Vi presentiamo alcuni paragrafi tratti da un libro scritto da due docenti universitari:

• Susan Cartwright - Centre for Business Psychology of the Manchester School of Management, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST)
• Cary L. Cooper - Manchester School of Management, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).

MANAGING WORKPLACE STRESS - SAGE Pubblication - California - USA - 1997

Ve lo proponiamo anche per sottolineare quanto il tema sia, in altri contesti culturali, considerato seriamente e da lungo tempo.

THE BIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS OF STRESS

Stress is clearly part of the human condition. Because of its universal occurrence, stress is not looked at in terms of its presence or absence but, rather, according to its intensity and the effect it has on individuals. Many of us seem to cope well with the pressures of work and family life that we encounter daily. But when and why is stress harmful to us? Consider what happens to the human body when it 1S subjected to a strain or pressure of some kind.

As Melhuish (1978), a physician specializing in stress-related illnesses, has suggested, stress is the product of many thousands of years of evolution, and human survival in a hostile environment required a quick physical response to dangers. In other words, the body "developed the ability to rev-up" for a short time. This mobilization of forces is the well-known fight-or-flight reaction mentioned earlier. "Primitive man expended this burst of energy and strength in physical activity, such as a life and death struggle with a predator."

Modern humans have retained their hormonal and chemical defense mechanisms through the millennia. But for the most part, today's lifestyles do not permit physical reaction to the stress agents we face. Attacking the boss, hitting the biology teacher who has refused to accept overdue homework, or smashing an empty automatic teller machine are not solutions allowed by today's society. Today, even the nonaggressive "flight" reaction would hardly be judged appropriate in most situations. The student who walks out in the middle of a difficult exam, the teacher who flees from a rowdy class, or the assembly worker who dashes out in the middle of a shift will likely suffer adverse consequences for their actions. Our long-evolved defense mechanisms prepare us for dramatic and rapid action but find little outlet otherwise. The body's strong chemical and hormonal responses, then, are like frustrated politicians: all dressed up with nowhere to go.

This waste of our natural response to stress may harm us. Although scientists do not fully understand this process, many believe that our thought patterns regarding ourselves and the situations we are in trigger events within the two branches of our autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. To paraphrase Albrecht (1979), in a situation of challenge, tension, or pressure, the sympathetic nervous system comes into play and activates a virtual orchestra of hormone secretions. Through this activation, the hypothalamus, recognizing a danger, triggers the pituitary gland. The pituitary releases hormones, causing the adrenal glands to intensify their secretion of adrenaline into the bloodstream. Adrenaline, along with corticosteroid hormones released through the same process, enhances one's arousal level. All these stress chemicals stimulate the brain, nerves, heart, and muscles to action. These physiological changes combine to improve individual performance: Blood supply to the brain is increased, initially improving judgment and decision-making ability; the heart speeds up, increasing blood supply to the muscles; lung function improves; and glucose and fats are released into the bloodstream to provide additional energy. As part of these physiochemical changes, blood pressure rises (due to increased cardiac output), and blood is redeployed to voluntary muscles from the stomach and intestines as well as from the skin, resulting in the cold hands and feet often associated with a nervous disposition (Albrecht, 1979).

Although these changes result from actions of the sympathetic nerves, parasympathetic nerves can induce an opposing state of relaxation and tranquility. As Albrecht notes, "People who have spent much of their time in an over-anxious or tense state have difficulty in bringing into action the parasympathetic branch" and its helpful capabilities. All of the body's "rev-up" activity is designed to improve performance. But if the stress that launches this activity continues unabated, researchers believe the human body will weaken from the bombardment of overstimulation and stress-related chemicals. Many long-term effects of pressure are described by Melhuish (1978) in Table 1.1.

TABLE 1.1  - Effects of Stress on Bodily Functions - SOURCE: A. Melhuish: Executive Health (London: Business Books), 1978.

STRESS AND HEART DISEASE

Stress is also seen to play a part in diseases related to lifestyle, where  the degree to which a person eats, smokes, drinks alcohol, and  exercises plays a role. High blood pressure (hypertension) and heart  disease are accepted now as having a proven link to stress. Hypertension has in most cases no obvious organic basis-it simply sets in. A majority of patients are diagnosed with "essential hypertension," meaning that the condition does not arise from any medically detectable abnormality. Although other factors, such as diet, obesity, and smoking, surely play a role, many researchers now believe that stress is the primary cause of hypertension. The connection, as Melhuish (1978) indicates, is that hypertension is believed to result partially from changes in the resistance of blood vessels. The diameter of the arterial vessels, which carry blood to the tissues, is partly controlled by the sympathetic nervous system and its release of chemicals through the vessels. Continual activation of the sympathetic nervous system's chemical response is believed to result in reduced elasticity of the arteries and raised blood pressure. This resulting hypertension can lead to heart disease because of the increased workload on the heart as it pushes blood out against a high arterial back pressure. Also, high blood pressure increases the likelihood of a possibly fatal ruptured artery; the rupture of a ves sel in the brain can cause stroke. Chronic stress, and its resulting release of fats into the blood stream during the fight-or-flight response, is also believed to increase the risk of coronary heart disease by fatty deposition in the lining of coronary arteries, which carry oxygen to the heart muscle. Carruthers (1976) highlights the combination of factors that can result in a life-threatening crisis.

STRESS COSTS

The cost of stress for a nation and for particular organizations is currently extremely high. For example, if we explore costs to the U.K. economy, the British Heart Foundation Coronary Prevention Group has calculated that 180,000 people die each year from coronary heart disease, almost 500 people a day, and heart disease accounts each year for 70 million lost working days to industry and commerce. In addition, MIND, the mental health charity, estimates that between 30% to 40% of all sickness absence from work is attributable to mental and emotional disturbance, with another 40 million working days lost to the nation's economy. The country has also suffered increased rates of suicide, particularly among younger workers, rising 30% from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Instability and life stress have led to divorce rates rising from 27,000 in 1961 to 155,000 by 1988; they are still rising. Indeed, RELATE, the U.K. marriage guidance organization, estimates that by the year 2000 there will be 4 divorces in every 10 marriages. Finally, Alcohol Concern suggests that alcohol misuse costs society more than f:2 billion per annum, with an annual cost to industry from this cause alone of nearly f:1 billion. The latter group estimates that 1 in 4 men in the United Kingdom drink more than the medically recommended units per week and that between 8 and 14 million days are lost each year from alcohol-related problems, with 25% of accidents at work involving intoxicated workers. To assess your own stress levels, you may find it useful to complete the following questionaire (see Table 1.2).

Who Pays the Costs?

Let's start at the beginning. Why is it that some countries (e.g., the United States or Finland) seem to be showing declines in their levels of stress-related illnesses, such as heart disease and alcoholism, while the levels of these illnesses are still rising in other countries? Is it that American employers, for example, are becoming more altruistic and caring for their employees, less concerned about the bottom line? Unfortunately, the answer is "No." Two trends in the United States are forcing American firms to take action. First, industry there is facing an enormous and ever-spiraling bill for employee health care costs. Individual insurance costs rose by 50% over the past two decades, but employers' contribution rose by over 140%. Estimates are that more than $700 million a year is spent by American employers to replace the 200,000 men aged 45 to 65 who die or are incapacitated by coronary artery disease alone. Management officials at Xerox Corporation estimated the cost of losing just one executive to stress-related illness at $600,000. In Europe, however, employers can create intolerable levels of stress for their employees, and it is the taxpayer who picks up the bill through the various national health systems. There is no direct accountability or incentive for firms to maintain the health of their empIoyees. Of course, the indirect costs are enormous, but rarely does a firm actually attempt to estimate this cost; absenteeism, labor turn- over, and even low productivity are treated as intrinsic parts of running a business (Dale & Cooper, 1992).

TABLE 1.2  - Behavioral and Physical Symptoms of Stress

To assess your own level of stress symptoms, indicate how often you have been troubled by the following behavioral and physical symptoms.

NOTE: Scoring: It is not the total score in each section that is important, but the number of either behavioral or physical symptoms on which you score 2 or 3. If in either category you are showing more than 3 symptoms with scores of 2 or 3, then it is indicative potentially of some current stress-related problem.

There is another source of growing costs. More and more employees, in American companies at least, are litigating against their employers through worker compensation regulations and laws concerning job-related stress, or what is being lately termed cumulative stress disorder. For example, in California, the number of stress-related compensation claims for psychiatric injury now total over 3,000 a year, since the California Supreme Court upheld its first stress disability case in the early 1970s. The California labor code now states specifically that worker compensation is allowable for disability or illness caused by "repetitive mentally or physically traumatic activities extending over a period of time, the combined effect of which causes any disability or need for medical treatment." California may be first in this regard, but what happens there has a habit of reaching other places after a longer or shorter time lapse (Ivancevich, Matteson, & Richards, 1985).

In Europe, however, we are just beginning to see a move toward increasing litigation by workers about their conditions of work. Several unions are supporting cases by individual workers, and the trend is certainly in the direction of future disability claims and general damages being awarded on the basis of work stress in the United Kingdom, as Earnshaw and Cooper (1996) highlight in their report on worker compensation and stress-related claims.