Is Stress Making Your Business Sick?

Everyone knows what business stress feels like.

Things seem out of control, your reactions don’t fit your situation, your expectations are unmet, your experiences are painful losses, you believe untruths about the business, it's market and potential. But for some businesses, stress is a normal way of life.

Many businesses spend their entire time struggling with self-imposed limitations, being frustrated and bound by them. While there may be dreams, they aren't always achieved.

Everything feels frustrating and challenging, and nothing is ever good enough.

When businesses don’t reach a solution to these struggles, internal conflicts create stress, which can wear owners and staff down to the point of feeling physically exhausted only they don't know.

But can stress actually make a business physically sick?

Statistics reveal that stress actually causes eighty to ninety percent of personal illnesses. Stress related illnesses can be anything that make you miss a day of work, from a common cold to a migraine headache. They may also be chronic and degenerative.

If you suspect stress has affected your health, then what about your business.

How Does Stress Make Your Business Sick?

Two forms of stress exist.

The first could be called environmental stress, and may be caused by the weather, economic cycles, industry cycles, or some other external factor. External stress cannot be controlled, and doesn’t lead to illness.

However, the second form of stress can cause the business illness. This type is known as internal stress, and is caused by the business's reactions to external influences.

For example, if a client challenges or confronts the business processes, just like another driver cutting you off on the road, you may feel tense, irritable, or angry. These negative reactions to similar triggers over and over again are really over-reactions, that increase over time and foster internal personal stress which lead to business stress.

Internal business stress originates from the conflict between your conscious communication activities and the normal reactions to customer queries and disagreements and the personal stress staff experience as a result of this.

So while you may blame an external source for your frustrations, your own business culture fosters the disease in your business. While no business or individual, ever chooses to be sick, the conflict or stress may cause the systems to break down. This build up of tension also imposes extreme stress on the staff, which can be converted to their physical or emotional illness.

Some businesses are more likely to be stressful than others. Emergency service support, medical support, travel are just a few that come to mind.

Is Your Ailment Stress-Related?

Some symptoms of stress may be that the business is tired, it's in catch up mode all the time, you’re unable to feel a sense of control or the daily activity is not enjoyable for all concerned. You should be aware of your business lifestyle, how this effects your staff, and how that effects the business and it's ability to perform.

If you are beginning to feel your business has a stress related illness then maybe you should integrate some stress management as part of the treatment.

A doctor will always tell you to improve your lifestyle, get enough sleep, eat healthier, and if they know you work in a high-stress profession, they’ll tell you to pace yourself. Medical professionals understand that external pressure causes internal organs to tighten up, and when this happens the body doesn’t function properly.

So it is with business. Does your business have systems to handle the day to day rigors you place on it? Can your staff assist each other in times of peak loads? Do you find individuals being blamed for mistakes when the systems are at fault?

While the traditional approach can effectively alleviate the symptoms of many business illnesses, you must also address the stress component, the cause of the problem.

What Can You Do To Relieve Stress-Related Illness?

To begin to free your business from stress, follow these guidelines:

If your business is suffering from a stress-related illnesses, look at the way you’re treating it. Are you daily doing the things that it needs from you? Or are you doing the things that you feel like doing? Do the bills get paid, to the accounts get delivered, do the problematic issues get addresses or are your checklists up to date?
Next look at how balanced the work place is? Are you keeping a sense of balance with all the just in time activities. Does the business wait till the last minute to complete things? Is your activity like a constant sprint? Do you allow the business time to rest or meditate?
Another way to relieve stress is to look at the general development of the skills, processes and tools. Do your business tag along with the crowd when it doesn’t really fit with the business? Are you advertising because your competitors do? Are you doing a re brand because your competition is? If so, then why are you doing this? Get your business in a position where it naturally wants to be.
Develop your business creativity. Believe it or not, staff do enjoy being creative and being recognised for that creativity. Ask your staff and customers what's working what isn't and how can we do things better. This will all go towards reducing the feeling of business being uptight all the time.

Stress Relief from here onward

While stress is part of business life, excessive stress can have detrimental effects on your business and personal health. When tension builds up over a long period something has to give. Staff leave, the place isn't a nice one to work and customers begin to disappear. This stress can also weaken the financial system and allow for greater health issues.

Take action and observe your business as if it was a human being. Reducing the amount of stress you experience as an owner and that of your staff, the quality of the environment improves, and you all gain a wonderful attitude.

When you have a wonderful attitude, your life becomes enjoyable.