The Undefeatable Enemy, Stress
More Americans are finding themselves in their doctor’s offices complaining of fatigue, irritability, sleep derivation, migraines, and heart problems. The prognosis? Stress. Many American employees are having many health issues due to stress, such as fatigue, irritability, sleep derivation, migraines, and heart problems. Many Americans are now working over 40 hours a week, having to deal with children, and the daily troubles every person must deal with on a day to day system. The average American is working a longer work week and they are having much more stress and problems in their day to day lives. Americans keep piling on more work on themselves because they fear for their job and family’s well-being. Americans feel that they need to work as hard as they can so that they can ensure that their lives will remain intact. However, Americans do not realize that working so hard affects their individual’s health, relationships, and personal life. To combat this problem, many companies are giving benefits to help their employees such as yoga lessons, games, etc.; however, these benefits are now becoming mere appointments that are now affecting the employees’ even worse causing more stress.
Many Americans do not understand that stress is a chronic disease that may have extreme harm on their bodies. Chronic stress can be very injurious to any adult and it cannot be simply taken away by “planning a quick gateway to a spa or mini-vacation” (Peterson). The author knows that people cannot take away their stress through simple physical means; one must stop chronic stress from work mentally. Long term side affects of stress on the brain may cause toxins to be released in the brain resulting in headaches to heart attacks. Herbert Benson, president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute and co-author of “The Break-Out Principle, says that “about 60 percent of visits to health care professionals are “’ in the stress-related, mind-body realm…’” (Peterson). The main problem with stress is that it is not the same for everyone and is hard to cope with causing many problems with an individual’s life along with many visits to a medical professional, stated by Rosch. There are very staggering results of studies done by the UK describing the severity of stress. One in four people will experience a mental health problem in the course of a year, usually involving anxiety and depression. Another startling fact is that one in six people will experience depression at some point in their lives, most likely between the ages of 25 and 44 (“Mental Health”).
Many Americans are now working the same amount of hours a week that they did 30 years ago, about 43.5 hour (Wessel). However, now there are more diverse than there ever were; there are now more women in the work force and many parents are now working two jobs to make enough money to help their families get through day-to-day life (Gerson and Jacobs, Wessel). Benjamin Balak states that, “’Americans work more hours by far than any other workers in the world. If you want to be a high-income wage earner, you have to work like a dog. If you want leisure in today’s economy, you’ll be stuck in a low-income job. It’s income or leisure” (qtd. in Wessel). Many people are working these long hours because they want to secure a safe life for their family. Americans also want a life where they can spend money on the very little leisure time they may receive. However, many women are now working less hours so that they can take care of their children causing more stress because the parents are low on money because they are pressured for time, especially women (Gerson and Jacobs). With all the stress people tend to be more irritable toward things they usually are not annoyed by.
Many employers and major companies are now realizing that their employees are not working as hard as they used to because of all the stress that has been placed upon them. Many companies, including Armani Exchange, AT&T, and Yahoo are offering free yoga and mediation class free to employees to help them relax and decrease the amount of daily stress (Benedict).. According to the Marketdata Enterprises, a market analyst in Tampa Florida, approximately 20 percent of employers have a stress reducing place program (Benedict).. This is a ever growing business of stress management that is a $11.7 billion a year and growing industry (Benedict).. Researchers have found that the benefits of these stress reducing programs are short-lasting and are useful to employers that have stressed out employers. Dr. Lawrence Murphy, a psychologist at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, says massages generally relieve stress when stress is caused by muscle tightness; and meditation appears psychologically soothing, and many who take these classes are often much calmer. However, when certain activities are done daily, or even weekly, continuously over a period of time, these stress reliving appointments are now becoming stress causing. These activities are now becoming appointments that employees must go to. People are being more stressed out over these stress “relievers” or simply cutting them out of every day life (Benedict).
American employees and their employers are trying to find solutions to these stress problems and have temporarily helped out employees; however, these solutions are turning into problems. These solutions are now appointments where the employee must face more stress because it is one more stop in their hectic life. However Gerson and Jacobs say that there are much simpler solutions to the stress problems many have to endure. Some solutions are to shorten the job week to 35 hours, allow flex-time for certain occupations, extending protections (such as proportional benefits and overtime pay), etc. (Gerson and Jacobs). With improvements such as these Americans can improve their life styles and lives stress free lives.