Work, Society and Stress: Women to Combat Many Challenges

The world is growing at fast pace and so are the opportunities and challenges. These challenges could act as burden of unusual demands posed by work or family or both. This condition could result in stress. In this globalised world women are also not spared from this impact, but they are even more affected by facing both work and societal pressures. Working women of every backdrop face some or the other problem related to work-life balance. Whether a normal daily wage worker or a store attendant to a professional working in a leading firm, every women employee has to strike the chords of balance between their work roles and family roles.

Many studies have suggested that working women face issues of work-family conflicts that lead to conditions of stress and psychological unrest in them. Social pressures (in direct or indirect forms) add an extra to the prevailing stress problems. Working females have to play multiple roles and thus multiple challenges to face. Studies have shown that work pressures, role conflicts, job satisfaction, overload, less social or family support results in high work-family conflicts in women thus resulting into stress.

Feeling distressed can have detrimental effects on the body. Stressing and burnouts in women can lead to many physical, mental, emotional and psychological health problems. Stress is an important health concern amongst us; studies have found high percentage of stress and its related health problems in Indian females. Long working hours and working extra because of job or financial demands usually results in skipped meals. Thus unbalanced diets lead to low nutritional intake raising health issues of anemia, deficiencies etc. Strife to excel in their career and to take their graphs at a high in this opportunistic world women have to deal with many psychological problems as well. Many face the problem of being alone, that they don’t have time to socialize and have fun. They do not have anyone to share their problems with and so they may get irritated easily and get fickle. Sometimes women need to seek a counselor to combat these issues of loneliness and emotional setback. If the levels of stress increase then women are more likely to get into depression like conditions which can be life threatening at times as it has a negative impact on heart and other vital organs of the body.

With multiple roles come multiple responsibilities and today’s 21^st century women needs to manage it all. All you need is to divide time and responsibilities, both at work and at home. Meditation, yoga and exercise increase positive energy and provide a healthy spirit to start your day. Prioritizing the work is a good time management technique that could give better productivity. Enjoying your work is of great help, it reduces the pressure of timelines and targets.  If you feel neglected and unappreciated at work, talk to your seniors and find a way out. Being positive and happy helps a lot to reduce stress. Spend time with your family, eat at least one meal together, have a talk with your spouse or parents (but no work related talks please..!). Do not overload yourself just because the work demands so. There are many ways to get out of stress, choose what suits you best. Relax, work, have fun and enjoy your life!