The Stress MythA common item on the modern charge sheet against work is Causing Dangerous Levels of Stress. Survey after survey appears to support the prosecution: pick a number and you can probably find a survey to match; one in four of British workers say they are ‘highly stressed’ at work, according to one poll. Another finds that nine out of ten Londoners experience stress at work. One in ten workers is ‘in despair’, says the International Labour Organisation.
But stress is now pretty close to a useless word. It has been distorted and expanded; it has become a catchall description for everything from deadline pressure to an off day. Life contains some stress, and life contains work – the only question begged by the London survey is who are the 10 per cent who do not experience stress at work? What kind of jobs do they have?
There is no ‘stress epidemic’ in Britain’s workplace. Sometimes we feel stretched, or under pressure, or anxious, or busy at work – and we have fallen into the trap of labelling all these natural and positive feelings as stress. Take the London survey again, in which nine out of ten experienced stress at work; half of them also said that they were happy at work. It is perfectly possible to be ‘stressed’ and happy.
The only people whose mental health is really being hit by work are those who are out of it; unemployment is where the highest price is paid. As a trade unionist once said, ‘The trouble with unemployment is you never get a day off’.
For some people, stress is used in an entirely upbeat way. As one of the participants in a Channel Four programme, The Joy of Stress, put it: ‘It is hard work, but it’s a buzz’. Most people want activity, they want challenge. It is not stress; it’s a buzz.
It is true that the intensity of work has increased. More people report deadline pressure and having to work faster and harder. This is often seen as bad news; as if it would somehow be better for us if we all worked more slowly and with less effort. The legacy of work as punishment, unrewarding toil and necessary evil suffuses debates about work intensity. If work were empty drudgery, of course it would be bad news that we are putting more effort into it. But work is not like that and is becoming less like that by the day. Maybe, just maybe, people are putting more effort into work because work has become more worthwhile.
The people who are putting us under most pressure to work hard are not bosses, or clients, but our close colleagues, according to Professor Francis Green, from the University of Canterbury. At the beginning of the 1990s, clients were reported to be the people pushing for harder work, but by 1997 ‘fellow workers or colleagues’ had become the number one source of pressure to work hard, according to Green’s research. This reversal suggests that work has become more team-orientated and that people want to be part of a high-performing group.
It is entirely a positive development that we are feeling that our peers are pushing us to perform well. No one would question that in a team sport you might feel pressure from a team mate to make the tackle or shoot for goal – because you are all in it together.
And a little pressure often goes a long way. Adrenalin fuels success: James Thurber, after having 20 stories successively rejected by the New Yorker, was asked by his wife one afternoon in 1927 if he wasn’t ‘ruining those stories by spending so much time on them?’. She advised him to set an alarm clock to ring in 45 minutes and finish within that time. Thurber did just that, sent off his piece – and received an acceptance letter in a matter of days.
Any life worth living is full of ‘stresses’. A life with a wide range of choices, aspirations and paths, new challenges, and stretching and demanding work does feel more challenging than one with predictable, repetitive, dull jobs and activities and limited horizons. And thank God for that. As Kierkegaard put it: ‘Anxiety is freedom’.
This is not to say that some workplaces do not damage mental health – simply that the vast majority does not. The real issue is control: so long as we feel in control of our work our psychological health is unlikely to suffer. As Publius the Roman slave-turned-entertainer, said: ‘The height of misery is to depend on another man’s will’. Self-generated pressure to produce the best presentation is not stress; it is personal pride and ambition. And pride and ambition are good for you. They give you momentum.
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