Stress at work and home - Keep Your Life, Family and Career Intact While Living Abroad - page 47

against his parents' wishes. Without realizing it, he was constantly trying to regain their
trust and respect through career accomplishments. Meanwhile, at work his talent is very
much treated as a mere commercial accessory, and receives little appreciation. He resents
being in such a position. However, quitting the job would be a sign of failure and would
reinforce his parents' notion of his having made the wrong career choice in the first place.
He escapes his dilemma by getting sick, and thus avoiding work.
When a person cannot directly deal with stress, he or she may unconsciously convert
it into a physical disability or psychosomatic illness, such as ulcers, bladder control prob-
lems, acne, obesity, neck pain or asthma. The disability then diverts attention from the situ-
ation that created stress in the first place. The individual usually cannot see the relationship
between the sickness and the cause of it.
Stress is almost unavoidable in our daily life. In fact, stress can be beneficial in limited
doses. It can stimulate the senses and help one get things done more efficiently. However, if
a person is constantly under stress it can be quite damaging to mental and physical health.
There is no one magic treatment for stress. For many people symptomatic treatment is
likely to be sufficient. Relaxation exercises and various forms of meditation and massage
will help remove the block and put the person back in focus, enabling him or her to carry
on with life.
But some people are incapacitated by stress at work or home. If a person feels mentally
overwhelmed, accident-prone or violent, it indicates that the problem is more deep-seated.
Some people run to psychiatrists for medication in order to chemically regulate their
stress. In certain cases, drugs may be appropriate, though they pose the danger of psycho-
logical or physical dependency. For most, medication won't help the underlying conflicts,
which are caused by psychological factors which need to be confronted directly. In such
cases, long-term treatment in psychotherapy will help unveil the underlying issues in their
life, enabling them to see why they react so negatively to stressful situations.
Stress is not a general condition, but an individual problem, depending on a person's
mental and physical health and level of tolerance. Increasing basic self-awareness of your
own limits, and learning not to over-extend yourself, will enable most of us to cope in a
highly-strung modern society.
E XECUTIVE HYPOCHONDRIA
No group is more prone to stress than business executives. Look in their desk drawers and
you are likely to find an assortment of pharmaceuticals, headache tablets, stomach pills,
asthma inhalers, and muscular pain ointments.