Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts

The distinction between anxiety and fear.

One of several versions of the painting Image via Wikipedia
To most of us there is no difference between anxiety and fear. However, if we are to grow personally and professionally, we will have to understand the difference between them in order to overcome them.

Here is an excerpt from an interview given by Dr. David H.Barlow, who is one of the leading experts on emotional disorders. He has written over 500 articles and over 60 books on the subject of emotional disorders and clinical research methodology.

Dr. Barlow: Fear is a present-orientated emotion, typically in reaction to some sudden threat to one’s integrity. It’s best recognized by the fight-or flight response, or a strong urge to engage in the emotion-driven behavior of escape. It’s an immediate response, and it’s best characterized by the experience that “something terrible is happening to me right now, and I need to take some immediate action to get out of here.”

Anxiety, on the other hand, is focused on something that might happen in the future that one needs to be worried about. It’s a focus on a potential future threat. An individual is motivated by the emotion to get ready for the potential threat, and the typical action tendencies or emotion driven behaviors are to become more vigilant, size up the threat, and worry about the various outcomes. It’s not happening right now; it’s something that’s going to happen soon, anywhere from the next several minutes to the next several months. And the purpose of that emotion is readiness, to get people ready to deal effectively with an upcoming threat.


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Presenteeism is making organisations sick

Presenteeism is making organisations sick

Professor Cary Cooper, a psychologist specialising in organisational management at Manchester University, coined the word “presenteeism”. He used the word to illustrate that workers are not necessarily productive at work.

According to Cooper, “The phenomenon of ‘presenteeism,’ an overwhelming need to put in more hours or, at the very least, appear to be working very long hours, is another dangerous symptom of the explosive degree of pressure in the workplace.”

That word “presenteeism” in the present day has now morphed to mean “the feeling that one must show up for work even if one is too sick, stressed, or distracted to be productive; the feeling that one needs to work extra hours even if one has no extra work to do.”

The productivity loss has assumed worrying proportions today. Employees report to work sick and are unable to discharge their duties efficiently. They just go through the motions.
This drains away the benefit of having them at the workplace.

Added to this, these sick employees while interacting with their healthy colleagues manage to infect some of them. The result, another batch of sick workers turn up for work sick resulting in productivity taking a huge hit.

Reuters report that the “So-called "presenteeism," or going to work when sick, is a persistent problem at more than half of U.S. workplaces and costs U.S. business a whopping $180 billion a year.

Like its more notorious counterpart absenteeism, it takes on growing importance as employers try to keep an eye on productivity and the bottom line.”

A CCH survey cited a number of reasons why employees report to work even though they are not fully fit. The reasons include “wanting to preserve precious vacation time, saving sick days for later in the year and even company loyalty. But the No. 1 reason for “presenteeism” in the office is the fear of missing deadlines.”

There is also an element of insecurity involved. Sick employees feel that if they do not turn up for work, they may be considered as slackers and their future in the organisation may be compromised.

The banking organisation Comerica did a health study to understand this phenomenon of “presenteeism” in their organisation. Their study revealed that organisations could control the productivity loss due to “presenteeism” by making a small investment in screening, treating and educating their employees.