Or have you noticed that you are irritable and snap at your colleagues?
Or maybe you work extra long hours, and you are not meeting your personal and work goals? If so, you could be struggling with workplace stress that can be caused by:
- Demanding supervisors
- Having unrealistic expectations
- Interpersonal conflicts
- Inadequate resources
- Unreasonable workload
Undoubtedly, every employee has experienced work-related stress at some point. But, it becomes a challenge if it persists for weeks or months.
Today, we will discuss five reasons you could still be struggling to cope with stress at work. Knowing the reason behind your struggles can help you seek the right method to solve the challenge or find specific ways to cope with it.
1 - You Lack Control Over Workplace Stress
When you feel a lack of control over situations that cause you stress at work, it can worsen your struggle to cope. Even if you understand what is causing the stress, you may feel powerless to change things.
For example, you may be stressed about an unrealistic workload. You understand your manager has assigned too many responsibilities to you.
But if you have no control or input when it comes to setting your workload and priorities, you will feel like there is nothing you can do to fix the root cause.
This helplessness worsens the feeling of being overwhelmed. The following table lists the physical and emotional signs of being overwhelmed at work.
| Physical Signs of Work Stress | Psychological Signs of Work Stress |
| Headache/migraines | Constant worrying/anxiety |
| Stomach issues | Irritability/anger bursts |
| Fatigue/low energy | Increased negativity |
| High blood pressure | Low self-regard |
| Increased illnesses | Depression |
| Weight gain or loss | Reduced productivity |
Similarly, you may have a conflict with a co-worker that is causing you stress. When there are unclear processes for resolving interpersonal conflicts at your workplace, you may believe you have no way to address the situation.
Feeling voiceless and unable to improve the strained working relationship means you have no outlet for the stress and no agency to prevent escalation.
When faced with stressful situations where you lack independence or influence, it creates a sense of despair. Even if the source of your stress is clear, not having any control means you may believe things won't improve.
This helpless mindset makes coping extremely difficult for you, no matter how well you can analyze the reasons for your stress.
Regaining some sense of control, whether real or perceived, is critical to helping you better manage stressors.
Related: 3 Nerve-Wrecking Workplace Challenges and How to Overcome Them
2 - Unrealistic Workload and Expectations Placed on You
When the amount of work and expectations placed on you are unrealistic, it can quickly lead to excessive stress. You may notice that despite working long hours and taking little time off, you are still unable to keep up with the workload.
As an example, your manager may assign you the responsibilities of three roles after downsizing, in addition to your original duties. Despite working 12+ hour days and on weekends, it is impossible for you to fulfill the work of four people alone.
You know the root cause is the severely understaffed department, but you feel overwhelmed and helpless to change things.
In another scenario, your sales targets may have been increased by 30% in these tough economic times. While you recognize the goals are unrealistic considering the decreasing market, you have no power to negotiate more sensible targets.
The mounting pressure to hit goals leads to mental and physical exhaustion.
In both cases, the source of your stress is clear—unrealistic workloads and expectations. However, when you feel helpless to push back against unreasonable demands, it worsens your stress.
Having no option but to accept the suffocating amount of work overtime leads to the following:
- Burnout
- Anxiety
- Decreased morale
- Stress-related illnesses
Your organization must take care to ensure your workload matches your capabilities and resources. If they don’t, seek support and establish boundaries with colleagues against asking you to help with unnecessary work demands.
3 - Your Personality Traits Enhance the Workplace Stress
Your innate personality traits can make it difficult to manage stress in healthy ways, even when the sources of work stress are clear.
For instance, if you have perfectionist tendencies, you may place unrealistically high standards on yourself, feeling you must do every task perfectly.
When faced with an overwhelming workload, this need for perfection worsens your stress levels instead of enabling you to prioritize.
In addition, if you tend to be pessimistic, you may struggle to see solutions during conflicts or challenges at work, focusing only on the negative aspects or worst-case scenarios.
Even if the cause of your stress is well understood, your negative outlook leads to feeling hopeless and helpless when faced with stressors.
If you lack assertiveness, you may also find it hard to speak up about your boundaries or need for support, leading to internalized stress. Your difficulty advocating for yourself means allowing work demands to pile up, even when the unhealthy overload is obvious.
In many cases, the root causes of your work stress are clear, but your personality traits impact how effectively you can cope.
With self-awareness and skills training, you can learn to manage tendencies like perfectionism, passive communication styles, and pessimism to better handle demanding situations.
4- You Let Your Work Life Spill Over to Your Personal Life
When your work demands and responsibilities spill over into your personal life, it can create a high-stress situation.For example, you may frequently work evenings and weekends to keep up with an excessive workload. Hence, you cannot disconnect from your job to spend quality time with family and friends.
Your leave and days off are still filled with work emails and calls. As work bleeds into your personal life, you are unable to de-stress.
In another scenario, you may be so mentally preoccupied with an upcoming project that you are irritable, distracted, and unavailable for your spouse and children after work hours. The strain of your work encroaches on your ability to be fully present and engaged at home.
In both cases, maintaining a work-life balance becomes impossible even though you understand your work stressors well. Without strong boundaries between work and personal time, your mounting stress remains unreleased. This leads to:
- Relationship problems
- Loneliness
- Guilt
- Burnout
- Overall poorer quality of life
You need to set healthy boundaries and practices that allow you to detach from work stress when the workday ends.
You may struggle to manage stress if you lack adequate social support from managers, colleagues, or other people outside the workplace.
For example, if you are feeling overwhelmed with a heavy workload, you need an accommodating manager to:
- Hear your concerns
- Empathize with your situation
- Provide mentoring on priorities
- Potentially redistribute responsibilities
Further, going through conflict with another team member, you need a respectful and confidential way to process the interpersonal tension. If there are no mediation resources or trusted colleagues to listen, you may bottle up the emotional stress.
Insufficient organizational focus on communication, teamwork, and leadership support can leave you disconnected and psychologically unsafe.
Under extreme pressure, you are more likely to make mistakes if you lack outlets for advice, reassurance, and sharing stress.
While social support does not erase your conditions causing work stress, it provides relief so you do not internalize issues as personal failures. Feeling part of a caring team environment also improves your perseverance and work output.
Need Help Coping with Work-Related Stress
Unmanaged work stress can severely impact your mental and physical health. However, even understanding the root causes may not be enough for you to cope effectively alone.At Mental Health Wellness Kenya, we offer valuable workplace training in mental health and stress management skills. We also empower employees like you with research-backed tools and resources to thrive in challenging work environments.
Contact us today to start improving your workplace well-being.
