Can Yoga Help Decrease Stress in a Workplace Environment?

Can Yoga Help Decrease Stress in a Workplace Environment?
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Introduction
In the modern society there is a growing concern over the increasing occurrence of stress in the work place. The existing state of economy has led to an increase in un-conducive working environment where workers often overwork, experience low degrees of job satisfaction, job insecurity and also lack autonomy. Workers in the course of their duties sometimes have to respond to situations that pose challenge or threat. Such situations requires significant amount of mental or physical effort (Bickford, 2005). Stress comes in two forms; eustress (good) and distress (bad). Eustress is a form of stress resulting from some work pressures and that results in achieving higher goals or propelling through challenging situations. On the other side, distress causes significant emotional and physical discomforts hence impacts negatively on the performance of workers (Colligan & Higgins, 2005). Several studies have shown that workplace stress leads to low performance due to absenteeism and low motivation at work place. There is a need therefore to prevent or alleviate stress at work place. This paper is aimed at demonstrating how Yoga Help Decrease Stress in a Workplace Environment.
Stress has been considered as a normal adaptive reaction to stressors within our environment. Every person has a set of automatic responses that deals with stress. These primitive responses ‘fight or flight’ are only effective for the short term when we are faced with instant danger. This means that the biological adaptive responses are not effective in dealing with stress. It has been demonstrated that physiologically, the body reacts in a similar manner to all types of stressors. When a person is exposed to stressors for a long, like experiencing lower but constant stress at work, these systems remains activated and never reverts to the state of being turned off. This reaction is considered as generalized stress response and presents as follows among the stressed employees; high blood pressure, higher rates of blood clotting, increased stomach acid, increased metabolism, high rates of blood sugar production, decreased rate of protein synthesis, decreased intestinal movement (digestion), decreased allergic and immune response, localized inflammation (swelling, redness, heat and pain), increased fatty acids and cholesterol in blood to facilitate energy production (Bickford, 2005).
When the body remains in the state of generalized stress response, an individual portrays signs and symptoms that are psychosocial, physical or behavioral in nature. Some of these signs and symptoms include; headaches, chest pain, pounding heart, high blood sugar, constipation or diarrhea, fatigue, indigestion, clenched jaws, insomnia, frequent illness, anxiety, sadness, defensiveness, irritability, mood swings, anger, apathy, hypersensitivity, depression, racing thoughts or slowed thinking, feelings of hopelessness, helplessness or being trapped, loss of appetite or overeating, quickness to argue, impatience, procrastination, drug abuse, poor job performance, withdrawal or isolation, strained relationships etc.( Bickford, 2005).
Stress in the work place is a global challenge for many institutions. However, stress is not solely attributed to challenges experienced at workplace because lack of employment or loss of job is also a big contributor of stress among the work age population (Blaug et al, n.d). In the United Kingdom alone, roughly 97% of senior human resource holds the belief that stress is a giant threat to the prospective health of the workforce. It has been estimated that 175 million work days are lost annually in the United Kingdom due to sickness absence, where half of the sicknesses are stress related (Hartfiel et al, 2011).
Stress has been linked to low performance in various organizations. According to the 2005 report from Health and Safety Executives, over half a million people in the United Kingdom reported to have been experiencing stress that was work related at a level that made them ill. It was also reported that approximately 245,000 people gained knowledge about work-related stress, anxiety or stress in the course of 2004. In addition, 15% of all working persons felt that their job was highly or extremely stressful. Whether stress is considered as resulting from subjective or objective causes, all people agree that stress is currently a big concern unlike in the past. It has been argued that in the contemporary world, high level of stress is being linked to elements of modernity, late-capitalism or post-modernity (Deshpande, 2012). Stress is therefore an issue that needs to be addressed within various organizations.
There are various factors associated with the development of stress. The increase or development of stress can be associated with certain historical events as well as economic factors (Blaug et al, n. d). According to Murphy 1995, there are five categories of stress related to workplace and are namely; factors that are unique to specific jobs, career development, role in the organization, organizational structure or climate, and interpersonal work relationships. The first category includes factors that are unique to the job. The employee is expected to cope with specific hours’ work, pace at which he/she is expected to work, the level of autonomy within the work environment, the extent to which the job is meaningful, workload, the actual physical environment and the level of isolation from co-workers (Blaug et al, n. d)
Other factors such as shift work and especially night shift can lead to negative effects on the well being of a worker resulting to psycho-physiological consequences starting with the disruption in the circadian rhythms. Research findings have shown that about 20% of workers who take night shifts drop their positions due to psycho-physiological dysfunction including; heart disease, hypertension, chronic fatigue, as well as gastrointestinal dysfunction. Additionally, reduced capacity to cope with various stressors has been associated with compromised marital relationships, child care, and social contacts (Blaug et al, n. d)
Such factors have a significant impact on the worker’s performance and efficiency-resulting in accidents and errors. Workload and other additional job demand also lead to stress and fatigue which in turn results in health complications as well as low work productivity. Kantowitz 1987 illustrated a multidimensional model that indicated the combination of work demands (task difficulty, number, type, number, contextual factors) in addition to individual factors (values, coping capacity, motive strategies, and willingness to put effort) as being the determinants of performance, effort expended, frustration and stress. He concluded that high level of stress and performance deterioration was correlated to the inverse relationship of employee’s capacity to execute the task and the task demands. Work overload has been considered as the most strenuous job demand that is being faced by today’s employees (Blaug et al, n. d).
An increase in illness associated stress may be as a result of raised awareness of stress which has been attained recently, suggesting that stress can be considered as a reflection of current political ideology or historical context. Stress has also been associated with discursive constructions of value and identity. It is obvious that forms of insecurity keep of changing overtime as well as the conceptual language used to articulate their effects. Stress is such a language whose emergency and increasing use both makes and ascertains its object. Whether imagined or real, stress feels real and can be measured and has significant negative impacts on private life as well as at work place (Blaug et al, n. d).
Effects of Stress at Workplace
Workers who experience stress are more likely to be unhealthy, less productive, poorly motivated and less safe at work. Consequently, the organizations in which they work are less likely to be competitive in the market or successful. If a large number of staff or key staffs are affected by work stress, the healthiness and performance of the organization may be affected. Stressed workers do not give their organizations their best and this not only affects the company’s performance but also their survival in the increasingly competitive market. Work stress affects organizations through; increased absenteeism, increased staff turn-over, reduced commitment to work, reduced productivity and performance, increased rates of accidents and unsafe working practices, increased complaints from customers and clients, adversely impacting staff recruitment, damaging the image of the organization among the workers and also externally, and increased liability by the organization to legal claims and actions from stressed workers (HAI, 2009).
Managers should understand that stress is not just a mere physiological response to a stressor. They should consider stress as an interaction between the workers and the source of demand within their working environment. In addition, they should consider stress as a condition that arises from a situation where an individual experiences demands that are beyond his or her perceived or real ability to successfully cope with the demand and thus results to disturbance in physiological and psychological equilibrium. Perception is key in determining whether a situation is threatening or not. Perception of a situation takes place at cognitive appraisal level. The workers’ cognitive, emotional, behavioral, as well as physiological response to various forms of stress is directly related to the nature of the stressor, the type of resources offered by employer as a buffer to stressor as well as the employee’s personal characteristics (Mishra & Sinha, 2001). Such an understanding would make the managers see the need to ensure that the working environment is stress free or has little but manageable stress.
It is not possible to eliminate stress at workplace completely. This is because once in a while, the workers will be exposed to unexpected meetings, unrealistic work demands as well as other situations that may lead to frustration or a need to overwork. There is therefore a need to not only apply the risk management approach in dealing with workplace stress but also to use other approaches such as Yoga in managing unavoidable work stress among the employees. Good management as well as good work organization is very crucial when it comes to prevention of stress at work place. Well being in the workplace is realized when employees perceive themselves as being engaged, as growing and productive and they can also experience positive emotions such as joy and pleasure (Mishra & Sinha, 2001).
Practice of Yoga at Work-Place
As mentioned earlier, Yoga is an effective means of handling stress at work place. Yoga has been used in different organizations to deal with work stress. In the United States for instant, statistics indicates that the number of people practicing Yoga went up tremendously rising from 7,000,000 in 1998 to more than 15,000,000 in 2008. Actually, approximately 5% of the United States businesses, including several Fortune 500 companies offered yoga at workplace. This approach of dealing with stress involves several techniques that are collectively referred to as Yoga. These techniques are a presentation of indigenous organizational development that enables people to achieve spiritual growth (Khalsa) (Hartfiel et al, 2011).
Yoga has been practiced by many as an ancient means of health promotion that involves physical activities, breathing exercises as well as relaxation. It has been demonstrated that yoga enhance mood through stimulating production of higher levels of Gamma-Amino-Butyric-Acid (GABA) which is a neurotransmitter in the brain. Yoga has been associated with several psychological, emotional and physical benefits. Some of these benefits include reduced respiration rate, increased central nervous system and cardiopulmonary function, reduced blood pressure, reduced fatigue, as well as reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression (Hartfiel et al, 2011).
Those who practice yoga for long durations enjoy various physiological and psychological advantages. Studies have indicated that long-term (about 2-5 years) yoga practice leads to reduced perceived stress and increase self-assessed well-being. Consequently, yoga has been recommended as an effective means of improving workers’ well-being at workplace. A study conducted by Gura to find out the effectiveness of yoga indicated that yoga is effective in improvement of workers’ well-being as well as in reduction of absenteeism at workplace. A similar study conducted by Granath et al in a Swedish company showed that yoga and cognitive behavioral therapy were effective in enhancing workers’ quality of life. The study conducted in Swedish company involved 33 employees and it used the Quality of life Index (QOLI) and PSS and the findings were that ten weekly sessions of yoga led to a significant reduction in stress behavior, perceived stress, and exhaustion. In addition, the study indicated that yoga was very effective in reducing perceived stress but was not effective in reducing anger in the work place (Granath et al, 2006).
A similar study by Lavey et al indicated that even a single yoga class led to a statistically significant impact on enhancing mood among 113 participants (psychiatric inpatients). In this study, the patients were significantly less anxious/tensed, less angry/hostile, less depressed/dejected, less fatigu...