A job can be a serious health risk.How is that possible?

The increase of visits to the psychologists,absenteesm as well as sick leaves is beginning to become a real problem for both employees and employers.Only a small percentage of working people are unaffected by work in other areas of their lives.The results of work pressures,expectations and ambience can cause stress,anxiety and fear in employees.There are many factors that come into consideration and we have to keep in mind that work pressures have increased since the beginning of the global financial crisis.However,a suprising result from polls is the fact that this work related stress and anxiety also affects people who have been retrenched.The pressure under which many people work today is tremendously high and if thats not enough these employees have to take up the duties of their retrenched coleagues.Unfortunately,the added strain is the fear that hangs like a dark cloud and omen announcing that they are next.This ripple effect has seen an increase in psychological visits.

The other suprising factor about this trend is that there is just no profile.Its not just women,or certain races or naturally nervous and low-esteemed people that make the visits.For the first time in a long time,people who would have never made the visits under any circumstances are doing so with distrubing symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression and so on.These emotional and mental instability tends to affect other parts of the life of an employee like their love life,family life,spiritual life etc.In extreme cases,some patients come to see psychologists with what is called vital disorientation or delirium in which case the patient wants to end everything.Among the most fequent reason for the visit,is the state of burn-out.This affects people who do not know how to separate their private lives from their office life and who are not valued as they deserve to be.They then become victims of complex dynamics in which they suffer from anxiety, nervous sweats,abnormally fast heartbeats and sensations of breathlessness.

The other work-related illnesses is tech-stress.As the name suggests it is linked to to new technologies,the use of the internet and the electronic mail.Its consequences are muscle tension and obessive use of the email.In these cases chronic stress and chronic fatigue take over and constant fear and insecurity are order of the day.There are ways to avoid work-illnesses and I will develo that in the next series.