress experienced by millions of Soviet people who believed in the ideals of socialism, while the laws of "wild capitalism" were already in full force in the country. The decrease in the average life expectancy of the population, noted in the last decade of the 20th century, was not least caused by the exacerbation of various psychosomatic diseases in the elderly. This is especially true for those whose political attitudes were especially strong and rigid.
Religion, especially of the monotheistic kind, has even stronger ideological attitudes. Any such religion (be it Judaism, Christianity or Islam) assumes the presence of a single god and a set of certain sacred books, the content of which cannot be questioned due to their divine origin. Therefore, any information that contradicts religious dogmas, by definition, is stressful.
Installations - ldetamodels of reality
These attitudes include subconscious programs that "force" a person to adhere to certain behavioral strategies, even in cases where they clearly lead him to failure, stress and disappointment. These programs can have very different origins (introduced into the mind by parents in early childhood, teachers at school, received by the person himself in the case of an unlawful generalization of personal experience, etc.), but in this case it is not so important. The main thing is that every person has such erroneous attitudes to one degree or another, and one should try to recognize them and be able to neutralize them (Table 5).
Continuation
Table 5. (End)
|
4.1.5. Impossibility of realizing the actual need
Currently, the most famous and at the same time simple scheme describing the organization of human needs is Abraham Maslow's "pyramid". According to this scheme, as the “lower”, biological needs are realized, a person tries to satisfy social, and then spiritual needs, and, according to the view of A. Maslow, the highest need of a person is his desire for self-realization of his unique essence.
Self-realization Respect and prestige Belonging and love Security and stability Physiological needs
Rice. 25. Abraham Maslow's pyramid of needs
In accordance with the “Maslow pyramid” (Fig. 25), we single out the main stresses corresponding to its structure.
Physiological. Stress caused by hunger, thirst, lack of sleep, inadequate temperature, mental and physical fatigue, excessively fast pace of life or its abrupt change.
Safety. Stress associated with fears and anxieties: fear of losing a job, fear of failing an exam, fear of death, fear of adverse changes in personal life, fear for the health of loved ones, etc.
Affiliation. Stress from moral or physical loneliness, stress from the loss of loved ones or their illness. The stress of unrequited love.
Respect. Stress from the collapse of a career, from the inability to realize their ambitions, stress from the loss of respect from society.
Self-realization. Stress from the impossibility of realizing one's vocation, stress from doing an unloved thing. Often a person refuses to do what he loves because his parents insist on it, or under the influence of public opinion, which is always distinguished by conservatism.
As K. Williams writes, “a significant proportion of stress is caused by the fear of hearing other people ridicule or condemnation of yourself.
and about your actions. Decide who you really are and who you want to become. Set a clear goal and develop a life program. Always remember the main thing. Act on it and many of your stresses will disappear.”
The impossibility of realizing the existing need leads to frustration, and numerous clinical observations show that frustrations can lead to various psychosomatic diseases - arterial hypertension, stomach ulcers, nonspecific colitis, bronchial asthma, etc. . Frustration can manifest itself in the following forms:
1) aggression and antisocial behavior;
2) closing in on oneself and experiencing a feeling of resentment towards the world around;
3) devaluation of needs with the help of psychological defense mechanisms;
4) analysis of the possible causes of their stress and correction of their actions.
The first and second paths lead to deepening stress, the third and fourth - reduce stress to a minimum.
When studying the relationship between stress and human needs, one cannot fail to mention the informational hypothesis of the emergence of emotions developed by P. V. Simonov. He deduced a formula that links together needs, feelings and information, the essence of which can be expressed as follows: emotions are a consequence of a mismatch between our expectations and reality. At the same time, the magnitude of emotion is proportional to the strength of the need that prevails at the moment.
E \u003d / -Px (I n -I s),
where E is the strength and quality of emotion; / - functional relations, including a number of objective and subjective features; P - the value of the actual need; And n - information about the means necessary to meet the need; And with - information about the means that exist at the moment; (And n - And with) - an assessment of the probability of satisfying this need.
For example, an athlete who expects to take second place in important competitions based on certain information (his athletic performance, the results of opponents, his psycho-physiological state, etc.) will experience stress and negative emotions if his prediction does not come true and he takes fourth place . If his expectations are fulfilled exactly and the athlete takes second place, then emotions will be minimal, and stress will be absent. Stress and expressed emotions will also be absent if the rank of the competition is low and victory in them cannot fulfill the needs of the athlete. If this athlete takes first place (for example, due to the absence of the main rival), he will also experience stress and strong emotions, but with a positive sign.
4.1.6. Stress associated with improper communication
There are many reasons that cause stress during communication. The most important of them are shown in Fig. 26.
 |
One of the most important sources of communicative stress is conflict, i.e., the interaction of two or more people whose needs in a given situation seem incompatible to the participants in the interaction. Studies by physiologists have shown that protracted conflicts can lead to serious disruptions in the functioning of the body. In particular, K. V. Sudakov noted the important role of the so-called "conflict situations" in which a person cannot satisfy vital biological or social needs. On the basis of both his own research and literature data, the author concluded that conflict situations result in emotional stress, which is the leading cause of the development of cerebrovisceral disorders.
Conflict situations are distinguished by a number of features that increase the intensity of stress arising from them: + transferring responsibility for the conflict to another person and minimizing one's own responsibility for what is happening; + the emergence and further strengthening of negative emotions in relation to another person, and negative feelings persist outside the situational conflict situation; + stubborn unwillingness to change their point of view and accept the point of view of the opponent.
Recently, many researchers have paid attention to the negative effects of stress caused by industrial or domestic conflicts. The main causes of serious health disorders are: + emotional stress; + interpersonal conflicts in the family; + tense industrial relations, etc.
If a person finds himself in social conditions when his position seems unpromising to him, then an anxiety reaction, a feeling of fear, neurosis, etc. may develop. Participants in the conflict can reduce the intensity of stress by applying certain behavioral strategies: withdrawal, compromise, rivalry, concession or cooperation . The main features of these conflict resolution strategies are given in Table 6.
| Table 6. Application of various strategies in resolving conflict situations |
| Mode of action | The essence of the strategy | When does it make sense to use |
| acceptable) | * If your opponent is obviously stronger than you and is set up only for a tough competitive position. | |
| Avoidance (you leave the stress zone) | Withdrawal from the conflict. Changing the topic of communication. Deliberate downplaying of the essence of the conflict | 4 If you see that the conflict leads to the growth of negative feelings and it takes time to let the emotions cool down and return to the problem in a more calm state. F If the core of the conflict is not very important to you. * If you do not see any real chances to constructively resolve the conflict in a different way |
| Compromise (you minimize stress) | Search for mutual concessions, translation of the conflict into a deal, equal participants | * If you have equal rights and opportunities with your opponent. * If there is a risk of seriously spoiling the relationship, too firmly insisting on your own. 4 If you need to get at least some benefits and you have something to offer in return |
| Collaboration (you replace distress with eustress) | The desire to work out an agreement that satisfies the needs of both parties. The emphasis is not on losses, but on the gains of each party in the dispute resolution process | * You seek a complete resolution of the conflict and the final "closure" of the dispute. A Both opponents are set for constructive interaction. * Solving the problem is equally important for both parties |
4.1.6. Stress from inadequate implementation of conditioned reflexes
Other programs are developed in the process of life - these are the so-called conditioned reflexes discovered by IP Pavlov. Mastering the environment, our brain learns to recognize signals that indicate the onset of important events for the body. So, the clinking of dishes before dinner causes the release of gastric juice, and the sight of the door to the waiting room of a stern boss makes the heart beat faster. These can be useful reactions that help us prepare in advance for future events (the sight of a stadium alone prepares his body for participation in the competition), but sometimes conditioned reflexes prevent people from living.
For example, some people cannot use elevators or ride the subway due to their pathological conditioned reflexes, which have turned into claustrophobia or agoraphobia, and these examples show that not all learning is good for the body.
In one of his experiments, I. P. Pavlov developed a conditioned reflex in a dog between lighting an electric light bulb and feeding. Immediately after turning on the light, the dog was given a piece of meat, and in response it salivated. At the same time, a hungry dog experienced positive emotions associated with eating. In parallel, the same dog developed another reflex: after turning on the metronome, its paw was irritated with an electric current. The dog, of course, did not like this, so when he heard the sound of the metronome, he whined plaintively and tried to pull his paw away. Then the scientist changed the reinforcement of these reflexes. That is, after the light bulb came on, the dog was expecting pshtsi, and it was shocked. When the metronome sounded, she cowered in anticipation of the inevitable punishment while she was fed. Such a "collision" of opposite conditioned reflexes led to the breakdown of the animal's nervous activity and the inhibition of many previously developed conditioned reflexes. So for the first time in the world an experimental neurosis was obtained. After IP Pavlov returned the usual stimuli to their places, the animal's psyche could not return to its normal state for a long time. Revolutions, social upheavals, betrayals and betrayals of loved ones are examples of such
"collisions" of irritants.
4.1.8. Inability to manage time (stress and time)
Inadequate time limits as a cause of stress
Quite often, the cause of stress is excessively blurred time boundaries of the psychological state. This happens when a person attaches too much emotional importance to the past or future.
In the first case, the source of mental stress and negative emotions is an obsessive memory of some traumatic episode from the past. The list of events that can be a stressor is quite extensive - from such serious events as participation in hostilities or rape, to seemingly harmless episodes like an unsuccessful public speech or an unpleasant conversation with a loved one. If a person cannot consciously limit the boundaries of his temporary existence, he will again and again “scroll” a negative episode in his mind and repeatedly experience psychological stress.
Another option is associated with anxiety and worry about future events that have not yet happened. In this case, a person also repeatedly constructs in his brain an image of the future (and an undesirable one at that), filling it with details and “revitalizing” it to such an extent that he begins to believe more and more in the unfavorable forecast that he creates in his imagination. Such stress is also dangerous because it often programs future failures. At the same time, the person’s fears are actually confirmed, which negatively affects the self-esteem and confidence of the individual.
To overcome such stresses, it is useful to remember that at every moment of our life, like grains of sand in an hourglass, we are between two Eternities: the one that has already passed, and the one that has not yet arrived. And as long as we linger for a moment between the Past, in which nothing can be changed, and the Future, which cannot yet be changed, we, because of the brevity of this position, are safe. In this infinitely small and at the same time infinitely large moment of the Transition, we have, firstly, the opportunity to relax and take a breath, and secondly, the chance to change our lives for the better. Therefore, one must learn to appreciate the precious moment of the present - the only reality of human life.
Stress from inefficient use of time and its overcoming
The famous American psychologist A. Elkin says that you should learn to manage your time, otherwise time will control you [GO]. He highlights the following signs that a person is experiencing stress precisely from the inefficient use of time:
Feeling of constant rush;
Lack of time for favorite things and communication with family; + constant delays; + lack of a clear time plan; + inability to delegate authority to other people; + inability to refuse people who take up your time; + occasional feeling of wasting time.
As A. Elkin notes, the presence of at least half of these signs indicates that the constant lack of time can lead to serious stress.
Another well-known managerial psychologist, one of the founders of time management, Peter Drucker notes that a person will experience stress and anxiety about the use of time if he does not have effective time management skills, which includes four stages:
1) analysis of own time;
2) time management planning;
3) reduction of unproductive costs;
4) consolidation of time.
Before you begin to solve the current tasks of the day, experiencing the stress of not having enough time for everything, you should start by analyzing the distribution of your time and only then move on to planning it. Next, you need to try to reduce unproductive time costs. The last stage should be used in order to reduce your "personal" time into the largest and most interconnected blocks. P. Drucker draws attention to the fact that a big mistake of managers who are in constant time trouble is an attempt to do a big deal in small portions. In fact, the efficiency of such work is extremely low, because for large cases whole blocks of time are required (just as it is impossible to create a whole sculpture from pieces of marble).
Thus, the correct use of time allows not only to complete the work faster and better, but also to avoid the stress associated with the feeling of waste of time.
Stress from not being able to enjoy time