Stress Management for Library Professionals
Dr. Yojana Patil, (Ph.D. in Sp.H.),
Librarian (Associate Professor Grade),
D. T. S. S. College of Commerce, Kurar Village, Malad East, Mumbai - 400 097.
[email protected] Mobile No. 08286579358
Stress Management for Library Professionals Dr. Yojana Patil, (Ph.D. in Sp.H.),
Abstract Exploring the world of ‘Stress and Healing ways for coping with it’ is really required for the Library Professionals, today. They have to handle the new advanced technology, old generation of upline management & downline i.e. library staff, as well as the new Net Generation (students) especially in a College Library. As a result, present library professionals need more stress management techniques to be taught than ever. This paper mainly discusses the ‘Stress’, it’s various definitions, physical symptoms of stress, patterns of stress, stressors, types of stressors, basic steps to prevent stress, how to manage it and cope with it using stress management techniques, styles of stress management, coping skills or healing ways and main stressors which affect the professionals with special reference to the College Library Professionals and their work. According to the author Stress Management has to be dealt with a touch of Spiritual Knowledge or Spiritual Consciousness. As she firmly believes in the benefits of being spiritual. In conclusion, mere desire or aspiration to manage stress in life is not enough; it should be chased through for the betterment. And for that, stress management techniques must be widely used by the professionals today. So that the Library Professionals may emerge as peaceful and good leaders in their chosen fields and be active in their achievements as true professionals. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Keywords Stress, Stressors, Stress Management, College Library Professionals.
Research Methodology: Secondary data collected from various reference books and web resources. Goal: To give a cool view of the Stress Management to Library Professionals & teaching them some techniques to heal positively from their increased professional stress.
Introduction: Definition of stress: Defining Stress is very difficult as it is a reaction by us to different situation differently and thus the stresses of different people are different from each other & so we can’t define it in general. The stress which I am having is not a stress at all to another person and vise-versa. When library professional face the situation he/she cannot handle, they feel stressed. Even when they are overburdened or overworked, then also they feel stressed out. Stress is the situation from which we want to come out. We can’t stay in that situation for a long time. We need relief from it. “Stress generally defined as response to concrete or mentally induced threats to a person’s bodily homeostasis (Levine, 2005). 1 Aversive stress responses occur when a person fails to respond effectively to mental, emotional, or physical demands (Bansal & Yadav, 2010). These threats can be real or imagined. From a functionalist perspective, stress serves as a survival mechanism to evoke physiological changes needed to escape a threat (Levine, 2005). However, problems may arise when financial, family, or workplace stress induce a similar response”#. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary2, “Stress is a constraining force or influence. It is a force exerted when one body or body part presses on, pulls or, pushes against, or tends to compress or twist another body or body part; a physical chemical or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation” Physical Symptoms : Five physical signs associated with stress and anxiety 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Faster Heart rate Muscle tension Increased Blood Pressure Knots in stomach or tightness in the area Anxious
When stress is created we begin to feel our physical and emotional body change to reach a temporary state of high alert and it creates various symptoms in the body. Once the stress is created, it then takes some time to reach our pre-incident state and to reach a new level of calmness. When we are in stress, we take tension and our behavior is not normal, our feelings are also not normal. Symptoms of stress vary person to person and individual to individual.
1 2
He, C. "Exercise-induced BCL2-regulated autophagy is required for muscle ..." 2012. "Merriam-Webster Online: Dictionary and Thesaurus." 2003.
Stress is not caused by the event or situation itself, but it caused on how we interpret it. As one of my teacher colleague Prof. Caroline David said, “Actually the teachers are just the subject teachers. They go to the class, they teach and go. How many of the students have understood or not is a big question. But library is an umbrella, for the entire fraternity of the students of each and every faculty in the college. Librarian is like a God Mother, who is giving this umbrella to the students. So, if this umbrella is not proper, those who are taking shelter under that umbrella will definitely get wet. A librarian should not be stressed up, because if he/she is stressed up he/she will be depressed and inefficient. This will affect the mental status & he will fall mentally ill. Mental illness can lead to other ailments. And it will affect his/her productivity, personality, efficiency. Library is an important department of a college, in fact it is the most important department of the college. The student come there not only to read books but they come there to solve their queries which they are not comfortable with the teacher. So the librarian has to have knowledge of various subjects or the knowledge of how to search the information they need. For that the librarian has to be peaceful and peace generates power and power makes us more efficient” Research has found that the degree of stress that an individual encounters has been connected to a person’s physical health, the strength of their interpersonal relationship, their workload or commitments, and traumatic events (Sprague, Verona, Kalkhoff & Kilmer, 2011 3 ). Chances are you can think of someone who remains calm despite a crunching workload, or reports stress even though they have limited responsibilities. One explanation is that we develop our own stress schema (Lazarus, 1999)4 i.e. stress pattern in other language. This is a mental representation of stress and what constitutes as a stressful event. This means that an event is only as stressful as perceived by an individual. However, commonalities are found between library professionals and the events that elicit a strong stress response. Negative stress causes illness within the physical body and Positive / Good stress feeds our creativity and motivates us to achieve more. Excessive stress can affect a librarian’s health by: A. B. C.
Reducing productivity Contribution to premature ageing Worsening current health issues
Stress Pattern: Stress Pattern is known as experiencing one or more of the physical and emotional symptoms and behavior patterns like Faster Heart rate, Muscle tension, Increased Blood Pressure, Knots in stomach or tightness in the area, Anxious, Dilated pupils, Dry mouth, Fatigue, Tension in the neck or shoulder muscles, Chest pain, Lack of sleep, Indigestion, 3 4
"Emotion & Behavior Lab Verona - Psychology Department Labs." 2012. "Stress and Emotion: A New Synthesis - Richard S ... - Google Books." 2011.
constipation, or diarrhea, Lack of concentration, Frustrated, Worrying about things not controllable, Procrastination etc.. . To best control your stress, it is wise to start by being aware of your own symptoms. Stressors: Stressor is an incident, event or change where we feel like we can’t cope. Since this demand may deplete tangible physical and mental resources, it can create stress and havoc in librarian’s lives. Stress can be divided into two categories: Internal & External. Internal: Mental and Emotional stressors: Public Speaking: For many librarians public speaking is a mental and emotional stressor. Presenting in front of an audience is a mental stressor not only to the library professionals but to the teachers also in many cases. Librarian doesn’t have practice of speaking on the stage like teachers. Given that task, performance is required. This provides a logical explanation as public speaking being reported as a significantly stressful event. Tension: Librarian can take tension of the situation he/she is facing, and be stressful. Interpretation: Stress is not caused by the event or situation itself, but it caused on how we interpret it And there are many types of prakruties of librarians, many among which can interpret the situations wrongly and can take stress. Perfection: Librarians who are perfectionist, may be more stressful than others. They can take stress because of their smallest mistake. External: Environmental Stressors: Environmental stressors may include crowd in the library, noise in the library, or even gridlock of the library software, library staff working with other departments of the college. Social / Job Stressors: Job stressors can include human interaction and communication in the college, negative or hurtful things staff or colleagues may say to you and even happy events such as getting good salary or publishing a paper or getting a degree or even getting calls as a V. C. Nominee as a Subject Expert can all contribute to stress levels. Demands for everyday living can become stressors in the life of librarian such as ordering the books on time, processing the books within the deadlines and even office politics can all contribute to these symptoms. In many cases librarian is younger than the other library staff. this can also be a stressor. He/she has to handle them, teach new trends to them can become a stressor. New technology is a big example of a stressor nowadays for librarians. If he/she is not interested in learning the advancements in technology then he/she can face problems.
Behavioral: Procrastination and ways to avoid it: Procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions with task of lowpriority and thus putting off important tasks to a later time. It can truly lead to undue stress and even depression in one’s life, if left un-dealt with. There are hundreds of reasons why people procrastinate such as being unorganized and not having skills to complete tasks, feeling a fear of failing or rejection at work. Following are the two ways to avoid procrastination: 1. Breaking down tasks into smaller units & deal with one thing at a time. Every big work has small components or tasks to do. When we split the work into small things, it’s easy to handle the complexity of it. 2. Keeping a diary to help keep a track of due dates of our next upcoming tasks. When we write down the small parts of the big work and priorities the small tasks. We feel that there is nothing to take tension. Thus we can easily complete the work before it’s due time or before the deadline. Stressors of today’s Library Professionals Stressors or reason of today’s Library Professionals in general can be put as follows: General Problems: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Qualifying NET / SET Exam. Difference in the Pay Scales though qualifications are the same. Difference in working hours, work load & responsibilities. Career Advancement through increasing the API points. Writing Research papers. Following are the main Stressors for many College Librarians: a “Lack of Library Staff” b “Lack of Funds” c “Office Staff ” d “Principal” e “Management” f Library Staff is used for other work outside the library. 7 Institutional Politics 8 Many Library Professionals are Ladies & they have to balance themselves with work at workplace as well as at home. Personal Problems : 1 2
Interpretations of the event or situation causes the Stress or Peace. Feeling that “Everything is Mess & Chaos & I can never cope with it”?
3 4
Mind is stressed with work work work, too many hours. Confidence in doing the job decreases sometimes, because of the Institutional
politics. 5
No time to read books on “Self-Development, Personality Development, Success, Positive Thinking” 6 Reading, Attitude, and Thinking affects Mindset. 7 Do not get time for themselves. 8 Passion, Hobby are different from the job prospects. 9 Cannot start any activity for the student, related to our Passion. 10 Sometimes we replace high-priority actions with task of low-priority and thus putting off important tasks to a later time. 11 Some librarians feel that the concept of GOD is not at all necessary for their peace? 12 Spirituality, Faith, Prayer are avoided by some librarians.
Preventing Stress Do what you can, with what you have, right where you are. — Theodore Roosevelt
10 basic steps to starting your journey of preventing stress 0
● Deep breathing, relaxation, and meditation: Our overall health and well-being. Even
if this means setting aside 20 minutes a day for ourselves, it is extremely worthwhile for us do so. Focusing our mind, thoughts, breathing, and our overall body posture allows us to fully relax physically, mentally, and emotionally. ● Nutritious diet: A poor diet can lead us to feeling mentally and physically drained. It can wear down our emotional level, thus creating more stress in our life. However, when we are eating well and experiencing adequate nutrition, our energetic body will be able to deal with many more stressors and we will be more alert to handle them. Stimulants such as caffeine, tobacco, and alcohol can exacerbate stress responses so although we may be tempted to turn to these habits to deal with our stress, it’s certainly possible they can increase our stress levels as well. ● Exercise: Negative feeling and emotions often accompanies stress. When we have feelings of fear, sadness, anxiety, or anger, stress often accompanies these emotions. Exercise can help us stimulate these feelings and give us the energy to tackle our daily tasks. If we don’t currently have a daily exercise regime, i challenge to create one for ourselves even if it’s just a few moments each day. We can do things as simple as a few yoga postures, sit-ups, or even push-ups to stimulate the endorphins increased through exercise that helps us to feel happy and revived. ● Organized:. When we are unorganized in our work and home lives we become unbalanced physically, emotionally, and mentally. When things do not have a home of their own, then your belongings become scattered and unfocused. Becoming more organized and prioritizing both our work and home life greatly enhances our energy level and decreases our stress level. ● Being Prepared: If we know that a stressful event is coming up in our life, practice and prepare for it. If we feel a stressful situation with a coworker, family member or friend take a deep breath, relax, and begin again. Relaxing our body, taking a few breaths, and begin speaking in a warm, pleasant manner instead of yelling or raising your voice. Advance preparation for stressful events will help you deal with the situation better in the long run. ● Positive attitude: Things that happen in your life often times feels like disasters. Instead of viewing them as so, view things as opportunities and learning experiences and don’t let them get you down. Take a deep breath, relax, center your thoughts, and maintain a positive attitude. What you send out to universe comes back to you. When stressful situations occur in your life, send out positive vibes of energy and the same will return to you. ● Facing and Accepting difficult situation: Learning to accept the situation rather than worry and stress about it. Face the difficult situation head-on with positivity and we will find the answers we seek in an easy way. ● Balance between work and personal life: Engage in activities that will relax our body and help us forget about our worries. This could be a fun 20 minute session of game playing with our family, watching a movie, taking a walk, riding a bicycle, or even taking a relaxing bath. Finding balance in your life makes a stress-free environment for yourself. ● Social support! Stress is often worsened when we have no outlet or means of discussing our issues. Make time to socialize and stay in touch with your family and friends. If you
feel overwhelmed, talk to someone who you can trust. Sometimes simply talking about your feelings can give you renewed strength to tackle your goals. ● Hired maid at home: Hiring a Maid is a good solution for home front chores. Schedule yourself some free time each day, even if only for a few minutes. You will find by reflecting and relaxing in-between the chores, we will have more energy to finish what is needed. This will help us to take charge of our mind, body and spirit in ways that will allow us to rid the self of stress while encouraging a deeper sense of peace and well-being
Styles of Stress Management: Emotions- Oriented Management --the strategy within this type of stress management involves learning to after the emotional responses of the particular stressor(s). It also involves looking at the problem at hand from a different perspective and with one that does not produce an emotional response and therefore, reducing the stress caused from it. Avoidance- Oriented Management --The strategy within this stress management involves techniques to distract, avoid, or even deny the existence of the problem causing the stressor. It can also involve engaging in unrelated activities to take your mind off of the situation that is causing the stress. Task- Oriented Management --The strategy within this stress management involves analyzing and dealing with the stressor directly and learning to reduce it within your life. Stress Coping Skills / Healing Ways: There are five different types of coping skills to deal with stressors in our life. ●
Physical stress coping includes healthy lifestyle and adequate sleep. As a stress coping strategy we have to go to bed early so that when awake we feel fresh as we get relaxed totally.We have to eat meals at regular times & do less snacking in between meals. Having a healthy balanced diet and taking a vitamin supplements if needed. Further we can add relaxing, taking a nap, taking a warm bath, burning scented candles or getting a massage to our stress coping physical strategies. Keeping the list ready for coping. We can also add here going for a picnic.
Emotional : Building our own self-esteem, confidence, loving our self-image will affect in our emotional well-being and if we are positive in our mind we are relax and more easy going with others. ● Social : Coping skills include building positive relationships. When we build good and healthy relationship with our friends, relatives, neighbors and colleagues, we can become relaxed easily in our stressful events by the support we get from them. ● Mental skills : It includes rest, renewal, and journaling: Author found Journaling is a very good technique. Author used to write a journal after marriage. She found it was really strengthening her immune system. She also feels that the problems faced by her can have answers & positive meanings in itself when we think right. And while journaling we really think right, so this is a very good habit for managing stress. ●
Spirituality means to the author “having complete faith on the power, whom we can call GOD basically, and having total positivity on ‘He handles my life situations and whatever will happen in my life, will happen just to improve myself’ and all the obstacles are learning experiences and nothing negative can happen in my life, when I have a strong support of my loving GOD.” Thus spirituality, prayer, meditation and also daily Saadhanaa or Upaasanaa helps a lot to cope with the unwanted stress of our daily life. Prayer should be done from the bottom of our heart, all the cell in our body simultaneously should pray to GOD. This technique is very very powerful. The author has got many good experiences of this. ● Getting into the spiritual swing of things is no easy matter for the average person. Without Spirituality the adverse thoughts of doubt and fear surge from the subconscious. They are the "army of the aliens" which must be put to flight. This explains why it is so often, "darkest before the dawn."5 ●
Conclusion : Library Professionals are really stressed out in present scenario. There are many different types of problems the Library Professionals have to face at this hour. Whatever is the cause, he / she has to often handle the problem alone. This profession is in dispute many times. In the Academic setup it is seen that there are many disparities about this profession as well as these professionals. Nobody is coming forward to solve the problems of the Library Professionals. {This topic will prove the best if it is approved for the Minor / Major Research Project. Here again the problem is no Librarian (Administrative) can take it up as per the UGC Guidelines of the recent XIIth plan.} All such problems are to be faced by the LIS Professionals BRAVELY! Library Professionals are “Brave Hearts”, as they have deliberately chosen this field, though they are more qualified than their colleague Teachers. Basically they are the GEM of an Institution!!! Essentially, the author wants to give a message to all the stressed out Library Professionals as follows: “Dear Librarian, sit quietly in the silence. Take deep breaths 2-3 times and listen these God’s words through your heart of heart. Let these words settle in the deepest recesses of your consciousness, ‘My dear sweet librarian, I love you, because I know you are a good human being. Your sweet heart won’t hurt anybody. My sweet nectar runs deeply in your heart. I know You are so helpful, blissful, do not pull legs like others, do not put anybody down purposely. You are pro-active, innovative, sincere and humble. No matter whatever comes to you, I am with you, Trust me as I believe you & trust you. I know you are my best and sweet child. The more you face problems, the more you come near me. Do not ever take 5
"The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovell Shinn." 2007.
stress about the criticism or stressful events. Be positive though you are grinded by various rude rules and politics against you. You are my BRAVE child. Be strong. Have faith that whatever is happening with you is just to polish you as pure gold is ignited for it’s perfection. Do not forget that I am always with you, my dearest. Love to you...” Always remember the words of Swami Vivekananda: “Let eyes grow dim & heart grow faint, And friendship fail and love betray, Let fate its hundred horrors send, And clotted darkness block the way . All nature wear one angry frown . To crush you out still know my soul you are Divine, March on and on. Nor right nor left but to the goal ! Who dares misery love, And hug the form of death, Dance in destruction’s dance, To him the mother comes. If the sun by the cloud is hidden a bit, If the welkin shows but gloom, Still hold on yet a while, brave heart, The victory is sure to come. No winter was but summer came behind, Each hollow crests the wave, They push each other in light and shad, Be steady then and brave. The duties of life are sore indeed, And its pleasures fleeting vain. The goal so shadowy seems and dim, yet plod on through the dark, brave heart, with all thy might and main. Be bold and face The truth ! Be one with it ! Let visions cease. Or if you can’t, dream but truer dreams, Which are Eternal love and service free. Strike off thy fetters ! Bonds that bind thee down, of shinning gold or darker, baser ore, Love, hate -- good, bad --and all the dual throng. Know, slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free; For fetters, though of gold, are Not less strong to bind.
you are Divine, March on and on. Nor right nor left but to the goal !
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References: 1. "Merriam-Webster Online: Dictionary and Thesaurus." 2003. 2. "Emotion & Behavior Lab Verona - Psychology Department Labs." 2012. 3. "Stress and Emotion: A New Synthesis - Richard S ... - Google Books." 2011. 4. “Reprogramming Yourself” By Rev. La Vonda Young, Divine Blessings Academy, USA. 5. "The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovell Shinn." 2007. 6. “Eight Different Ways of Spiritual Healing” By Dr. Yojana Patil, 2013. (Ph.D. Thesis) 7. “Handle Stress At Work” - Stress Management App from Samsung Apps, on Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, 2013. 8. Seven Divine Rules For Success-A Blog Article by Yojana Patil, Librarian, DTSS College of Commerce, 2008. http://sanskarsarjan.blogspot.in/2008/08/sevendivine-rules-for-success.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
