Occupational Stress of Senior High School Teachers and their Stress Management Styles

Abstract

Stress, in everyday terms, is a feeling that people have when they are overloaded and struggling to cope with demands. These demands can be related to finances, work, relationships, and other situations, but anything that poses a real or perceived challenge or threat to a person's well-being can cause stress. When we are faced with a challenge, part of our response is physical. The body activates resources to protect us by preparing us either to stay and fight or to get away as fast as possible. Factors of the environment that trigger this reaction are called stressors. One’s work can also be a source of stress. The people, the environment and the nature of work can be classified as occupational stress. Occupational stress is one of the major health hazards of the modern workplace. It accounts for much of the physical illness, substance abuse, and family problems experienced by millions of blue and white-collar workers. Occupational stress and stressful working conditions have been linked to low productivity, absenteeism, and increased rates of accidents on and off the job. In education, many of the teachers have been suffering lately from occupational stress. Some of those stressors include paperwork, working with co-faculty members, low salary and many more that causes teachers to become unproductive and having low performance. Keeping workers divided, distrustful, and believing they are different from one another helps frustrate attempts by workers to challenge existing working conditions. The widespread concern regarding occupational stress in teaching has led the researchers to focus on this area. Furthermore, there has been an increasing recognition of the link between mental and physical health and occupational stress, and indeed a concern to improve the working lives of teachers (Williams and Gersch, 2004). When the cause of the stress can be identified, is of short duration, and can be responded to by a specific set of actions that eliminate the cause, this is a healthy stress reaction. However, when the source of the stress is not identifiable, becomes excessive, repeated, prolonged, or continuous, it becomes "distress" and creates unhealthy physiological and psychological reactions. This study sought to find the occupational stress and the stress management of senior high school teachers that can be helpful in coping with stressors. Also, the researchers ought to make an action about this matter.