Health and Safety: Dealing with stress

With pubs set for a bumper period, stress expert John Hill examines the warning signs.Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - it's a wonderful ideal....

With pubs set for a bumper period, stress expert John Hill examines the warning signs.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - it's a wonderful ideal. We are entering the time of year when everybody wants to enjoy themselves. But what about the impact of all that forced revelry on the people whose job it is to provide the spirit of Christmas? Namely, licensees and their staff.

A recent conference in London launched a new initiative to combat a condition that is the second largest occupational health problem in the UK - stress. To give yourself a flavour of the size of the problem consider these general facts:

more than half a million people experience work-related stress at a level they believe is making them ill
up to five million people in the UK feel extremely stressed by their work
work-related stress costs society between £3.7bn and £3.8bn a year.

But what is stress? The Health & Safety Executive's definition is "the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demand placed on them".

We work in what is considered a macho industry. You aren't supposed to show weakness and stress is thought by some misinformed people to be exactly that.

There is a myth that some stress is good for you - don't believe it. We need pressure to produce our best but, as the definition states, excessive pressure leads to stress. We are all vulnerable to stress under the right - or should that be wrong - circumstances.

So how do you know when someone is stressed and how do you reduce it?

Identifying stress is a matter of picking up on a range of clues some of which relate broadly to our health and others to our behaviour (see table below). In this last group you really need to ask someone close to you as your behaviour may have changed over a period of time and you may not have noticed.

The table only identifies the symptoms but hopefully it will prompt you to dig further to identify what is causing the change. This is commonly called the "stressor". You may need help to identify your particular stressor and that help may come from inside or outside the business.

For publicans and their staff Christmas and New Year come under one of the main general causes of stress - unreasonable demands.

This time of the year in most cases brings a very significant financial boost and people in the pub trade accept that the demands on individuals will be high.

There are two points I believe should be made, however. "All work and no play" may cause overtiredness and irritability, leading to ill health and an increased risk of accidents. All of that can have a detrimental effect on sales.

The second point leads on. Stressed people miss details of good customer service, increasing the risk of causing offence which in turn could lead to violent verbal abuse or even a physical attack.

Change is another great stressor. Ask yourself what changes are currently affecting you and your business.

Changes can come from any part of your life but for the moment we will focus on business reasons.

One of the most radical changes happening to the pub industry, for instance, is the Licensing Act 2003. This will require licensees to undertake a number of actions which, if not completed according to a predetermined timetable, could result in the business closing. From the stress reduction perspective obtaining the information you need and then taking the action required is one of the best ways of not getting stressed about it.

Coming back to Christmas, your first duty of care is to yourself. Be a little bit selfish. If you cannot look after yourself how you can look after the rest of your family or team?

check your eating habits are regular and balanced. Think of your body as an engine. To run efficiently it requires the correct octane fuel, not coffee and cigarettes all day with an occasional snack
regular breaks keep you going longer so rest before you get tired
if you need a coffee make sure you also drink a large glass of water as well. Coffee is a diuretic so without drinking the water your body will not rehydrate and you will feel sluggish
try to control how you think and act. It's a good idea to think of yesterday as the past, which cannot be changed, and tomorrow as the future, which has not yet arrived. You can learn from the past and plan for the future but you can only actually do things today.

Through it all, remember you are important and life is for living. That way you might even get to enjoy Christmas yourself!

Stress symptoms: Some of the ways stress manifests itself

Health