Work-related stress and how to deal with it

According to the 2023 State of the Global Workplace report by Gallup, 44% of employees worldwide said they experienced a lot of stress the previous day. This is the second year in a row worker stress reached record levels, a sign of how important the fight against stress in the workplace is. Stress can play a part in health problems such as headaches, high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, skin conditions, asthma, arthritis, depression, and anxiety, with an appalling 75% to 90% of all doctor’s visits being about stress-related complaints (source: Smitha Bandari, MD).

To learn how to identify and reduce stress, we at Erasmus Learning Academy (ELA) have offered a new edition of the course "Stress and Conflict Management: the way to resilience and satisfaction" at our Bologna headquarters, from 18/09/2023 to 22/09/2023.

The course started with a theoretical part, in which the participants defined stress as a concept, and later studied its effects in a working environment, and other concepts related to stress, such as the fight or flight response or the general adaptation syndrome.

During the week, and following ELA’s non-formal education system, the participants were presented with several different activities to understand and identify stress in their behavior. One of the first activities that took place during this course was the Nardone strategy, that proposes the creation of a “how to get worst list” and explains its use as a way of avoiding repeating harmful habits.
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Also, an important part of the course was learning stress management strategies to cope with this inimical sensation: exercises for stress reduction, cognitive strategies oriented to problem solving, assertiveness as an important ability to deal with the stress that emanates from conflict, time management as one of the most important tasks to avoid stress, and personal development as a tool for avoiding stress even before begins to be harmful.

By the end of the week, the participants were able to understand the importance of coping with stress in a healthy way, and got their own “toolbox” to deal with stressful situations in their workplaces.

At the end of the training, all participants were given a certificate of attendance to corroborate their participation in the course.

As in all our courses, the participants also had the opportunity to discover the wonderful city of Bologna with our volunteers, who offered them a series of sightseeing tours of the city center and accompanied them to some of Bologna's fantastic restaurants.

We want to show our gratitude to the participants that took part in this course: Oliver Vox, Wencke Vox, Heidi Klemm, Annika Sanders, Anna-Lena Bolling, Jacob de Waard, Stefan Liebich, Katarina Wetzel, Heidrun Gerdes, Mathias Reisewitz, Tomma Willms, Petra Bagge and Heide Schneider.

Discover more about this course here.