Stress can be defined as any cognitive, emotional, or physical pressure that when built, affects an individual directly or indirectly by influencing his work, work-related, or personal life. At work, stress affects an individual’s performance, either negatively or positively. Negative, when stress provokes depressive or pessimistic stress patterns, whereas positive when stress enables an individual to face and accept challenges. There are various stressors responsible for inducing stress patterns in work and relationships environments. Environmental stressors such as noise, heat, speech, aircraft noise, traffic noise, office noise, etc. The three main types of stress, present in any environment are physical, emotional, and cognitive (psychological). Any of these stresses incur as a result of work overload, repetitive tasks that underestimate individual’s capability, and job mismatch. Problems of work overload are directly or indirectly associated with psychological or physical pressure. For instance, individuals who find themselves in jobs that are ill-suited to their skills, abilities, and training or that do not meet their needs and expectations are likely to experience stress.
Stress impacts human performance, either individually or in teams and depicts a unique relationship between the person and the environment that is judged by the person for his own well-being. This clearly indicates that at work, not all stress is negative. It is stress in teamwork that induces the motivation factor to accept all the challenges that in the longer run evaluates and appraises the individual. At work there are two types of stressors that influence individuals. Ambient or indirect stressors, that is associated as major factors to be a part of the environment or background where the individual works. Direct stressors or performance-related stressors are directly linked to task performance. Performance-related stressors can be minimized by successful task performance. Stress is positive when it is perceived by an individual, for achieving his goals. However, there are certain variables of stress, which are proposed to have a direct impact on the team’s interaction and coordination. Such teamwork stressors that trigger motivation and promote a sense of coordination among teams include workload, team size, team management, and timeliness to accomplish a task.
Stress when relating to performance has remained a critical issue for there are controversies between positive and negative influences of stress. Many believe that individual or team performance is susceptible to the effects of stress as there is a requirement for teams to maintain acceptable performance. This is done by interacting effectively with fellow team members, which also pressurizes the stressed member to maintain his or her own performance. Another critical issue about work stress is its influence on family members, which is usually negative.
Work-family conflict gives rise to a high magnitude of stress transmission, which emotionally affects family members. It would be better to say that work-related stress when remaining unmanaged, induce stress among family members and relationships in a pessimistic manner. Here comes stress in emotion management that works among various relations including family and friends.
Stress in education has enabled us to think towards stress-management training, which has provided us with a useful function to help individuals to recognize the symptoms of stress and to overcome any negativity related to the stress. There are various awareness activities and skills-training programs designed to cope up with stress-related issues. Such techniques have proven useful in helping individuals deal with stressors and accept realities inherent in the work environment.