5 Scary Work-Related Stress Symptoms You Should Know

Though stress is a very common consequence of a busy, successful career; most executives fail to recognize the work-related stress symptoms.

The impact of stress on their mental and physical health is diagnosed only when they suffer from complications such as depression, hypertension, or heart attacks.

The extent of stress in manager was evaluated by the American Psychological Association in August 2017. The findings of this survey were alarming. It revealed a significant rise in the number of Americans who experienced at least one symptom of stress within just one month prior to the study.

These symptoms of stress are not limited to your mental health.

They can turn bigger and engulf your life by affecting your physical health, your intelligence, your personal relations, and even your successful career.

This study has thrown light on the need for educating executives about how they can identify the symptoms of stress as they are more prone to develop these symptoms owing to constant work pressure.

Being aware of the warning symptoms of stress would help them take appropriate steps to reduce stress before they turn your life upside down.

Executive Summary:

1. Dreading Work

The feeling of dread for work becomes evident when you develop a tendency to find excuses to avoid going to the office.

Falling sick too often, and trying to pass on the responsibilities to others may indicate this symptom.

There may be several reasons for you to start dreading your work. The unpleasant work atmosphere in your office, uncooperative colleagues, constant pressure to perform better, lack of job security, and unfair competition can reduce your interest in work.

You must love your work, if you want to progress.

Dreading work will increase your mistakes and also make you shun responsibilities and better opportunities.

Do you think your employer would be happy keeping you at the desk if you have this attitude? If you dread work, your employer may just show you the door!

You can avoid these work related stress symptoms by adopting a positive attitude.

You can try and be patient with your colleagues and have a hearty talk with them about how you feel.

Explaining to them that working in collaboration with each other might be a win-win situation for all will help you avoid unfair competition.

These strategies might help you to avoid the feeling of dreading your work.

2. Panic Attacks

If you have developed a tendency to panic at the slightest provocation, it may indicate work-related stress symptoms. Feeling a bit anxious before an important meeting or presentation is common.

However, in case, you experience palpitations, dry mouth, dizziness, profuse sweating, and faster breathing due to heightened anxiety, it could be a sign of panic attacks associated with stress.

Imagine what would happen if you panic in front of your client. He wouldn’t be too enthusiastic to award you the project.

If you keep losing projects due to panic attacks, you would just be a liability for your employer that must be gotten rid of at the earliest.

Additionally, panic attacks can also increase your risk of severe depression and suicidal tendencies.

You can avoid these symptoms by trying some simple strategies.

Get a meditation headband that monitors and improves your meditation practice, to help relax your mind.

This will calm your mind and help you achieve your goals with the scheduled meeting.

3. Angry Outbursts

Constant stress can make you impatient. Angry outbursts tend to be more common when you have to depend on others for the project completion and when you are racing ahead of time to meet the deadline. It can make you feel helpless resulting in outbursts of frustration that you might take out on others.

However, you must understand that getting angry cannot serve the purpose at all.

In fact, it might make the matters worse as you may just pass on the stress to others.

The angry outburst can backfire as your colleagues would no longer be cooperative with you. Angry outbursts can also create imbalances in the levels of hormones in your body and increase your risk of chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, cancer, stroke, and heart attacks.

I am sure you know that these diseases are not something you can get rid of by taking medicines for a few days. They will stay with you lifelong.

Your impatience at the workplace will make you a patient of these diseases for the rest of your life.

Instead of getting angry, you can try to think with a calm mind and reschedule the tasks to be able to meet the due date.

You can explain the gravity of the situation to others and motivate them to work harder.

Take deep breaths or simply sit in a quiet place for a few minutes. Beat down stress with a stress management device.

These techniques would work and help you achieve your goals without feeling stressed.

4. Changes in Body Functions

Constant stress will have an effect on how your body works.

Stress could affect the regulatory processes that keep your blood pressure, heart functions, blood sugar levels, metabolism, and other functions in control.

If you ignore this, you are just waiting for a disaster to happen.

You can, at any time, fall down with paralysis due to stroke. You may just collapse at your workplace with extremely high or low blood pressure!

You might lose control of your vehicle if you feel a sharp, clutching pain in the chest while driving. Needless to say, it could be a heart attack!

You might not be able to recognize the changes in these functions while juggling between multiple responsibilities at work and your personal life.

Yet, it is highly important to pay attention to these work-related stress symptoms and make appropriate changes in your lifestyle and diet to avoid the complications of stress.

5. Tooth Grinding

Pressing and grinding of the upper and lower jaw against each other is one of the most common work-related stress symptoms. You may start doing it unknowingly. However, within a few minutes into it, you will realize you are grinding your teeth when your jaws and facial muscles start aching.

Teeth grinding can also occur due to other reasons such as improper alignment of the teeth.

You can identify the cause of this symptom by correlating the time and your mental state when you grind your teeth. If you do it even when you are sleeping or not under stress, it could be a dental problem.

However, if you do it more frequently when you are too busy with work or before or during an important meeting, it can be a sign of stress.

If you don’t take steps to control teeth grinding, you may lose your teeth one by one. Slowly, you would have no other option but to go for dentures.

Conclusions

The factors that cause work-related stress symptoms may be unavoidable for managers. However, it is definitely not difficult to recognize the symptoms of stress.

If you are experiencing these symptoms, you can adopt the stress-busting techniques such as meditation and yoga.

You can also check out our top books on stress management to free yourself from stress and anxieties!

The idea here is to not wait for drastic complications to occur. The earlier you understand this, the better. If you choose to ignore these scary signs of stress, you can consider yourself as sitting on a volcano ready to erupt at any moment.

If you are aware of any other symptoms that could indicate stress at workplace, please leave a comment below to let us know.