Doctor-Tested Strategies For Coping With StressAbout.com: Stress Management
By Elizabeth Scott, M.S.
Ideally, a job should be fulfilling and provide just the right amount of challenge to keep us energized but not stressed. Unfortunately, too often people find themselves feeling bored and frustrated, or worse: depleted, exhausted, and battling burnout. When dealing with job stress, which strategies work the best?
Researchers at the University of Calgary, Health Sciences Center asked themselves the same question, and decided to study doctors and their coping methods to see which were helpful and which were not as effective. (In my opinion, doctors are a wonderful group of subjects because they have work that can be meaningful and fulfilling, but also face significant stressors in their work, which can often leave them feeling the effects of burnout.)
The researchers interviewed 42 subjects--to see what coping methods they used--and a related 12-item questionnaire data (which drew from the interviews, and included 5 items from the Emotional Exhaustion subscale of the revised Maslach Burnout Inventory) from 1178 physicians--to determine the degree to which strategies were used and were correlated with feelings of exhaustion.
The results showed that doctors generally used two kinds of coping methods: those they could utilize at work, and those they used after work. The work-based coping strategies included things like working through stress, talking with co-workers, taking a time out, and using humor, while the after-work strategies were more focused on things like exercise, quiet time, spending time with family. It was also found that three types of coping--keeping stress to oneself, concentrating on what to do next, and going on as if nothing had happened--were used often, and with the detrimental effects of leaving the doctors feeling more exhausted and depleted. However, the other workplace strategies were used less often, but were correlated with a lower frequency of exhausted feelings, as were all of the after-work coping exercises.
What's true for doctors will probably be true for you as well. The following are some of the coping strategies that were found to be most effective in staving off exhaustion and burnout, and more on how to put them into your life. You'll also find job stress resources below. Start using them today, and you may find that you combat job stress more effectively!
- Secrets of Using Humor for Stress Relief
- Harnessing Exercise as a Stress Reliever
- Get More Down Time and Fun Into Your Life
- Take a Break and Clear Your Mind
- Symptoms and Causes of Burnout
- How To Deal With Stress At Work
- Get The Free Weekly Newsletter
Source: Lemaire JB, Wallace JE. Not all coping strategies are created equal: a mixed methods study exploring physicians' self reported coping strategies. BMC Health Services Research 2010 Jul 14;10:208.
