Mental stress

Recently, there has been an increase in studies on psychological stress in the workplace, and terms such as stress, burnout and mobbing are on everyone's lips. Bus personnel are also increasingly affected by and exposed to mental stress.

Mental stress leads to more days of sick leave among bus drivers in public transport than in other industries. This proves z. B. the BAuA research project F2038.

 

 

Examples of psychological stress

Among other things, bus personnel feel stressed by shift work (shared duties, irregular working hours), exhaust fumes and drafts, constant sitting, noise, conflict situations with passengers, and increased traffic volume.

This leads to increased morbidity, especially among inner-city bus personnel. First and foremost, diseases of the cardiovascular system, musculoskeletal disorders, and gastrointestinal disorders are to be mentioned here. This is accompanied by high blood pressure and an increased release of stress hormones. As a result, mental stress not only leads to more days of sick leave for this occupational group, but often also to premature incapacity to drive.

Psychological stress can also affect the quality of work or, in the worst case, lead to fatal errors or even an accident.

What the company can do?

In order to reduce psychological stress in the daily work of the driving personnel, the company can record the psychological stress in its risk assessment and define targeted countermeasures.

The systematic recording of all mental stresses aims to identify the characteristics of a workplace that are most likely to have an adverse effect on employees in the sense of an incorrect stress level. Just as in the assessment of mechanical or biological stress, adverse stress reactions should be avoided. Important: The risk assessment of mental stress is concerned with the workplace and the stresses acting there – it is expressly not intended to record the individual mental performance or robustness of an employee.

Decisive for changes is the further handling of the findings: The step that follows the analysis, namely minimizing or completely eliminating stresses, has the same significance as, for example, avoiding noise in the technical area. If there is a short-term reaction after the evaluation, this is a positive signal that motivates the employees – and ultimately the entire company benefits from it.

What can I do?

Those who want to become active themselves should also increase their physical stress capacity. Relaxation plays just as important a role as a healthy lifestyle. There are well-known techniques for active, systematic relaxation, such as progressive muscle relaxation and autogenic training, which are also recognized in conventional medicine and have been tried and tested over many years. In addition, there are a variety of related or. similar methods, e.g. B. from yoga or traditional Chinese medicine, which can also lead to effective relaxation. A healthy lifestyle also decisively increases individual resilience. Sufficient, restful sleep, a healthy diet and plenty of exercise can contribute to this.